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W Fisher

Publications and source records attributed to W Fisher.

84 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Empirically derived consequences: a data-based method for prescribing treatments for destructive behavior.

Behavioral treatments are often prescribed on the basis of a functional assessment. However, in a significant number of cases, functional assessment results are equivocal or suggest that internal stimuli are maintaining the behavior. In this investigation, we evaluated an alternative data-based assessment that may be useful in such cases. This assessment was used to identify reinforcers and punishers based on the reinforcement assessment procedure described by Pace, Ivancic, Edwards, Iwata, and Page (1985). We then assessed whether empirically derived reinforcers and punishers could be combined to treat the destructive behaviors of two clients. For both clients, the rates of destructive behavior decreased markedly. The results suggest that empirically derived consequences may be useful in decreasing destructive behavior when a functional assessment is inconclusive or is consistent with the hypothesis that the behavior is stereo-typic and maintained by internal stimuli.

Aggression↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Tourette disorder in North Dakota.

This paper describes the symptom profiles of a large group of patients with Gilles de la Tourette disorder (TD). In Part one we report the results of a questionnaire study of patients in North Dakota with TD. The data suggest that TD patients have high rates of academic and social problems. Obsessive-compulsive symptomatology is quite high in this population. This report is unique in that these results are reported using an available data base to allow for pooling of future research in TD patients in other settings. In Part two of this paper we discuss important findings from our clinic population of 130 TD patients.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Evaluation of an emergency-procedure teaching laboratory for the development of proficiency in tube thoracostomy.

OBJECTIVE: Emergency-procedure laboratories are not a standardized part of the curriculum for emergency medicine residency programs. The authors evaluated the efficacy of an emergency-procedure laboratory to teach medical students and residents the performance of tube thoracostomy. METHODS: A prospective repeated-measures study of tube thoracostomy placement training was performed in an animal-laboratory setting. Participants were six first-postgraduate-year emergency medicine residents and six fourth-year medical students. Each participant was given a written pretest on tube thoracostomies followed by lectures on tube thoracostomy, venous cutdown, peritoneal lavage, and surgical airway. The procedure laboratory, using an anesthetized canine model (20-25 kg), was then conducted. Tube thoracostomies were timed from skin incision to passage of the tube into the thoracic cavity with subsequent tube fogging. Four attempts per participant were documented. Eighteen days later, an identical procedure laboratory was conducted for the same students including a written posttest identical to the pretest. RESULTS: The written test scores improved for every participant (p < 0.0001). Mean times for procedures completion improved from 121 sec to 39 sec (p = 0<.001) during the first session and improved from 58 sec to 28 sec (p = 0.005) during the second session. Retention of skills was indicated by significant shortening of the time to completion from the first attempt of the first session to that of the second session (121 sec to 58 sec, p = 0.002). CONCLUSION: This procedure laboratory, which emphasized skill repetition, led to improvement in procedural speed and retention of tube thoracostomy skills over time. This approach to teaching clinical procedures should be considered for emergency medicine residency programs and for continuing medical education courses that emphasize acquisition of clinical procedural skills.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The elderly sick role: an experimental analysis.

This experiment sought to determine whether young people ascribe different sick-role expectations to the elderly than to the middle-aged. The study also examined whether such expectations are a function of age per se or of work status. The experiment was a two X two factorial design employing two levels of age and two levels of work status. Sick-role expectations were elicited by the use of vignettes in which illness characteristics and background information were identical, but age and work status were varied. Results partially support the contention that the young ascribe an elderly sick role. Respondents were more likely to expect an old, rather than a middle-aged man, not to recover. However, respondents were also more likely to expect reduction in role obligations when the man was retired than when he was employed, regardless of age.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Cover-slip staining rack.

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Fluorescent Antibody Technique↗