David P. Hurford

Early Identification and Remediation of Phonological-Processing Deficits in First-Grade Children at Risk for Reading Disabilities

The present study assessed 486 first-quarter first graders on their reading and phonologicalprocessing skills and intelligence. Based on this assessment, and using the classification data from Hurford et al.s (1993) study, 99 children were identified as being at risk for reading difficulties: 53 children at risk for reading disabilities (RD) and 46 children at risk for becoming “garden-variety” poor readers (GV). Half of the RD and GV groups received the phonologicalprocessing intervention. Posttraining assessment indicated that the training procedure not only was effective in increasing the phonological-processing skills of the trained participants, but also increased their reading ability. Both of the RD and GV trained groups benefited from the training. Analyses also indicated that the initial screening device was somewhat less accurate in the present study in identifying at-risk children than in our previous studies (85% us. approximately 9896, respectively). The results of the present study indicate that it is possible to identify children at risk for reading dificulties and to significantly improve their phonological-processing and reading abilities.

Training Phonemic Segmentation Ability with a Phonemic Discrimination Intervention in Second- and Third-Grade Children with Reading Disabilities

The present study examined the possibility that phonemic discrimination training could improve the phonemic segmentation ability of children with reading disabilities. Half of the 32 children with reading disabilities (14 male and 4 female second graders and 10 male and 4 female third graders, with mean ages of 99.2 and 109.7 months, respectively) deficient in phonemic segmentation skills were assigned to the training group, while the other half acted as a nontrained control group. The trained children were successful at significantly improving their performance on the phonemic segmentation task. The control group made no improvement. Requiring children with reading disabilities to make discriminations concerning phonemic information may have helped them discover properties of the phoneme that they previously did not know.

An Examination of Phonemic Processing Abilities in Children During Their First-Grade Year

The present study examined the development of reading and phonological processing abilities of 209 first graders (118 males, 91 females; mean age = 86.7 months) assessed during the first and last quarters of their first-grade year. The children were arranged into three different groups based on their Time 2 reading and intelligence data (children with and without reading disabilities, and “garden-variety” poor readers). Analyses indicated that the children with reading disabilities and the garden-variety poor readers did not differ significantly on many of the tasks, but both performed differently than the children without reading disabilities. Developmental analyses indicated that all three groups increased their reading and phonological skills; however, the gap between the performance of the children without reading disabilities and the other two groups widened from Time 1 to Time 2. The most important finding of the present study concerned the classification results of the discriminant analysis, which correctly identified the group membership of 207 of the 209 children (99.04% correct).

Facilitation of Internal Locus of Control in Adolescent Alcoholics Through a Brief Biofeedback-Assisted Autogenic Relaxation Training Procedure

The purpose of the study was to determine if autogenic relaxation training facilitated through biofeedback promotes an increase in internal levels of locus of control. The participants were residents of two Southwest Missouri alcohol treatment centers and ranged in age from 18 to 21 years. Treatment and control groups were compared on their responses on the Drinking Related Locus of Control Scale (DRIE) and fingertip temperature pre- and posttraining. The training was effective in teaching autogenic relaxation as demonstrated by increased fingertip temperature for the treatment group posttraining, while no differences were observed for the control group. Most importantly, the treatment group was not only significantly more internal in their locus of control after training but were also significantly more internal than the control group posttraining. Given that alcoholics are significantly more external in their locus of control than nonalcoholics, and that an internal locus of control implies an individuals belief that he or she has control and is responsible for his or her behavior, autogenic relaxation facilitated through biofeedback may be a very important component in therapeutic intervention for adolescent alcoholics.

The possible use of IBM-compatible computers and digital-to-analog conversion to assess children for reading disabilities and to increase their phonemic awareness

Hurford and Sanders (1990) and Hurford (1990) have been successful at employing digital-toanalog (D/A) conversion to remediate phonemic processing deficiencies in young disabled readers. The present study outlines how D/A conversion might be used to identify students who are at risk for reading disabilities. A large sample of first-quarter first graders (227) was administered tests of reading (the Word Identification and Word Attack subtests of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests-Revised), a measure of intelligence (IQ according to the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised), and two measures of phonemic processing (phonemic discrimination and phonemic segmentation). The phonemic processing measures were significantly related to the measures of reading (ps < .0001). Students assigned to at-risk and not-at-risk groups on the basis of their reading scores were significantly different on the phonemic processing measures and on IQ. No differences were due to age. After the data were reanalyzed with IQ as a covariate, only phonemic segmentation differentiated the two groups. Although phonemic discrimination may be less useful for identifying young at-risk students, it seems to help in the remediation of phonemic processing deficiencies. Phonemic discrimination training would be less effective were it not for D/A conversion with personal computers.

Investigating Trauma History and Related Psychosocial Deficits of Women in Prison: Implications for Treatment and Rehabilitation

The present study was an investigation into the needs of women in prison. The purpose was to explore womens rehabilitation needs and assess whether correctional programs and policies are promoting rehabilitation. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected for descriptive analysis. A total of 17 incarcerated women from a medium-security prison were surveyed; 11 of those inmates also agreed to be interviewed. Results indicated significant history of trauma as well as significant psychosocial deficits typically associated with trauma. Despite an apparent need for programming addressing trauma, qualitative interviews revealed a shortage of services addressing trauma victimization and institutional policies with the potential to further harm trauma survivors.

The effect of varying alveolar carbon dioxide levels on free recall

A recent study suggested that students who have increased minute ventilation receive poorer grades. The present study was interested in determining the role alveolar carbon dioxide (CO2) levels play with cognitive abilities. A free recall task was used to examine list learning under two conditions of alveolar CO2 level: normal and decreased. The results suggested that decreased alveolar CO2 level affect the participants ability to rehearse and recall information. It was concluded that conditions that reduce alveolar CO2 levels, such as hyperventilation resulting from stress, nervousness, or inappropriate breathing habits, can lead to poorer learning. If these conditions produce a habitual breathing pattern, the academic performance of the individual may suffer.

Examination of Three Techniques for Identifying First-Grade Children At Risk for Difficulty in Word Identification with an Emphasis on Reducing the False Negative Error Rate.

The success of early intervention programs created to prevent children from experiencing reading failure is contingent upon the accurate identification of children at risk for reading difficulties. The present study assessed 291 first graders (M Age = 79.7 months; 54.9% female, 45.1% male) on reading, intelligence, and phonological processing at the beginning and end of the academic year to determine the accuracy of three different approaches to identification. The first procedure used the calibration data from a reference groups discriminant analysis, the second simply determined the children who scored below the mean on all of the reading and phonological variables (Simple Computation), and the last used a weighting system (Complex Computation). The children were classified into good and poor reading groups based on composite reading scores determined by averaging their standard scores on Word Identification, Word Attack, and Passage Comprehension of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Revised (Woodcock, 1987) at the end of the year. The poor readers were further classified, based on their scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (Dunn & Dunn, 1981) into groups containing children who had reading difficulties (RD) and children whose reading abilities were commensurate with their intelligence (intelligence commensurate, IC). Although all of the procedures provided relatively accurate identification, 80.2%, 87.3%, 89.7%, for the discriminant analysis, Simple Computation, and Complex Computation, respectively, the last procedure provided the best overall accuracy with the smallest percentage of false negatives (6.2%).

Increasing Mathematical Problem-Solving Performance through Relaxation Training

Two intact classes of 30 undergraduate students enrolled in the same general education mathematics course were each administered the IPSP Mathematics Problem Solving Test and the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale at the beginning and end of the semester. Both groups experienced the same syllabus, lectures, course requirements, and assessment techniques; however, one group received relaxation training during an initial class meeting and during the first 5 to 7 minutes of each subsequent class. The group which had received relaxation training had significantly lower mathematics anxiety and significantly higher mathematics performance at the end of the course. The results suggest that relaxation training may be a useful tool for treating anxiety in undergraduate general education mathematics students.

Examination of the intrasyllable phonemic discrimination deficit in children with reading disabilities

Abstract A previous study ( Hurford & Sanders, 1990 ) found that children with reading disabilities were deficient in their performance on a phonemic discrimination task. It was hypothesized that the deficit was related to the inability of disabled readers to process the phonemic information within syllables. The present study further investigated this discrimination deficit by examining the ability of 78 second, third, and fourth grade disabled and nondisabled readers to discriminate between syllables that were vowels and CV syllables that began with liquid and plosive consonants. As hypothesized, the disabled readers performed significantly worse than nondisabled readers. The disabled readers also performed significantly worse on the syllables that contained formant transitions. Unexpectedly, the younger disabled readers were as deficient processing the syllables that began with liquid consonants as they were processing the syllables with plosive consonants.