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This article describes a survey of 77 psychologists working in the Veterans Administration. The respondents provided services such as therapy for, assessment of and consultation regarding elder patients. The respondents identified the problem areas of insufficient personnel, lack of training opportunities, resistance of psychologists to working with elders, and overemphasis on the medical model. Future research must develop assessment techniques more appropriate for elders.

The literature indicates that the effects of developmental undernutrition on the rat nervous system are disproportionally found in the cerebellum, an organ involved in motor coordination and control. In this experiment, rats who had been developmentally undernourished did not show increased variability of forces placed on a bar by the paw in an operant learning paradigm, indicating normal motor control function. However, deficits were obtained when reinforcement was made contingent on bar press force regulation. Experimental rats shifted bar pressing forces to meet criterion more slowly than controls and received fewer reinforcements over training trials. The data are discussed in terms of recent suggestions that the cerebellum is directly involved in motor learning processes.