Avoidance of phrenic nerve paresis during continuous supraclavicular regional anaesthesia.

This study sought to determine whether it is possible reliably to avoid phrenic nerve block using the bent needle technique for continuous supraclavicular brachial plexus anaesthesia. In a prospective study, 100 patients undergoing a variety of upper extremity surgical procedures were studied. Ultrasound examinations of the patients' diaphragms were performed after insertion of an anaesthetic block, and were repeated a day later with the analgesic block working. Three phrenic nerve blocks were detected in different patients. Factors were identified in all three cases that we think contributed to the phrenic nerve blocks. We think it is possible to provide continuous supraclavicular regional anaesthesia and analgesia for a wide range of upper extremity operations without phrenic nerve blockade.

Gender, affiliation, assertion, and the interactive context of parent-child play.

Ninety-eight young U.S. children (mean age = 48 months) with either European, Latin American, or multiple ethnic backgrounds were videotaped with their mothers and their fathers on separate occasions in their families' homes. Parent-child pairs played for 8 min each with a feminine-stereotyped toy set (foods and plates) and a masculine-stereotyped toy set (track and cars). Levels of affiliation (engaging vs. distancing) and assertion (direct vs. nondirect) were rated on 7-point scales every 5 s from the videotapes for both parent and child. Overall, the play activity accounted for a large proportion of the variance in parents' and children's mean affiliation and assertion ratings. Some hypothesized gender-related differences in behavior were also observed. In addition, exploratory analyses revealed some differences between the different ethnic groups. The results highlight the importance of role modeling and activity settings in the socialization and social construction of gender.

Moderators of gender effects on parents' talk to their children: a meta-analysis.

Two sets of meta-analyses of studies examining gender effects on parents' observed language with their children were conducted. One looked at studies comparing mothers and fathers in amount of talking, supportive speech, negative speech, directive speech, informing speech, and questions and requests. The other looked at studies comparing mothers' interactions with daughters versus with sons in amount of talking, supportive speech, and directive speech. Across studies, mothers tended to talk more (d = .26), use more supportive (d = .23) and negative (d = .13) speech, and use less directive (d = .19) and informing (d = .15) speech than did fathers. Also, mothers tended to talk more (d = .29) and use more supportive speech (d = .22) with daughters than with sons. Medium or large effect sizes occurred in most analyses when particular moderator variables were taken into account. Effect sizes varied, depending on aspects of the interactive setting, the child's age, sampling and measurement, and publication characteristics. The results are interpreted in relation to a contextual-interactive model of gender typing.

The use of masculine and feminine to describe women's and men's behavior.

The hypothesis that the terms masculine and feminine would not have the same connotations as the personality traits that are typically associated with them was investigated. Two hundred five undergraduates (116 women and 89 men) at a US university rated how much they expected to like various hypothetical women and men, each of whom was described by a single trait adjective. Ten instrumental-trait and 10 socioemotional-trait adjectives, including the terms masculine and feminine, were associated with a targeted female or male character (e.g., "an independent woman" or "an understanding man"). Although "a masculine woman" and "a feminine man" both received low ratings, female targets described by instrumental adjectives and male targets described by socioemotional adjectives received high ratings. Nonstereotypic characters were rated more positively by the female respondents than they were by the male respondents. Stereotypic targets were rated more positively by other-gender respondents than by same-gender respondents.

Influence and involvement in children's discourse: age, gender, and partner effects.

Children's discourse with peers was examined in relation to speaker gender, partner gender, and age level. 138 children were matched with either a same- or an other-gender peer at the early childhood and middle childhood age levels (median ages = 5 and 7 years) and asked to play with puppets for 10 min. Speech acts were coded as either collaborative (affiliative involvement and direct influence), controlling (distancing involvement and direct influence), obliging (affiliative involvement and nondirect influence), or withdrawing (distancing involvement and nondirect influence). Girls' and boys' communication patterns were more similar than different. However, gender-related differences with medium to large effect sizes were found. Gender-typed communications were more likely at the middle childhood than the early childhood age level and in same-gender than mixed-gender dyads. The findings are interpreted in terms of developmental and contextual accounts of gender and social behavior. Recommendations for future research are offered.

Language learning and retention in young language-disordered children.

Simultaneous sign and spoken language training was conducted with young, language-disordered children under standardized training and follow-up conditions with a stringent learning criterion to determine if language learned was stable over time. Twenty-one children between 36 and 86 months with no or nonfunctional language participated in the study. Diagnoses included autism, mental retardation, combined autism and mental retardation, and developmental aphasia. Children completed a mean of 74 signed speech training sessions. Sessions were twice daily, 5 days a week. Follow-up evaluations were made approximately 6 months after training. Of the 21 children, 17 learned at least one word and 7 children learned multiple-word phrases during the training. Most language learned in training was found to be retained at follow-up approximately 6 months later. Gestural imitation, play style, language age, developmental age, and fine motor skills had strong correlations with language learning and retention.

The discourse of thought-disordered schizophrenic children.

The conversations of two thought-disordered schizophrenic children and two age- and sex-matched normal children were studied in three different contexts. Cohesive relations and retrieval categories were analyzed. The thought-disordered schizophrenic and normal children demonstrated divergent patterns of discourse. These patterns closely paralleled those previously reported for adults by S. Rochester and J. R. Martin (1979, Crazy talk: A study of the discourse of schizophrenic speakers, New York: Plenum) for schizophrenic and normal adults, although some discrepancies were also observed. Recommendations for future research are offered.