Adaptive behavior

This article describes a working hypothesis of the nature of the 'suicide condition' (SC). The authors contend that the SC emerges as a specialized result of two-phase impairment in the neuroimmunological 'inherited schematic representation' (ISR) involving: (a) the formation of a 'microcellular suicide' phenomenon; and (b) the establishment of a 'macro-organismic suicide' program. Our hypothesis, unlike earlier ones, is based on scientific evidence spanning diverse clinical diagnostic areas indicating that the SC is induced by a local histoincompatibility across distinct tissue structures and/or a remodeling of one or more neurimmunological ISR designs due to biophysical ion shunt bypass and neglect, whereas a normal neuroimmunological ISR complex produces an allembracing organismic histocompatible tissue-syntonic-to-ego-syntonic expression. The presence of abnormal 'microcellular suicide' assemblies leads to cell syntonic-to-cell dystonic transformation and initiates the first modification phase by contaminating certain neurimmunological ISR programs which in turn trigger the onset of partial ego syntonic-to-ego-dystonic conversion. This is translated by the self-conscious experience as partial self-to-alien tissue translocation. These formations accumulate at a rate, arriving at the second phase in SC establishment when they reach a magnitude resolution that surpasses the organismic suicide threshold level and increase the amount of ego-syntonic-to-ego-dystonic inclusion. This is then translated by the self-conscious experience as a 'foreseeable and inescapable death' that is based on severe self-to-alien multiorgan substitution. The latter overcomes the rules and regulations prescribed by impulse-induced inner events, regardless of outer psychosocial events, and leads to an irrevocable drive to suicide.

A major goal for researchers in neuroevolution is to evolve artificial neural networks (ANNs) that can learn during their lifetime. Such networks can adapt to changes in their environment that evolution on its own cannot anticipate. However, a profound problem with evolving adaptive systems is that if the impact of learning on the fitness of the agent is only marginal, then evolution is likely to produce individuals that do not exhibit the desired adaptive behavior. Instead, because it is easier at first to improve fitness without evolving the ability to learn, they are likely to exploit domaindependent static (i.e. non-adaptive) heuristics. This paper proposes a way to escape the deceptive trap of static policies based on the novelty search algorithm, which opens up a new avenue in the evolution of adaptive systems because it can exploit the behavioral difference between learning and nonlearning individuals. The main idea in novelty search is to abandon objective-based fitness and instead simply search only for novel behavior, which avoids deception entirely and has shown prior promising results in other domains. This paper shows that novelty search significantly outperforms fitness-based search in a tunably deceptive T-Maze navigation domain because it fosters the emergence of adaptive behavior.

Iterative applications are known to run as slow as their slowest computational component. This paper introduces malleability, a new dynamic reconfiguration strategy to overcome this limitation. Malleability is the ability to dynamically change the data size and number of computational entities in an application. Malleability can be used by middleware to autonomously reconfigure an application in response to dynamic changes in resource availability in an architecture-aware manner, allowing applications to optimize the use of multiple processors and diverse memory hierarchies in heterogeneous environments. The modular Internet Operating System (IOS) was extended to reconfigure applications autonomously using malleability. Two different iterative applications were made malleable. The first is used in astronomical modeling, and representative of maximum-likelihood applications was made malleable in the SALSA programming language. The second models the diffusion of heat over a two dimensional object, and is representative of applications such as partial differential equations and some types of distributed simulations. Versions of the heat application were made malleable both in SALSA and MPI. Algorithms for concurrent data redistribution are given for each type of application. Results show that using malleability for reconfiguration is 10 to 100 times faster on the tested environments. The algorithms are

The aims of the present study were to quantify the impairment in ankle coactivation on the paretic and non-paretic sides of subjects with hemiparesis and to examine the relationship of ankle coactivation with postural instability, motor deficit of the paretic lower extremity and locomotor performance. Electromyography of the medial gastrocnemius (MG) and tibialis anterior (TA) muscles were recorded bilaterally during gait in 30 subjects (62.1±9.9 years) who had suffered a recent stroke (Ͻ6 months) as well as on one side of 17 healthy controls (59.3±9.1 years) walking at very slow speed. Ankle muscle coactivation was calculated by dividing the time of overlap between MG and TA signals (threshold of 20 µV) by the duration of the gait phases of interest: stance, swing, first and second double support sub-phases and single support sub-phase. The time spent in single support and the peak plantarflexor moment of force on the paretic side were used to measure, respectively, postural stability and dynamic strength of the paretic plantarflexors. The subjects with hemiparesis demonstrated less coactivation on the paretic side during the single support sub-phase (pϽ0.01) and more coactivation during first and second double support sub-phases on the non-paretic side (pϽ0.001) compared to control values. The patients with coactivation patterns that differed the most from controls were the patients with the more severe impairments and disabilities. While the reduced coactivation on the paretic side may contribute to poor postural stability and poor locomotor performance, the presence of excessive coactivation on the non-paretic side when both limbs were in ground contact may be an adaptation to help maintain postural stability during gait.

Creatine and creatine phosphate provide storage and transmission of phosphate-bound energy in muscle and brain. Of the three inborn errors of creatine metabolism causing brain creatine depletion, L-arginine:glycine amidinotransferase (AGAT) deficiency has been described in only two families. We describe clinical and biochemical features, magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) findings and response to creatine supplementation in two siblings with a novel mutation in the AGAT-encoding GATM gene. The sister and brother were evaluated at age 12 and 18 years, respectively, because of mild mental retardation, muscle weakness and low weight. Extensive work-up had previously yielded negative results. Electron microscopy of the muscle revealed tubular aggregates and the activity of respiratory chain complexes was decreased in the muscle. Urine organic acid concentrations normalized to urine creatinine concentration were all increased, suggesting a creatine metabolism disorder. Brain MRS was remarkable for absence of creatine. Urine guanidinoacetate levels by tandem mass spectrometry were low, suggesting AGAT deficiency. GATM sequencing revealed a homozygous single nucleotide insertion 1111_1112insA, producing a frame-shift at Met-371 and premature termination at codon 376. Eleven months after commencing treatment with oral creatine monohydrate 100 mg/kg/day, repeat MRI/MRS showed significantly increased brain creatine in the sister and a slight increase in the older brother. The parents' impression of improved strength and stamina was substantiated by increased post-treatment versus pre-treatment scores in the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale, straight-arm raising and timed up-and-go tests. Similarly, there was an apparent improvement in cognitive function, with significantly increased IQ-scores in the sister and marginal improvement in the brother.

This review of the literature on Black women's mental health has three goals: 1) to describe the mental health issues, needs, and adaptive behaviors of Black women; 2) to discuss the research, intervention, and public policy efforts of mental health professionals and Black women's groups to address the multiple needs of this population; and 3) to identify effective strategies by which community psychologists can improve the mental health status of Black women through efforts to reduce their environmental stressors, to increase their resources and access to services, and to facilitate their empowerment in American society. The authors propose a number of recommendations to improve Black women's mental health, including changes in research paradigms, changes in education and training programs, and the development of culturally competent service delivery systems. A common aphorism about Black women is that they are triply disadvantaged due to their gender, their ethnicity, and their poverty. According to this view, Black women, as members of three low-status groups, represent the epitome of powerlessness in American society as compared to white middle-class males (Allen,

Sensory over-responsivity (SOR) towards tactile and auditory input can impact children’s participation in academic and social activities; however the prevalence of SOR behaviors and their relation to social-emotional problems and competence has not been rigorously studied. This study investigated SOR in a representative sample of elementary school-aged children (n=925, 50 % boys, ages 7–11 years) who were followed from infancy. Sixteen percent of parents reported that at least four tactile or auditory sensations bothered their children. Being bothered by certain sensations was common while others were relatively rare. Parents of children with versus without elevated SOR in school-age reported higher frequencies of early and co-occurring internalizing, externalizing, and dysregulation problems, and lower levels of concurrent adaptive social behaviors. Early identification of elevated SOR and assessment of concurrent social-emotional status are important to minimize their impact on so...

In this contribution, an adaptive algorithm based on evolutionary computation techniques is designed, developed and applied to the timetabling problem of educational organizations. Specifically, the proposed algorithm has been used in order to create feasible and efficient timetables for high schools in Greece. The algorithm has been tested exhaustively with real-world input data coming from many different high schools and has been compared with several other effective techniques in order to demonstrate its efficiency and superior performance. Simulation results showed that the algorithm is able to construct a feasible and very efficient timetable more quickly and easily compared to other techniques, thus preventing disagreements and arguments among teachers and assisting each school to operate with its full resources from the beginning of the academic year. Except from that, due to its inherent adaptive behavior it can be used each time satisfying different specific constraints, in order to lead to timetables, thus meeting the different needs that each school may have.

Efficient and accurate methods and models are ever-demanding to determining the user satisfaction in energy efficient buildings. Thus, several techniques are developed based on sustainable building assessment tools and standards to achieve such target. However, the user satisfaction from adaptive behavior in the design phase of buildings lifecycle is never addressed. This paper attempts to identify the most applicable data input method to measure the satisfaction from adaptive behavior with energy efficient buildings in their design phase. A comprehensive literature survey on all user satisfaction data input methods is conducted to serve the taxonomy by classifying them into two major clusters depending on performance and perception. Kano method to measure satisfaction perception from cog-nitive experience is demonstrated to be the most suitable user satisfaction data input method. Furthermore , Kano method can delicately assist energy efficient building design consultants to assess the user contentment requirements for sustainable building accreditation effectively. &

The plant hormone auxin is secreted in root apices via phospholipase Dzeta2 (PLDzeta2) activity which produces specific population of phosphatidic acid that stimulates secretion of vesicles enriched with auxin. These vesicles were reported to be localized at plant synapses which are active in auxin secretion, especially at the transition zone of the root apex. There are several implications of this vesicular secretion of auxin. In root apices, auxin emerges as plant neurotransmitter-like signal molecule which coordinates activities of adjacent cells via electric and chemical signaling. Putative quantal release of auxin after electrical stimulation, if confirmed, would be part of neuronal communication between plant cells. As auxin transport across plant synapses is tightly linked with integrated sensory perception of environment, especially of omnipresent gravity and light, this process is proposed to mediate the plant perception of environment. These neuronal features allow sessile...

About 150 studies exist in print, examining the use of self modeling (mostly in the video medium) in a variety of training and therapeutic applications. Evidently, two lines of thoughts have driven the development of these applications: (a) an extension of peer modeling or (b) a description of personal success. Studies report self-modeling interventions for physical skills (rehabilitation, sports), academic and vocational issues, communication, and personal and social adjustment. A wide range of ages (toddler to grandparent) and diverse developmental conditions have been addressed. The most fruitful applications may be those that emphasize the image of future success--sldlls not previously attained and adaptive responses to a challenging context. Rather than examine efficacy related to target "problems," this review identifies categories of application made possible by current knowledge and technology (e.g., use of hidden supports, selectively editing low-frequency behaviors). Seven such categories are identified and illustrated with descriptions of interventions. The evidence is used to argue for the recognition of learning from the observation of one's own successful or adaptive behavior (or images of it) as a mechanism in its own right.

In this study, the authors examined the extent to which children's self-regulation upon kindergarten entrance and classroom quality in kindergarten contributed to children's adaptive classroom behavior. Children's self-regulation was assessed using a direct assessment upon entrance into kindergarten. Classroom quality was measured on the basis of multiple classroom observations during the kindergarten year. Children's adaptive classroom behavior in kindergarten was assessed through teacher report and classroom observations: Teachers rated children's cognitive and behavioral self-control and work habits during the spring of the kindergarten year; observers rated children's engagement and measured off-task behavior at 2-month intervals from November to May. Hierarchical linear models revealed that children's self-regulation upon school entry in a direct assessment related to teachers' report of behavioral self-control, cognitive self-control, and work habits in the spring of the kindergarten year. Classroom quality, particularly teachers' effective classroom management, was linked to children's greater behavioral and cognitive self-control, children's higher behavioral engagement, and less time spent off-task in the classroom. Classroom quality did not moderate the relation between children's self-regulation upon school entry and children's adaptive classroom behaviors in kindergarten. The discussion considers the implications of classroom management for supporting children's early development of behavioral skills that are important in school settings.

This paper describes an experimental program to examine the force-displacement behavior of a class of multi-spherical sliding bearings. The primary goal of the experiments is to test the validity of the theory developed in a companion paper that describes the behavior of these devices. Experimental work consisted of testing the three primary variations of these bearings in several configurations of different friction and displacement capacities. Most tests were carried out at slow speeds; however, some testing was also conducted at high speed (up to approximately 400 mm/s) to examine the behavior under dynamic conditions. The results of experimental testing were generally found to be in very good agreement with the analytical results. It is shown that the forces and displacements at which transitions in stiffness occur are predictable and therefore controllable in design. Furthermore, the underlying principles of operation were confirmed by the fact that starting and stopping of sliding on the different surfaces occurred as expected from theory.

Reactively sputtered Mo 2 N/MoS 2 /Ag nanocomposite coatings were deposited from three individual Mo, MoS 2 , and Ag targets in a nitrogen environment onto Si (111), 440C grade stainless steel, and inconel 600 substrates. The power to the Mo target was kept constant, while power to the MoS 2 and Ag targets was varied to obtain different coating compositions. The coatings consisted of Mo 2 N, with silver and/or sulfur additions of up to approximately 24 at%. Coating chemistry and crystal structure were evaluated using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), which showed the presence of tetragonal Mo 2 N and cubic Ag phases. The MoS 2 phase was detected from XPS analysis and was likely present as an amorphous inclusion based on the absence of characteristic XRD peaks. The tribological properties of the coatings were investigated in dry sliding at room temperature against Si 3 N 4 , 440C stainless steel, and Al 2 O 3 . Tribological testing was also conducted at 350 and 600°C against Si 3 N 4 . The coatings and respective wear tracks were examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), optical microscopy, profilometry, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and micro-Raman spectroscopy. During room temperature tests, the coefficients of friction (CoF) were relatively high (0.5-1.0) for all coating compositions, and particularly high against Si 3 N 4 counterfaces. During high-temperature tests, the CoF of single-phase Mo 2 N coatings remained high, but much lower CoFs were observed for composite coatings with both Ag and S additions. CoF values were maintained as low as 0.1 over 10,000 cycles for samples with Ag content in excess of 16 at% and with sulfur content in the 5-14 at% range. The chemistry and phase analysis of coating contact surfaces showed temperature-adaptive behavior with the formation of metallic silver at 350°C and silver molybdate compounds at 600°C tests. These adaptive Mo 2 N/MoS 2 /Ag coatings exhibited wear rates that were two orders of magnitude lower compared to Mo 2 N and Mo 2 N/Ag coatings, hence providing a high potential for lubrication and wear prevention of hightemperature sliding contacts.

This review considers some important landmarks in animal evolution, asking to what extent specialized action selection mechanisms play a role in the functional architecture of different nervous system plans, and looking for ‘forced moves’ or ‘good tricks’ (Dennett, 1995) that could possibly transfer to the design of robot control systems. A key conclusion is that while cnidarians (e.g. jellyfish) appear to have discovered some good tricks for the design of behavior-based control systems—largely lacking specialized selection mechanisms; the emergence of bilaterians may have forced the evolution of a central ganglion, or ‘archaic brain’, whose main function is to resolve conflicts between peripheral systems. Whilst vertebrates have many interesting selection substrates it is likely that here too, the evolution of centralized structures such as the medial reticular formation and the basal ganglia may have been a forced move due to the need to limit connection costs as brains increased in size.

The pattern of acquisition of social, communication, and daily living skills was examined for autistic children, compared to retarded and normal controls, by quantifying intradomain scatter on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. Autistic children were matched to normal children and mentally retarded children on Vineland raw scores; group differences in scatter were examined for each domain of adaptive behavior. Autistic children had significantly more scatter on Communication and Socialization than both control groups. Item analyses showed that the autistic children had particular weaknesses on items reflecting attention to and pragmatic use of language, as well as play and reciprocal social interaction; the autistic children had particular strengths on items reflecting written language and rote language skills, and rule-governed social behavior. The number of items showing consistent group differences, however, was small, suggesting that although autistic development appears seq...

In this paper, key concepts in ecological psychology and nonlinear dynamics exemplify how learning design can be shaped by ideas of self-organization, meta-stability and selforganized criticality in complex neurobiological systems. Through interactions with specific ecological constraints in learning environments, cognition, decision making and action emerge. An important design strategy is the use of different types of noise to channel the learning process into meta-stable regions of the "learner-learning environment" system to encourage adaptive behaviors. Here learners can be exposed to many functional and creative performance solutions during training. Data from studies in the performance context of sports are used to illustrate how these theoretical ideas can underpin learning design. Based on these insights a nonlinear pedagogy is proposed in which the role of coaches or trainers alters from a more traditional, prescriptive stance to the mode of manipulating key interacting task constraints including information, space and equipment to facilitate learning.

Background in musicology. This paper sketches the recent disciplinary history of musicology, stressing the shift from a disembodied and detached approach to the musical structure to an approach that takes the human listener as a starting point. It discusses the role of embodied cognition and the role of enactive models for the study of the way how listeners cope with sounds, relying to some extent also on the phenomenological approach of "music as heard" and "music as experienced" that was advocated already in the 1980s. Background in cognitive science and neuroscience. The enactive approach, as applied to music, is part of the emerging field of 4E cognition, which is an umbrella term for embodied, embedded, extended and enacted cognition. It is elaborated in this paper, more in particular its relations with the sensorimotor approach to music cognition, and is brought in relation to neuroscience, which has been seen as opposed to the embodied approach, due to its detached and disembodied conceptions of mental computation and representation. This has been challenged by more dynamic approaches in music and brain studies, as exemplified in the contributions from neuroaesthetics, neuroplasticity and brain connectivity studies as applied to music.

Evidence continues to maintain that the use of antecedent variables (i.e., instructional practices, and environmental characteristics) increase prosocial and adaptive behaviors of students with disabilities (e.g., Kern et al. in J Appl Behav Anal 27(1):7-19, 1994; Stichter et al. in Behav Disord 30:401-418, 2005). This study extends the literature by systematically utilizing practitioner-implemented structural analyzes within school settings to determine antecedent variables affecting the prosocial behavior of students with autism. Optimal antecedents were combined into intervention packages and assessed utilizing a multiple baseline design across settings. All three students demonstrated improvement across all three settings. Rates of engagement and social interaction were obtained from classroom peers to serve as benchmark data. Findings indicate that practitioners can implement structural analyzes and design corresponding interventions for students with ASD within educational settings.

Psychologists interviewed direct-care staff using a battery of assessment measures including the autism spectrum disorders-diagnosis for intellectually disabled adults (ASD-DA), the Diagnostic Assessment for the Severely Handicapped-II (DASH-II), the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills for Individuals with Severe Retardation (MESSIER), the Socialization domain of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS), and a checklist containing criteria for autism and PDD-NOS from the DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10. Three hundred and seven intellectually disabled (ID) adolescents and adults ranging in age from 16 to 88 were assessed. Participants were diagnosed with either ID and ASD (autism or PDD-NOS; n = 156) or ID and no Axis I diagnosis (n = 151). A modification of the multitrait-multimethod approach was used to establish the convergent and discriminant validity of the ASD-DA. The scale proved to have robust convergent validity when correlated with the DSM-IV-TR/ICD-10 checklist, MESSIER, and Socialization domain of the VABS. Additionally, discriminant validity was demonstrated by comparing the ASD-DA to items from the DASH-II (measure of general psychopathology). The implications of these data are discussed. #

Divergence in the acceptability to people in different regions of naturally ventilated thermal environments raises a concern over the extent to which the ASHRAE Standard 55 may be applied as a universal criterion of thermal comfort. In this study, the ASHRAE 55 adaptive model of thermal comfort was investigated for its applicability to a hot and humid climate through a long-term field survey performed in central Taiwan among local students attending 14 elementary and high schools during September to January. Adaptive behaviors, thermal neutrality, and thermal comfort zones are explored. A probit analysis of thermal acceptability responses from students was performed in place of the conventional linear regression of thermal sensation votes against operative temperature to investigate the limits of comfort zones for 90% and 80% acceptability; the corresponding comfort zones were found to occur at 20.1-28.4°C and 17.6-30.0°C, respectively. In comparison with the yearly comfort zones recommended by the adaptive model for naturally ventilated spaces in the ASHRAE Standard 55, those observed in this study differ in the lower limit for 80% acceptability, with the observed level being 1.7°C lower than the ASHRAE-recommended value. These findings can be generalized to the population of school children, thus providing information that can supplement ASHRAE Standard 55 in evaluating the thermal performance of naturally ventilated school buildings, particularly in hot-humid areas such as Taiwan.

1 Einleitung                                                                                       1
2 Theoretischer Hintergrund                                                       2
2.1  "Arbeitszufriedenheit"                                                               2
              2.1.1 "Einstellung" vs. "Emotion"                               2
              2.1.2 Emotionale Komponente vs. kognitive Komponente der   
                        Arbeitszufriedenheit                                               3
2.2 "Emotionsarbeit"                                                                       3
2.3 "Emotionsregulation”                                                               4
2.3.1 Prozessmodell der Emotionsregulierung nach J.J. Gross 4
2.3.2 Vorgelagerte und nachgelagerte Emotionsregulierung 5
2.3.3 Emotionsverstärkung und -unterdrückung                         5
3 Empirische Studien                                                                         6
3.1 Studie von Côté, S. & Morgan L.M. (2002)                         6
3.2 Studie von Wecking, Ch. & Wegge, J. (2005)                         7
4 Fazit                                                                                                 8
4.1 Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse                                         8
4.2 Kritische Würdigung                                                                 8

The requirement to living and hence evolving system to sustain homeostasis imposes on the evolving system the demand for its ability to sustain adaptive engineering dynamics in response to the changes in its environment. Physics based mechanism of these changes' assessment is offered. Therefore the neurophysiology-grounded mechanism of adaptive behavior of the actor on the ground of adaptive stress-release difference-making reaction may be worked out on that basis. Via probabilistic results of difference-making neurophysiological activity of the structurally evolving actors the information on their structure gets fixed into materialistic changes in their environment. These changes are facilitating simultaneously both the increase of engineering efficiency of energy-conversion via social activity, and optimization of the social energy-conversion structures in order to decrease the waste energy loss 24-1-20

Jealousy is a multidimensional cognitive, emotional, behavioral and interpersonal phenomenon. Jealousy can be a destructive and often dangerous emotional and interpersonal response to threats to a valued relationship. Despite the importance of jealousy as an issue for couples, there has been relatively little attention to this problem. Jealousy is a form of angry, agitated worry, whose goal is to anticipate and avoid surprise and betrayal. A meta-emotional model is described, emphasizing the normalization of jealous emotion, distinguishing between "feeling" and "acting on" jealousy and linking jealousy to emotional processing, intolerance of uncertainty and thought fusion. Mindfulness and acceptance based approaches can be used that emphasize cultivating a capacity to distance and de-center from disturbing thoughts and feelings, overcoming attempts at experiential avoidance that may amplify jealousy, disrupting thought-reality fusion, and establishing a non-judgmental observing stance, from which adaptive behaviors may proceed.

This pilot study compared a new treatment approach, the Cognitive Orientation to daily Occupational Performance (CO-OP) to the Contemporary Treatment Approach (CTA) to treating children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). CO-OP emphasises problem-solving strategies and guided discovery of child and task specific strategies. CTA encompasses a variety of approaches, such as neuromuscular, multi-sensory, and biomechanical, focusing on motor aspects of skill acquisition. Twenty children with a mean age of 9.05 years (S.D.=1.23) participated in the study. All children had normal intelligence, scored below the 15th percentile on a standardised test of motor ability, and demonstrated motor difficulties significant enough to warrant referral for treatment. Pre- and post-measures included the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM), the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS), the Bruininks–Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOTMP), the Developmental Test of Visual–Motor Integration-Revised (VMI), the motor items of the Self-Perception Profile for Children (SPPC), and the Performance Quality Rating Scale (PQRS). In both groups, treatment goals were child-chosen. Both treatments lead to improved COPM self-ratings of performance and satisfaction; however, improvements in the CO-OP group were greater than those in the CTA group. These results were paralleled by PQRS scores, and the Motor scores on the VABS, but not on the BOTMP measures. This outcome still needs replication as no control group was involved and because of the occurrence of pre-treatment differences between the CO-OP and CTA groups on relevant measures. Follow-up data indicated that children who received CO-OP tended to experience greater long-term maintenance of their motor goals and acquired strategies; follow-up parent-report rated CO-OP treatment as more useful than CTA treatment. Self-report, observer report, standardised assessment, and follow-up all demonstrated the effectiveness of the CO-OP approach, supporting the use of CO-OP and suggesting further investigation of this new cognitive intervention.

This study demonstrates the efficacy of Equine Assisted Counseling (EAC) by comparing EAC to classroom-based counseling. Students (n = 164) identified as being at high risk for academic and/or social failure participated in 12 weekly counseling sessions. Within-group paired sample t-test results comparing pre-and post-treatment scores for externalizing, internalizing, maladaptive, and adaptive behaviors determined that the EAC made statistically significant improvements in 17 behavior areas, whereas the RD group showed statistically significant improvement in 5 areas. Between-groups ANCOVA results indicated that the EAC showed statistically significant improvement in 7 areas when compared directly to RD.

Descartes developed an elaborate theory of animal physiology that he used to explain functionally organized, situationally adapted behavior in both human and nonhuman animals. Although he restricted true mentality to the human soul, I argue that he developed a purely mechanistic (or material) ‘psychology’ of sensory, motor, and low-level cognitive functions. In effect, he sought to mechanize the offices of the Aristotelian sensitive soul. He described the basic mechanisms in the Treatise on man, which he summarized in the Discourse. However, the Passions of the soul contains his most ambitious claims for purely material brain processes. These claims arise in abstract discussions of the functions of the passions and in illustrations of those functions. Accordingly, after providing an intellectual context for Descartes’s theory of the passions, especially by comparison with that of Tho- mas Aquinas, I examine its ‘machine psychology’, including the role of habituation and association. I contend that Descartes put forth what may reasonably be called a ‘psychology’ of the unensouled animal body and, correspondingly, of the human body when the soul does not intervene. He thus conceptually distinguished a mechanistically explicable sensory and motor psychology, common to nonhuman and human animals, from true mentality involving higher cognition and volition and requiring (in his view) an immaterial mind.

The purpose of this study was to explore the interrelationship of social and adaptive skills in adults with bipolar disorder and severe or profound intellectual disability. A bipolar group (N = 14), a severe psychopathology group without bipolar disorder (N = 14), and a control group with no DSM-IV Axis I diagnosis (N = 14) were compared on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale (VABS) and the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills for Individuals with sEvere Retardation (MESSIER). Bipolar patients had significantly more negative verbal social skills than the other two groups on the MESSIER, but no group differences on the VABS were noted. The implications of these data are discussed for a better understanding of bipolar disorder in persons with intellectual disability. #

Background This study was conducted to examine the impact of a 1-year intervention for children with intellectual disabilities (ID) in Vietnam. Method Subjects were 30 preschool-aged children with ID (ages 3 to 6 years). Sixteen were assigned to an intervention group and 14 to a control group. Based on the Portage Curriculum (CESA 5 2003), the intervention trained parents to work with their children through modelling and coaching by teachers during weekly home visits. Results Comparison of pre-, mid-and postintervention assessments of the children based on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales ) indicated that the intervention was promising: children in the intervention group improved significantly in most domains of adaptive behaviours, and also performed significantly better than the control group in the areas of personal care and motor skills. Conclusions The results from the Vietnam programme are discussed in terms of its implications and strategies for developing programmes for children with disabilities in developing countries.

Human responses to thermal environments in naturally ventilated (NV) buildings in hot-humid area of China were systematically investigated in the present study. Thirty local inhabitants long-time living in NV buildings participated in the study and reported their thermal sensations and perceptions and adaptive behaviors while all physical and personal variables were collected. Based on a year-long survey, a close match of indoor physical variables and occupants' clothing insulation with outdoor climate was found as an important feature of NV buildings. Integrated indices can capture more thermal contexts in the NV buildings in hot-humid area of China than simple indices. Thermal sensation was found to be a good linear function of SET* with the thermal neutrality of 25.4 C and the 90% (80%) acceptable range of 23.5e27.4 C (22.1e28.7 C) in SET*. The adaptive evidences were obtained for clothing adjustment, window opening and using fan respectively and the modified PMV model was validated to be applicable in NV buildings in hot-humid area of China with an expectancy factor of 0.822. Comparisons with other field studies indicate that people can develop various human-environment relationships through thermal adaptation to local climate, resulting in different thermal neutral temperatures in various climates. The subjects in hot-humid area of China are more acclimated and tolerable with hot and humid environments and more uncomfortable and intolerable with cold environments while compared with those in temperate climates.

Clinical descriptions of patients with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE) suggest major problems with adaptive behavior. Five operationally defined adverse outcomes and 18 associated risk/protective factors were examined using a Life History Interview with knowledgeable informants of 415 patients with FAS or FAE (median age 14 years, range 6-51; median IQ 86, range 29-126). Eighty percent of these patients were not raised by their biological mothers. For adolescents and adults, the life span prevalence was 61% for Disrupted School Experiences, 60% for Trouble with the Law, 50% for Confinement (in detention, jail, prison, or a psychiatric or alcohol/drug inpatient setting), 49% for Inappropriate Sexual Behaviors on repeated occasions, and 35% for Alcohol/Drug Problems. The odds of escaping these adverse life outcomes are increased 2-to 4-fold by receiving the diagnosis of FAS or FAE at an earlier age and by being reared in good stable environments. J Dev Behav Pediatr 25: [228][229][230][231][232][233][234][235][236][237][238] 2004. Index terms: fetal alcohol syndrome, fetal alcohol effects, risk factors for adverse life outcomes, life span studies, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD).

Jealousy is a multidimensional cognitive, emotional, behavioral and interpersonal phenomenon. Jealousy can be a destructive and often dangerous emotional and interpersonal response to threats to a valued relationship. Despite the importance of jealousy as an issue for couples, there has been relatively little attention to this problem. Jealousy is a form of angry, agitated worry, whose goal is to anticipate and avoid surprise and betrayal. A meta-emotional model is described, emphasizing the normalization of jealous emotion, distinguishing between "feeling" and "acting on" jealousy and linking jealousy to emotional processing, intolerance of uncertainty and thought fusion. Mindfulness and acceptance based approaches can be used that emphasize cultivating a capacity to distance and de-center from disturbing thoughts and feelings, overcoming attempts at experiential avoidance that may amplify jealousy, disrupting thought-reality fusion, and establishing a non-judgmental observing stance, from which adaptive behaviors may proceed.

The PDD Behavior Inventory (PDDBI) is a rating scale filled out by caregivers or teachers that was designed to assess children having a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD; autism, Asperger disorder, PDD-NOS, or childhood disintegrative disorder). Both adaptive and maladaptive behaviors are assessed in the scale, making it useful for treatment studies in which decreases in maladaptive behaviors and improvements in adaptive social and language skills relevant to PDD are expected. The adaptive behaviors assessed include core features of the disorder such as joint attention skills, pretend play, and referential gesture. The maladaptive behaviors sample a wide variety of behaviors observed in both lower- and higher-functioning individuals and include stereotyped behaviors, fears, aggression, social interaction deficits, and aberrant language. The inventory was found to have a high degree of internal consistency. Inter-rater reliability was better for adaptive behaviors than for malada...

Changes in the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children-IV (WISC-IV) may affect the IQ profile characteristic of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Moreover, the association of particular component cognitive abilities (unlike overall IQ) with symptomatology and adaptive functioning in ASD remains unclear. This archival study characterizes the WISC-IV IQ profile among 51 high-functioning (IQ>70) children with ASD and correlates WISC-IV performance with ASD and ADHD symptomatology and adaptive functioning. The ASD WISC-IV profile included strengths on Matrix Reasoning and Similarities, weaknesses on Comprehension (which correlated negatively with social symptoms) and the subtests comprising the Processing Speed Index (Coding, Symbol Search). Processing speed task performance correlated negatively with communication symptoms and positively with communication abilities, indicating its importance to functional outcomes in ASD.

A potential 24-item short form (SABS) of the 73-item Adaptive Behavior Scale-Residential and Community (Part I) (ABS-RC2;  and ) was developed, based on data from two diverse UK samples of adults with intellectual disabilities living in residential services (n = 560 and 254).SABS factor and total scores showed good internal reliability in both samples (alpha 0.89–0.98), and were highly correlated with their full ABS-RC2 Part I equivalents (r = 0.97–0.99). Regression equations were calculated for SABS factor and total scores against their full ABS-RC2 Part I equivalents. Levels of agreement between predicted quartile scores (derived from the regression equations) and actual full ABS-RC2 Part I quartile scores were high (kappa 0.75–0.89; percentage agreement 82%–92%).It is concluded that the SABS is a potentially useful research tool, although further work is clearly needed to establish the reliability and cross-cultural validity of the instrument.

... Taken together, complexity theory and coactivation models on emotion enable us to offer ... positiveemotional attractor (PEA) that pulls us toward intrinsic intentional change. ... emotional experiences and crises, optimize physical health and emotional well-being, enhance resilience ...

A potential 24-item short form (SABS) of the 73-item Adaptive Behavior Scale-Residential and Community (Part I) (ABS-RC2; Nihira et al., 1993a, b) was developed, based on data from two diverse UK samples of adults with intellectual disabilities living in residential services (n ϭ 560 and 254).