A combined informant questionnaire and interview survey of self-injurious behavior (SIB) at a large state facility for the retarded was conducted independently three times over a 3-year period. Prevalence consistently was about 10% of the population. SIB cases tended to be younger and institutionalized longer than the rest of the population. Severe cases had a longer history of chronic SIB. SIB cases had more seizure disorders, severe language handicaps, visual impairments, and severe or profound retardation than the rest of the population. They appeared to fulfill most of the Rutter (1966) criteria for autism. But unlike the severely autistic, there was little relation of sex to incidence of SIB. Over 90% of SIB cases changed status over 3 years, suggesting that SIB was amenable to behavior modification in most cases (94%). Psychotropic behavior control medications helped in some intervention programs (32%). SIB remitted spontaneously in 21% of SIB cases where there had been no behavioral or drug intervention.
Primary care psychology is a growing field that requires specific training opportunities for successful practice. The knowledge and skills that practitioners need for work in this setting are outlined here in detail. This curriculum integrates literature and experience in family psychology, health psychology, and pediatric psychology; considers multiple levels of education and training; and provides illustrative examples. It is a first attempt in an evolving process of integrating historical and cutting edge literature from many areas of psychology and other disciplines to contribute to comprehensive primary care psychology training. It can be used by programs and individual practitioners alike in designing education and training experiences.What knowledge and skills do psychologists need to work in primary care? As the need for psychology to become an integral part of primary health care has become increasingly clear, a literature has developed that describes professional role functioning in primary care settings. This article addresses the knowledge and skills required and proposes a curriculum that can be used as a starting point by programs and individual practitioners in the design of education and training experiences in primary care psychology. The curriculum is followed by a discussion of its application at different levels of education and training along with examples of current education and training programs in primary care psychology. We end with thoughts about future directions for education and training in primary care psychology.
BACKGROUND
The open-field activity of 140 children three to nine years of age was observed in a room divided into four parts, each of which contained a chair and a table with the same five toys on the tables in all of the quadrants. The children participated in two 15-minute sessions, one with free-play instructions, the other with instructions to stay in one part of the room and play with a single toy. Parents of the children filled out a questionnaire version of the Werry-Weiss-Peters Activity Scale. Open-field activity decreased with age in almost perfectly monotonic fashion. Parents' activity ratings were also lower for older children. There were no significant sex differences on either the open-field measures or the parental ratings. Restrictive instructions decreased activity and toy-changing behavior in the open-field situation, but this effect was somewhat attenuated when restrictive instructions were the first ones given. A factor analysis of the ratings provided evidence for a number of independent components of activity in children.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.