Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to W Yule.
To date, there are few accounts of training groups of parents of non-handicapped children to use behavioural methods of child management in British settings. This paper describes a pilot study in which three mothers were given an 8-week course in behavioural management. Their progress was monitored using a short role-play test of established reliability and validity. Significant gains were reported.
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Twelve adolescent males with a history of chronic solvent abuse were compared with 12 delinquent controls on a battery of neuropsychological tests. Toluene was the active constituent most commonly abused. Solvent abusers tended to have lower overall intelligence test scores. On the Bexley Maudsley Automated Screening Test, the solvent abusers scored significantly lower on tests involving visual processing, especially the Symbol Digit Coding test. These results are cautiously interpreted as indicating that chronic solvent abuse carries an increased risk of cognitive impairment.
Twelve adolescent males with a history of chronic solvent abuse were compared with 12 delinquent controls on a structured interview concerning their history of solvent abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, and on a self-report inventory of depression. Solvent abusers had histories of severe social and emotional deprivation, and reported higher rates of depression. This was particularly true of the most chronic abusers of solvents. These findings do not reflect any referral bias and it is concluded that the association between chronic solvent abuse and depression is a real one. Psychological, social work and psychiatric services need to take the presentation of chronic solvent abuse more seriously.
'Lead and its compounds are potentially toxic; the element has no known physiological function; it is widely distributed in nature and as a result of man's activities' (Lawther Report: DHSS 1980). Concern grew in the late 1970s that even low levels of exposure to lead caused adverse changes in children's adjustment and academic attainment. This paper traces the rapid developments of the past decade in investigating the relationship between body lead burden and relevant outcome measures. Research strategies moved from small-scale, clinical-descriptive studies to large-scale epidemiological studies; from cross-sectional studies to longitudinal ones. Agreement had to be reached on how to measure body lead burden. Decisions had to be made on which outcome measures to use. Measures of global intelligence were complemented by measures of academic attainment, emotional adjustment and hyperactivity, as well as by experimental measures of more basic psychophysiological functioning. Ways had to be found of dealing experimentally and statistically with socioeconomic factors which acted as confounds. The investigations were marked by tremendous collaboration between investigators, between national agencies and across countries. The methodological issues are relevant to the investigation of other toxins and they define a field of developmental behavioural toxicology. This case study can act as a model for investigating the effects of other environmental toxins and hazards.