Abstracts - Spring 2002

THEORETICAL AND RESEARCH ARTICLES

4 Can a Computer Interface Support Self-explaining?
Robert G.M. Hausmann, M.S. and Michelene T.H. Chi, Ph.D.

15 Three Tiered Technique: A Pyramiding Study Skills Process for the Cognitively Impaired Student
Sharon R. Menaldino, Ed.D.

20 Memory Overload: The Effects of Amount of Information, Rate of Presentation, and Reorganization
David Burrows, Ph.D.

31 Evaluating Awareness - A Rating Scale and its Uses
Rebecca Martin-Schull, M.A., CPCRT and Robert Nilsen, B.A.

38 Issues Related to School Re-entry Following Traumatic Brain Injury
Anju A. Vaidya, M.Ed.

Abstracts - Spring 2002

Can a Computer Interface Support Self-explaining?
Robert G.M. Hausmann, M.S.
Michelene T.H. Chi, Ph.D.
University of Pittsburgh

Previous research has shown that when an experimenter or a tutor prompts students to self-explain orally, generating such self-explanations is effective for learning. If self-explanations are readily produced by prompting, then it would be trivial to implement an automated prompting system using a computer interface. In an attempt to replicate previous research using a human prompter with spoken self-explanations, two experiments were designed using a computer prompter with typed self-explanations. The first experiment tested the effectiveness of spontaneously typed self-explaining while using a computer interface without prompting. The results showed that the amount of self-explaining was surprisingly low, given the amount observed in past research. Typing seems to have caused the students to paraphrase the materials instead. The second experiment tested the effectiveness of an automatic computer prompter, as compared to a human prompter using the same interface. Automatic prompting was just as effective as human prompting, and prompting did increase the amount of typed self-explanations and learning.

Three Tiered Technique: A Pyramiding Study Skills Process for the Cognitively Impaired Student
Sharon R. Menaldino, Ed.D.
Moss Rehabilitation Hospital

Title VI of The Civil Rights Act of 1964 became the prototype for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Scotch, 1984). This is a comprehensive statute designed to insure that disabled persons are able to acquire rehabilitation training and education, access to public buildings and transportation, and employment opportunities (Kelly, 1982). Congress passed Section 504 in September 1973 to protect individuals with physical and mental impairments. It restricted funding to those institutions that supported discriminatory practices.
One result of this legislation was a change in the student enrollment on college and university campuses. Those with recognizable disabilities became more visible. Such groups were followed in the late 70s and into the 80s by students with learning disabilities who required additional support networks. These cognitively impaired students matriculated into degree-granting programs as well as non-credit courses.

Memory Overload: The Effects of Amount of Information, Rate of Presentation, and Reorganization
David Burrows, Ph.D.
Beloit College

Participants in five experiments were given recognition memory tasks designed to create performance at levels well below optimum. In experiments 1, 2, and 3, expansion of memory lists led to gradual degradations in objective levels of performance and gradual increases in perceived stress and loss of efficiency. In experiment 4, a rate of presentation manipulation lowered performance without affecting the gradual nature of list expansion effects. In experiment 5, reorganization of memory through a deletion procedure led to severe declines in performance that rapidly approached chance levels. The results have implications for understanding which variables lead to rapid onset of memory dysfunction and which variables lead to more gradual performance decrements.

Evaluating Awareness - A Rating Scale and its Uses
Rebecca Martin-Schull, M.A., CPCRT
Media Providence Friends School
Robert Nilsen, B.A.
Progressive Living Units and Systems, Inc. (PLUS)

Deficits in awareness are often the sequelae of traumatic brain injury. Development of awareness is a major key to survivors' continued gains in rehabilitation. However, tools are needed to measure and define such development. This paper describes such a tool - the 26-item, untimed Martin Awareness Rating Scale (MARS) used to identify and quantify survivors' Intellectual, Emergent and Anticipatory awareness as applied to four areas of function. The use of both a rating to be completed by clinical team members and a survivor self-rating is described, as are the Awareness Rating Summary form and the Graph of Mean Scores which compile and compare these ratings. Other measures, such as number of "matches," which can be extracted from the awareness rating data are also discussed.

Issues Related to School Re-entry Following Traumatic Brain Injury
Anju A. Vaidya, M.Ed.
DuPont Hospital for Children

Every year in the United States, thousands of children sustain traumatic brain injury (TBI) that result from motor vehicle accidents (MVA), falls, sports injuries, as pedestrians and abuse (Rosen & Gerring, 1986). Statistically, the largest group of individuals with TBI is between the ages of 15 and 24 (Savage, 1991). A major goal for children and adolescents who have sustained a TBI is to return to school. By the time moderately or severely brain injured students return to school they are likely to have endured a lengthy and arduous hospitalization and/or rehabilitation process. Both the survivor of TBI and the family may have undergone many life alterations. Memories, experiences, and expectations may be permanently disrupted.