Trichotillomania.

The present study examines some of the beliefs about trichotillomania such as those concerning the sex and age of afflicted individuals. Information was gathered from an exhaustive literature review and surveys of the general public and college students. Data on such factors as prevalence, sex, age distribution, onset, codiagnosis, and details of the hair-pulling act are presented, and reviews of explanations and treatment are provided.

A technique for identifying the subgroup membership of certain misarticulating children.

Cluster analysis was used to identify two homogeneous clusters of 8-9 1/2-year-old children who misarticulated /s/, /r/, or both. The analysis was based on the children's scores on 40 measures of language, reading, auditory processing, and other variables. Discriminant function analysis was then used to identify a subset of five measures and a means of computing classification scores. These measures and the classification scores can be used to identify the cluster membership of new subjects. The use of classification scores for identifying cluster membership was cross-validated against cluster analysis of a second group of children. The two clusters are described in terms of their performance on language and reading measures.

Sibling incest aversion as an index of oedipal conflict.

This study examines sibling incest aversion as an index of the Oedipus complex. The scale's construction and its relation to presence of opposite sex siblings, guilt, and neuroticism is described. Males displayed less aversion and more variability in incest aversion than did females. There was a positive relation between aversion and having an opposite sex sibling for males, but not for females. For both sexes there was a positive relation between sex guilt and aversion. Compared to high or low incest aversion females, middle females displayed a mild obsessive-compulsive pattern, higher hostility guilt, more neurotic complaints, less extraversion and more sensitization. The high reliability and significant relations with relevant variables demonstrate the usefulness of this scale.

Assessment of parent-administered listening training for preschool children with articulation deficits.

Two studies concerning preschool misarticulating children are reported. The first study was concerned with direct effects of two varieties of parent-administered listening training. The second study focused on the influence of that same training on children's responses to sound-production training. Subjects were assigned to one of three conditions: listening, reading-talking, and control. Children in the first group were provided training by their parents that was intended to focus the child's attention on consonants in syllables or words and to teach discrimination between correctly and incorrectly articulated consonants. Parents of children in the second group read to and talked with them about the material. Neither treatment group surpassed the control group in gains made on any auditory processing or articulatory measure employed, and some parents found the listening training frustrating. In the second study, a subset of the children in each of the three groups was given sound-production training. The data obtained did not show any effect from earlier listening experiences on sound-production performance.

Delayed judgment speech-sound discrimination and /r/ or /s/ articulation status and improvement.

A delayed judgment test of speech-sound discrimination was correlated with measures of articulation status and articulation improvement with training in two groups of subjects, an /r/ group and an /s/ group. While the discrimination measures were reliable and internally consistent, discrimination-articulation correlations were low. Several possible psychometric explanations for the nonsignificant results are ruled out, and subject and task variables that might interfere with children's performance on discrimination measures are discussed.

Identification and description of homogeneous subgroups within a sample of misarticulating children.

A multivariate, hierarchical clustering procedure was used to identify homogeneous subgroups among 98 misarticulating children age eight years through nine years, six months. Clustering was based on 40 tests or measures of language, auditory processing, school achievement, oral structure, oral form recognition, and other phenomena. Clusters were described and then compared for performance on measures of articulation status and articulation improvement with training. Clusters were also derived from subsets of children who misarticulated only one sound, either /s/or/r/. Also, the subset of children who misarticulated /s/ was compared with children who misarticulated /r/ for performance on the measures classified above. Few of the clusters identified differed in articulation status or improvement with training.

Factor analysis of measures of articulation, language, auditory processing, reading-spelling, and maxillofacial structure.

This study was concerned with the correspondence between the classification of measures by clinical judgement and by factor analysis. Forty-six measures were selected to assess language, auditory processing, reading-spelling, maxillofacial structure, articulation, and other processes. These were applied to 98 misarticulating eight- and nine-year-old children. Factors derived from the analysis corresponded well with categories the measures were selected to represent.