Stress management training for military trainees returned to duty after a mental health evaluation: effect on graduation rates.

A significant proportion of people entering the military are discharged within the first 6 months of enlistment. Mental health related problems are often cited as the cause of discharge. This study evaluated the utility of stress inoculation training in helping reduce the attrition of a sample of Air Force trainees at risk for discharge from basic military training. Participants were 178 trainees referred for a psychological evaluation from basic training. Participants were randomly assigned to a 2-session stress management group or a usual-care control condition. Compared with past studies that used less rigorous methodology, this study did not find that exposure to stress management information increased the probability of graduating basic military training. Results are discussed in terms of possible reasons for the lack of treatment effects and directions for future research.

Predicting outcome of military basic training for individuals referred for psychological evaluation.

We examined outcome data for 632 U.S. Air Force personnel who were referred for psychological evaluation during Basic Military Training (BMT) but who were subsequently returned to BMT to determine what proportion graduated. We analyzed motivational, biographical, and psychological testing variables, using logistic regression to develop a model predictive of training outcome. The results demonstrated that a relatively small number of variables could predict outcome with close to 70% accuracy. Level of optimism regarding training, history of physical abuse, and frequency of visits to the trainee health clinic were major contributors to the model. MMPI-2 (Hathaway & McKinley, 1989) Scales D and Sc also remained in the model but added little to its power. The findings are generally consistent with prior research on normal military populations, except that some factors previously linked to adjustment, such as sex and ethnicity, were found to be unrelated to training outcome in this population.

Implications of neurological rehabilitation for advancing intracerebral transplantation.

Neurological rehabilitation involves the systematic presentation of environmental stimuli and challenges that enable the patient to learn strategies for minimizing their disabilities. Rehabilitation therapy of transplant recipients may be an important factor in enhancing the efficacy of the transplanted organ or tissue to promote functional recovery. Laboratory research and clinical trials on neural transplantation, as an experimental treatment for neurological disorders (e.g., Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and cerebral ischemia), have focused primarily on devising effective surgical implantation strategies with little attention devoted to the interaction between environmental factors and restorative neurosurgery. Exercise training as part of neurological rehabilitation may be an important factor for neural transplantation therapy for Parkinson's disease. Rehabilitation providers are particularly well placed to provide the environment and the support to optimize the behavioral functioning of neural transplant patients in learning to use the new grafted tissue.

Speech perception skills of children with multichannel cochlear implants or hearing aids.

Perceptual skills were evaluated at two intervals of cochlear implant (CI) use in 24 children with prelingual deafness who received the Nucleus multichannel CI. Their performance was compared to that of age-matched children with prelingual profound hearing losses who used conventional hearing aids (HAs). The HA subjects were grouped by unaided thresholds: "gold" subjects (pure tone average of 92 dB hearing level) and "silver" subjects (pure tone average of 104 dB hearing level). The CI users' perceptual abilities increased significantly with time. At the "early" interval (mean, 2 months of CI use), performance of the CI and silver HA groups was similar on measures of phoneme, word, and sentence recognition; the gold HA subjects' performance was superior to that of the other groups. At the "late" interval, (mean, 2.5 years of CI use), CI subjects' performance exceeded that of the silver group on all measures, and was similar to that of the gold group on vowel recognition and auditory-plus-visual sentence recognition measures.

Comparison of multichannel tactile aids and multichannel cochlear implants in children with profound hearing impairments.

Speech perception skills of prelingually deafened children who used the multichannel Tactaid 7 (n = 10) were compared to those of a matched group of children who used the Nucleus 22 channel cochlear implant (n = 10). Group scores were compared on a closed-set test of word recognition and on an open-set test of phrase recognition in the pre-device condition and at a post-device interval after an average of 1.5 years of multichannel device use. The results revealed that the scores of the implant users improved significantly between the pre- and post-device intervals on all measures. Moreover, the scores of the implant users were significantly higher than those of the tactile aid users on all measures. In contrast, the scores of the tactile aid users showed negligible change over time, except on a test that evaluated open-set recognition of phrases with both auditory and visual cues. The results suggest that children can learn to recognize words and understand speech without lipreading with a multichannel implant, whereas children who used the multichannel tactile aid demonstrate limited speech recognition skills only if auditory/tactile cues are combined with lipreading.

Variables affecting implant performance in children.

This study examined the variables that contribute to the large individual differences in the speech perception skills of children with the Nucleus multichannel cochlear implant. Sixty-one children were tested on four measures of speech perception: two tests of closed-set word recognition, one test of open-set recognition of phrases, and one open-set monosyllabic word test, scored on the basis of the percentage of phonemes as well as words identified correctly. The results of a series of multiple regression analyses revealed that the variables of processor type, duration of deafness, communication mode, age at onset of deafness, length of implant use, and age implanted accounted for roughly 35% of the variance on two tests of closed-set word recognition, and 40% of the variance on measures that assessed recognition of words or phonemes in an open set. Length of implant use accounted for the most variance on all of the speech perception measures.

Effect of age at onset of deafness on children's speech perception abilities with a cochlear implant.

The speech perception abilities of 37 children with cochlear implants (single-channel or multichannel) were examined as a function of age at onset of deafness. There was no significant difference in the speech perception abilities of implanted children who were born deaf and those of implanted children who lost their hearing during the first 3 years of life. In contrast, the performance of children whose age at onset of deafness was 5 years or later was significantly better than that of the children with congenital or early-acquired deafness on tests of stress pattern categorization, closed-set word identification, open-set identification of common phrases, and lipreading enhancement.

Analysis of the spontaneous speech samples of children with cochlear implants or tactile aids.

Analyses were performed on the spontaneous speech samples produced by profoundly hearing-impaired children who used the 3M/House single-channel cochlear implant (n = 7), the Nucleus multichannel cochlear implant (n = 7), or the two-channel tactile aid, the Tactaid II (n = 12). Speech recordings were obtained in the predevice condition, and after 6- and 12-months use. The speech of the children in the three experimental groups was compared to that of a control group of subjects who used a tactile aid inconsistently and received minimal speech training. Several new analysis procedures were developed to describe adequately the characteristics of the children's speech. The results revealed that all three experimental groups and the control group showed an increase in their production of sounds classified as English phonemes in the postdevice conditions. It was apparent at both the 6- and 12-months postdevice intervals that the most dramatic improvements were made by the users of the Nucleus device. The changes made by the Tactaid and 3M/House users were similar. The subjects with the Nucleus device also developed more diverse phonetic repertoires over time than did the other experimental subjects. More subjects with the Nucleus device acquired fricatives, liquids, glides, voiceless consonants, and high front vowels than did the subjects in the other groups. The subjects in the control group developed the most limited phonetic repertoires.

Initial findings with a wearable multichannel vibrotactile aid.

Data are presented on the speech perception performance of two profoundly hearing-impaired subjects while using a two-channel vibrotactile aid (Tactaid II) or a new, seven-channel instrument. Both subjects, one a profoundly hearing-impaired teenager and one a postlingually deaf adult, are experienced users of tactile aids. The data suggest better recognition of speech features, words, environmental sounds, and enhancement of lipreading skills with the new multichannel instrument than with the two-channel device.

Affinity of the enantiomers of alpha- and beta-cyclazocine for binding to the phencyclidine and mu opioid receptors.

The enantiomers in the alpha and beta series of cyclazocine were evaluated for their ability to bind to phencyclidine (PCP) and mu-opioid receptors in order to determine their receptor selectivity. The affinity of (-)-beta-cyclazocine for the PCP receptor was 1.5 greater than PCP itself. In contrast, (-)-alpha-cyclazocine, (+)-alpha-cyclazocine, and (+)-beta-cyclazocine were 3-, 5- and 138-fold less potent than PCP, respectively. Scatchard analysis of saturable binding of [3H]Tyr-D-Ala-Gly-N-MePhe-Gly-ol (DAMGO) also exhibited a homogeneous population of binding sites with an apparent KD of 1.9 nM and an estimated Bmax of 117 pM. [3H]Tyr-D-Ala-Gly-N-MePhe-Gly-ol (DAMGO) binding studies revealed that (-)-alpha-cyclazocine (KD = 0.48 nM) was 31-, 1020- and 12,600-fold more potent than (-)-beta-cyclazocine, (+)-alpha-cyclazocine and (+)-beta-cyclazocine, respectively, for binding to the mu-opioid receptor. These data show that, although (-)-beta-cyclazocine is a potent PCP receptor ligand consistent with its potent PCP-like discriminative stimulus effects, it shows little selectivity for PCP receptors since it also potently displaces mu-opioid binding. However, these cyclazocine isomers, due to their extraordinary degree of stereoselectivity, may be useful in characterizing the structural requirements for benzomorphans having activity at the PCP receptor.