Search

As part of a larger study of articulatory deviant children, 5 personality instruments were administered to 671 children in Grades 1 through 5 in 7 public schools. Complete descriptive statistics on grade by sex samples, analyses of variance for grade by sex by school effects, test-retest coefficients, and intercorrelations are presented. Comparison of the descriptive data and published norms suggests that investigators should give serious consideration to possible influences of stimulus modes, response modes, and examiner behaviors on children's self-report scores for these constructs. Inter- and intra-scale characteristics look promising for multivariate analyses of the role of these constructs as trait, moderator, or suppressor variables in predicting articulation improvement with or without speech therapy.

Auditory abilities, measured by wordpair discrimination and single word imitation, of economically disadvantaged native-Spanish-speaking preschool children were investigated in two languages, Spanish and English. In order to provide age-related comparative information, a group of nondisadvantaged, native-English speakers were evaluated on the same tasks. In spite of the dual problems of economic disadvantage and second language learning, these children were not significantly different from their advantaged English-speaking peers in total performance on the four tasks. In addition, the Spanish speakers made less errors in their native language than did the English speakers. Thus, previously hypothesized negative effects of poverty or of linguistic interference do not appear to be depressing auditory performance. A descriptive analysis of errors indicates directions for educational programs in the area of auditory training for preschool bilingual programs.

New Testament scholarship faces a crisis in the categories with which it perceives its material. A new set of concepts for descriptive analysis which are more appropriate to the dynamic nature of the texts must be developed.

This analysis combines the study of a preschool predictive instrument with the assessment of the effects of preschool training program on the later academic achievement of children with language and learning disabilities. A preliminary follow-up study of children who were initially evaluated and trained in a joint project of the Houston Speech and Hearing Center and the Pasadena, Texas, Independent School District from 1963--1966 revealed marked differences in later academic achievement. From a sample of subjects with language and learning disabilities, 70 percent of those who completed the preacademic training program were found to be achieving at grade level in 1969. Of those subjects who entered but did not complete the program, only 25 percent were achieving at grade level, just 18 percent of a control group with language and learning disabilities who did not receive preacademic training were achieving at grade level. The results of the pilot study support the use of the Language and Learning Assessment for Training battery as an initial identifying instrument during preschool years, and the use of specific preschool training methods for children with language and learning disabilities.

Examination of “The Structure of English” (Fries, 1952) has led to the following conclusions. The attempt by Fries to handle parts of speech as structural meaning units into which word classes enter, shows an attempt to deal with too many features of English at one time. Although it may be seen that he was aiming to present the diversity of free form patternings in which words with certain bound form ranges can occur, the result has provided suggestions for future research, rather than a clear statement of the formal characteristics of English words. The definitive criteria for the parts of speech are not precise, and there is also a tendency to proceed from meaning assumptions to form, instead of from form to meaning by way of strict descriptive analysis. Some ideas about the nature of syntactic classes (and constants) are introduced and related to Fries's views.

The purpose of this study was the development and validation of an instrument, the Behavior Preference Inventory (BPI), to measure the need values of special education administrators, utilizing Rotter's social learning theory. The five need categories of recognition-status, protection dependency, dominance, independence, and love and affection, were examined in an experimental test sample with which a validating instrument was used involving the administrator's subordinates. A normative sample involving membership of CASE contributed additional descriptive data. It is advocated that the BPI is useful as a screening device in related research on the relationship of need value to expectancy and situational determinants in decision making. It is also proposed that the instrument serve as a vehicle for the sensitization of administrators to their personality investment in decision making.

This study explored some of the characteristics of a group of 39 students (10 females, 29 males) identified as having left school before graduation in a rural public school district over the last 5 yr. These students were matched with a control group for sex and number of years in school. Cumulative record files were used and 11 different variables examined. Variables distinguishing the two groups were identified and discussed, and suggestions were made as to how these variables could be used to identify potential dropouts. Some comparisons were made of present results and current conceptualizations about school dropouts. Finally, some implications for preventing dropouts were discussed.

Illegal off-track betting in the United States is an enterprise involving staggering amounts of money. This article describes some of the more common bookmaking operations which flourish in a large midwestern metropolitan area of the United States. The routines of a sample of both "career" and part-time bookies are analyzed.

Srxmmary.-The present study provides descriptive and relational data on a large sample of children and adolescents referred to the Psychology Clinic School at UCLA for assessment 2nd treatment of learning disorders. 364 Ss ranged in age from 7 to 15.9 yr. an2 had IQs between 61 and 133. A wide range of reading achievement and emotional adjustment was represenred. Descriptive data, including psychological assessment data, family background, developmental history, and the referral problem, are presented for the group as a whole. The relational treatment of data utilized five subgroupings of Ss: intelligence, reading achievement, emotional adjusunent, age, and sex. The range of subject characteriscics as well as certain commonaliries is pointed up. The research literature contains a number of studies dealing with intelligence and other characteriscics of non-socially disadvantaged children experiencing serious learning difficulties. However, there is a dearth of background information on chis populaticn. The present investigators found only one study providing background data for such children. Tjossem, Hansen, and Ripley (1962) studied 24 childrer, manifesting serious reading difficulties and found that their medical histories were characterized by a high incidence of such conditions as atypical pregnancy and birth, speech difficulties, enuresis, and allergies. No attempt was made to relate background data to subject characteristics. The purpose of the present study was to present descriptive and relational data on a large population of children referred to a University clinic for the assessment and treatment of :earning disorders. Specifically the study provides information concerning: (a) intelligence, reading achievement, and emotional adjustment, (b) family background, health history, and developmental and behavior problems, and (c) relationships among these data. This study appears of value in delineating characteristics of the non-socially disadvantaged learningdisorder population, in serving as a basis for comparisons with other populations, and in understanding individual differences in learning disorders. Such data would also serve as a systematic basis for formulating and evaluating treatment programs.

Descriptive statistics for 70 undergraduate women on 5 personality scales are given. Intercorrelations among scales varied from –.13 to .81 but were predominantly small and nonsignificant.

Summasy.-The hypothesis tested whether teachers' perceived levels of performance by grade (fifth and second) and subject area (language arts and mathematics) would be independent of performances on the Coloured Progressive Matrices by 175 fifth-grade and 216 second-grade students. Significant chi-squares suggested a direct relationship between perceptions and Matrices scores. Two persistent patterns began to appear among sets of data as they were being ordered for preliminary analysis in connection with a larger project. The relationships in these patterns are the subject of this report. The data were organized to study the consistency of the observation that teachers' perceptions of levels of performance in language arts and mathematics by a sample of public elementary school students from an economically disadvantaged urban area were independent of performances of these students on a non-verbal test of general intelligence, Coloured Progressive Matrices (Raven, 1963 ) . The sample included 175 fifth-grade and 216 second-grade students attending a Special Service public elementary school in New York City. A public elementary school was designated Special Service if it was located in an economically disadvantaged area and additional personnel and curriculum materials were allocated to such a school. The instructional staff of the school was made up of teachers regularly licensed by the Board of Education. The ethnic group membership of the total student population in the school, and Grades 5 and 2 (from New York City Board of Education census figures) at the time the data for this report were collected was: Puerto Rican, 396, Negro, 94%; Other, 3%. The Coloured Progressive Matrices (Raven, 1963) is a group test of general intelligence, non-verbal in content. The test includes 36 incomplete matrices or figural patterns each designed to represent a system of relations. The testee is asked to discern the nature of the relationship underlying a matrix and complete the pattern by selecting one of six alternatives given with each. ' In November of the school year, the Coloured Progressive Matrices was administered by the investigator as a small-group test to the total school population. Means and standard deviations on the Matrices for students in Grades 5 and 2 were 21.1 -t- 2.58 and 16.8 + 2.05, respectively; medians were 22.5 and 16.6. No significant differences were found at either grade level between mean performances of boys and girls (ts = 0.559, df = 173; t, = 1.364, df = 214). The teachers in Grades 5 and 2 were asked, independently of the administration of the Matrices, for their perceptions of levels of performance of the students in these grades in language arts and in mathematics. The request was made so that some general descriptive data on level of students' functioning could be obtained for each grade. A decile-type scale was used; "1" was high mark. The teachers were asked to complete the scale in terms of how they perceived the levels of performance of these students as compared to expected

1. It minimizes the likelihood that the investigator will present to himself and the world a prematurely coherent set of propositions in which contradictory propositions, however plausible, are ignored. The procedure requires that a range of contradictory propositions be made explicit before the empirical investigation, and it should conduce to theoretical humility after the fact. Projects are less likely to culminate in particularistic interpretations in terms of a single theory. 2. This procedure increases the likelihood of the researcher's building into his researchdesign provisions for the test of a variety of theoretical interpretations of a number of possible empirical findings. 3. The proposed procedure makes the researcher more aware of the total significance of his empirical findings. Where, as in the usual procedure, the investigator is concerned with upholding or refuting a particular theory, he may be completely unaware of the fact that his empirical findings actually add confirmation, or doubt, as the case may be, to numerous other theoretical propositions extant in the area or in related areas. 4. The procedure employed here makes for continuity of research. At the present state of theoretical development in sociology it is rare that clear-cut, unambiguous interpretations are possible after a single research project. Where there is little in the way of theory to guide interpretation, subsequent empirical investigations of alternative interpretations are often necessary. Where alternate interpretations are made explicit from the beginning of the project, they are more likely to survive as alternatives after the fact of investigation: the present procedure encourages research programs rather than isolated projects.8

ENEWED interest among sociologists in well-documented historical materials as a basis for comparative study of social systems has recently turned attention to the backgrounds of the American treatment of the Negro during the period of slavery. Such materials, however, can be of maximum utility to the science only through careful and systematic analysis in terms of basic elements and relationships as a foundation for general theory. The present paper attempts to present the principal features of the social structure of the ante-bellum South, particularly as exemplified in the system of social stratification, in such a way that the broader implications of the various more or less well known descriptive data may be seen. Formal structures and concrete social relationships thus become meaningful, not as isolated events or aspects of "culture," but as related features of a complex social system. It may thus be possible, not only to provide examination and verification of available data, but to relate these data to the broader outlines of the society. Classes in the Dominant Caste. The pattern of social stratification in the ante-bellum South was fairly complex and by no means constant in time and space. Nevertheless, constant points of reference in social valuation are observable and it was about these well-understood criteria of rank and status that the major lines of demarcation are discernible. The slavery system, and the caste system which partially parallelled it, was the most common and the most certain fixed point of orientation in the stratification system. This becomes even more significant when it is recognized that, despite the general impression to the contrary, slaveholding was in no statistical sense typical of Southern whites. For the South as a whole, during the period for which census data are available, the slaveholders constituted only 35.3 percent of the total free population in I790 and this had declined to 26.i percent in i86o. All those immediately connected with the slavery system (combined slave and slaveholding population) formed only 57 percent of the entire population in I790 and precisely one half (So percent) in i860.' However, the significance of the plantation organization and of the slavery system was not dependent on numerical weight in a statistical computation. Aside from the direct economic function of the plantation as a prime example of commercial large-scale production of staple agricultural commodities and the manifest importance of the planter as a social type, there is the tremendously revealing fact of the dominance of the planter and plantation as an ideal and as a goal of aspiration. The cue to understanding one of the main elements of social stratification in this society is given by the high