In a study of healthy older adults, the 3MBW demonstrated similar or better diagnostic accuracy for falls in the past year than most commonly used measures. People walking faster than 3.0 seconds on the 3MBW were unlikely to have reported falling, whereas people slower than 4.5 seconds were very likely to have reported falling. Further validation of the 3MBW in prospective studies, larger samples, and clinical populations is recommended.

Multiple-choice questions for which more than one of the alternatives given could be correct were answered either by responding to each alternative (putting a tick or cross as appropriate) or by responding to subsets of alternatives (using code letters to denote the appropriate subset). In Experiment 1 fewer errors were made when code letters were used, but the range of subsets available provided information about correct answers. Experiment 2 eliminated this information by increasing the number of codes and extended the investigation to two levels of question difficulty answered by subjects from three levels of verbal ability. Response mode did not affect the accuracy of answering easy questions, but with harder questions coded answers were both slower and more error-prone than responses made to each alternative. These performance decrements were greatest for subjects in the lowest ability grouping. It is suggested that computer software can be adapted to meet the requirements of the human information processing system more easily than people can adapt to fit the requirements of computers.

Investigation of the effect that a word recognition task has on concurrent nonverbal tasks showed (a) auditory verbal messages affected visual tracking performance but not the detection of brief light flashes in the visual periphery, (b) greater impairment, both of tracking and light detections, when verbal messages were visual rather than auditory. With a kinaesthetic tracking task, errors increased significantly during auditory messages but were even greater during visual messages. There was no interaction between the modality of tracking error feedback (auditory or visual) and the modality of the verbal message. Nor was the decrement from visual messages reduced by changing the presentation format. It is suggested that different temporal characteristics of visual and auditory information affect the attentional demands of verbal messages.

This paper describes supportive accommodation for late adolescents in Cambridge provided by the Castle Project in conjunction with the Young People's Psychiatric Service. It outlines the characteristics of young people referred to the Project over the first years of its existence, their lengths of stay and next moves, and suggests that there are members of two groups, those with schizophrenic‐type disorders and those with pronounced antisocial behaviour, who present long‐term problems of care and accommodation and whose needs are not yet catered for appropriately.