In previous work, investigators have found a relationship between marital discord and childhood conduct problems (aggression) in clinic samples. Given the wide variability of aggression found among hyperactive children, it would follow from previous work that child aggression may be associated with marital discord in a hyperactive population. This hypothesis was tested in a sample of 23 boys (ages 5 to 8) diagnosed as attention deficit with hyperactivity. Aggressive behaviors were tracked by the children's teachers for 12 school days. Parental and teacher ratings of conduct problems were also obtained. Additionally, the auditory version of the laboratory Continuous Performance Test was administered. Marital adjustment, overt hostility, and conflict tactics, as reported by the mothers, were not significantly correlated with any of the measures of aggression or conduct problems. In other words, marital discord in families with a hyperactive boy did not explain differential rates of aggressive behavior despite definite variability in both the marital and child behavioral measures. Marital discord was marginally related to severity of attentional deficit on the Continuous Performance Test. The results underscore the need for caution in attempting to extend findings from a general population (i.e., undifferentiated clinic-referred children) to a specific diagnostic subgroup (i.e., attention-deficit hyperactive children).

The Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery-Children's Revision (LNNBCR) was used to investigate differences between reading disabled (RD) and academically normal children. The groups of 32 subjects each were equivalent with regard to age, sex, race, IQ, and SES of primary wage earner in the family. RD subjects, all of whom had been identified as learning disabled by the school, were moderately to severely impaired in reading, but not in math. Performance of the groups was significantly different on the battery as a whole and on an abbreviated form of the battery which excluded scales composed of items measuring language, reading, and arithmetic. With the abbreviated battery, the largest group differences were found on the Rhythm scale. It is hypothesized that poor performance on the Rhythm scale may reflect impaired auditory processing, which has a negative impact on the development of basic skills required for reading. A stepwise discriminant function analysis using the abbreviated battery correctly identified 84% of subjects. Evidence supporting discriminative validity of two methods of identifying RD children was found. Performance on an Experimental scale composed of nonreading items presumed to assess the integrity of areas of the brain mediating basic reading skills was no worse than on an equivalent randomly selected pool of items. The LNNB-CR may be a potentially valuable instrument for investigating neuropsychological differences between RD and normal children in that it provides relevant information to educators who must formulate remediation programs for RD children.

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This study extends three earlier investigations involving participants who completed their predoctoral clinical psychology internship at the William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute. Intern graduates (N = 37) evaluated how effectively their internship training prepared them for seven aspects of their current work as practicing psychologists. Participants also rated the relevancy of 24 different internship training experiences to their current work and how much these experiences contributed to their development as clinical psychologists. The present study, in conjunction with the three previous studies, covers most of the 40-year period since the inception of the internship program. Analysis of the current data indicates the internship has improved over time and was deemed an exceptional training experience by its graduates. Findings may be of particular interest to internship directors and faculty interested in improving their training program and those who plan to conduct a self-study to maintain their accreditation for clinical psychology internship.