The Behavior Modification Helps A Child With Separation...

Introduction ABA offers many techniques to help people overcome and/or deal with everyday activities such as helping someone to quit smoking, help with building relationships, personality disorders and the ability to express one’s self. ABA when applied to children will address the child’s life in areas that include; social skills, cognitive skills, self-help, play and motor skills, and behavioral needs. ABA in the workplace can be used to increase desired behaviors and decrease undesired behaviors through use of positive and negative reinforcements. In the Case of Emily and that of Mr. Smith I will attempt to go over how Behavior modification can help a child with Separation anxiety behaviors and a company owner having difficulties with†¦show more content†¦Separation Anxiety can be defined as crying, clinging, tantruming, complaining when having to separate from parent(s); sleep difficulties and refusal of going to school. A commonly used diagnostic interview for the assessment of SAD is the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders-Revised (SCARED-R). The SCARED-R contains 66-items measuring all DSM-IV anxiety disorders occurring in children and adolescents, including 8-items assessing SAD specifically (Ehrenreich, Santucci, Weiner, 2009). Children exhibiting SAD symptoms become significantly distressed when separated from their home or attachment figure (usually a parent) and will often take measures to avoid separation. This fear is exhibited through disproportionate and persistent worry about separation, including apprehension about harm befalling a parent or the child when they are not together, as well as fear that the parent will leave and never return. Avoidance behaviors commonly associated with SAD include clinging to parents, crying or tantruming, and refusal to participate in activities that require separation (e.g., play dates, camp, sleepovers). (Ehrenreich, Santucci, Weiner, 2009). Inadvertent reinforcement is unintentional act of rewarding a bad behavior. In Emily’s case her parents may have inadvertently reinforced Emily s

Eating Disorders Anorexia Nervosa - 1724 Words

Eating disorders are characterized by a high preoccupation with weight and an intense dissatisfaction with one’s body image (Institute of Psychiatry, 2015). Some of the most common Eating Disorders (EDs) include Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia, and Binge Eating Disorder, however it is important to note that not everyone fits neatly into any of these categories and could display symptoms and behaviors interchangeably. People who suffer from Anorexia Nervosa can be characterized as having very low body weight and being involved in various weight loss activities including being highly food-restrictive and possibly over-exercising (Mascolo et al., 2012). Anorexia also has the highest mortality rate among all the mental illnesses, which includes†¦show more content†¦Victims of EDs show low levels of self-esteem, high feelings of shame due to social stigmas as well as the behaviors themselves, and depression, or denial. All of these could explain why many people who suffer from EDs keep their problems a secret from family and friends, therefore increasing the severity of the effects of the disorders. It is also rather difficult to diagnose someone with an ED because most of the symptoms can be mistaken for other diseases (Chelvanayagam Newell, 2015). Eating disorders have been linked to other serious disorders such as anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and social phobias. Commonalities in symptoms of EDs have been liked to other serious illnesses such as ADHD, Asperger’s, bipolar disorder, distortion of sense of self, and schizophrenia (Hausswolff-Juhlin et al., 2015). The neurobiology of eating relies on two brain functions: the homeostatic system allows us to know when the body needs an intake of food by letting it know that it’s hungry and when it is full (ghrelin and other peptides are included in this mechanism) when the body has been deprived of needed nutrients it gets an intense urge to get them, which can explain binge-eating and causes a chemical imbalance in the brain. The other is a hedonic mechanism that allows us to crave food and feel pleasure when eating and is impacted by our previous experiences of food and

Hiv The Search For A Vaccine Essay Example For Students

Hiv: The Search For A Vaccine Essay In 1985, over 10,000 cases of AIDS were reported worldwide (White and Fenner 1986). Just over a decade later, in 1998, the Global AIDS Policy Coalition estimated that 30.6 million people were infected with HIV worldwide. It has also been projected that by the year 2000, between 40 and 70 million adults will be infected with HIV (New Generation Vaccines 1997). Over 90% of all HIV-1 infected individuals live in developing nations: 50% in Southeast Asia and 40% in sub-Saharan Africa. However, even with all of these alarming statistics and projections, there is hope for the future of humanity. This hope is a potential anti-AIDS vaccine. An anti-AIDS vaccine is the best bet. Among other factors, the large costs associated with therapeutic drugs do not allow many AIDS patients receive them. This is especially true in the developing nations, constituting over 90% of all HIV infections worldwide (Bloom 1995). Before discussing the development of a potential vaccine, it is imperative to briefly discuss characteristics of HIV itself and also the immune system that these vaccines would target. HIV, a retrovirus from the Lentivirus subfamily, contains ssRNA nucleic acid. Some of its other characteristics include: an icosahedron capsid, various enzymes (including reverse transcriptase), and envelope with the glycoproteins gp 120, gp 41, and gp160. The genes of HIV-1 can be placed into 3 general categories: structural, regulatory, and accessory genes. The structural genes include gag, pol, and env. The regulatory genes include tat and rev. The accessory genes are nef, vpr, vpu, and vif (Vaccines 1999). There are two major branches to the immune system in primates: a humoral or adaptive branch and a cell-mediated or innate branch. The cell-mediated immune response operates through MHC I via CD8+ (cytotoxic T cells). Antibodies are not secreted through this branch of the immune system, and the cell-mediated immune response generally targets viruses and other intracellular antigens. The humoral immune response operates through MHC II via CD4+ (helper T cells). The humoral branch secretes antibodies, which generally target extracellular antigens like bacteria and fungi. There are many obstacles in the way of HIV vaccine development. First, since HIV often mutates its surface glycoprotein (gp120), it has many strains, and the immune response cannot target all of the possible strains. The genetic diversity among HIV-1 strains is also do to an error-prone reverse transcriptase enzyme, as well as recombination. The second obstacle is the lack of an inexpensive, suitable animal for testing the efficiency of an HIV-1 vaccine. Chimps, baboons, and gibbons can be infected with HIV, however they are endangered and cost between $60,000 and $100,000 each. These animals are also unable of assessing a vaccines ability to prevent disease, since infected chimps do not develop AIDS (New Generation Vaccines 1997). SCID mice have given optimism to the search for a practical animal model. SCID mice are mice that have been populated with human T cells. When these mice are presented with HIV, the human T cells in the mice become infected. These mice have already helped researchers find therapeutic levels of AZT and ddI for humans (Kuby 1997). There are several characteristics for an ideal HIV vaccine. First, the vaccine should be inexpensive. This would enable developing nations to have access to it. Secondly, the vaccine should be able to evoke a strong response from both the humoral and the cell-mediated immune branches. Finally, the vaccine should be effective against multiple strains of HIV (Vaccine Strategies 1997). There are five potential vaccine candidates that will be discussed: whole inactivated vaccines, live attenuated vaccines, live recombinant vector vaccines, subunit vaccines, and naked DNA vaccines. Who Killed Jon Benet Ramsey EssayInitially, whole inactivated vaccines looked as if they protected macaques from SIV infection. However, it was later discovered that the macaque immune response was actually responding to xenoantigens (Vaccines 1999). This vaccine is no longer considered a serious candidate for human vaccines, because of this early failure in chimps and safety concerns. Most vaccines are live attenuated vaccines. This type of vaccine weakens the pathogen in an attempt to eliminate its virulence while allowing it to still infect the host. Examples of live attenuated vaccines include measles, mumps, rubella, and polio. The virus can infect cells and grow for a limited time before .

Smoking Essays (1096 words) - Smoking, Tobacco Smoking,

Smoking Smoking 1 The Effects of a Mindfulness Manipulation on Adolescent Smoking Evidence suggests that smoking cigarettes increases the likelihood of suffering from heart disease, emphysema, lung cancer, high blood pressure, and premature aging. The smoker is also at risk of many short-term health consequences such as chronic cough, yellow teeth, and unpleasant breath. Smoking is an expensive habit that can cost up to 1500 dollars per year if the individual smokes a pack per day. Tobacco industries direct 90% of recommendation their cigarette advertisements toward today's youth, hoping to hook another young adolescent into their money making scheme. Onset of smoking in children occurs at an early age due to a number of factors that include pro-social smoking advertisements, peer, and even antismoking campaigns such as DARE. Primary prevention techniques that attempt to stop the behavior before it starts are effective because children are still young enough to be molded and influenced accordingly by the proper role-models (i.e. peers and parents). Preventative measures, such as informational campaigns are ineffective because they are unrealistic and fail to emphasize on the here and now. These measures focus on the future health risks that may occur 20 or 30 years down the line, which is much to long for a twelve-year-old to concern himself about. Adolescents also believe that they are invincible and therefore not subject to the health risks of all other smokers. For a young adolescent, life is still novel and carefree. The health risks of smoking are not part of a twelve-year-olds mindset-at least not until he or she is grandpa's age. DARE programs are also ineffective because they simply restate health risks that adolescents are already aware or that do not mean anything to them. DARE also suggests that smoking is Smoking 2 a common habit difficult to resist when tempted. Fear manipulations lack preventative power because many of the health risks of smoking are long term-thus for a young teenager-what out of sight is out of mind. Fear manipulations are unrealistic simply because of the waiting period before the onset of disease. Norms also place a heavy influence on adolescent smoking. Early teens spend most of their time with peers, rather than parents. Mom and Dad play more of a secondary role during the teen years. It makes sense that young teens are easily persuaded by their peer group simply because the greater part of the day is spent interacting with them. Parents do not become the active roll model until dinner time for a few hours until lights out. Research by Cialdini suggests that programs that inadvertently portray smoking as common are providing a pro-smoking descriptive norm. Descriptive norms are those norms that most people engage in; whereas injunctive norms are those behaviors that people say are right or wrong. If a youngster believes that smoking is common and normal, he or she may say If everyone else does it, so will I. The question to be address is what can be done to motivate healthy behavior. Hypocrisy manipulations have been used in the past to decrease the frequency of unwanted behaviors. Hypocrisy manipulations promote behavior change because they motivate a person to think about their inconsistencies. Our goal of this study is to modify the hypocrisy manipulation to incorporate the power of injunctive norms against smoking. By doing this we hope to reduce adolescents' perception of the prevalence of smoking. In that perceptions of prevalence play such an important role in the decision to smoke, a focus on injunctive norms against smoking Smoking 3 should be influential in later decisions to smoke. We plan to use a hypocrisy manipulation but modify it by providing the adolescent participants with specific guidelines for their videotaped messages. Method Participants Participants were 186 eighth grade students from nine different health classes at Stafford Middle School. All students were required to obtain a signed parental consent form (see appendix A) in order participate in our study. As an incentive for maximum participation, each health class was informed that if 95% of the consent form were returned, the students would be entitle to a free pizza party. Ninety-two boys and 63 girls completed and returned their consent forms giving a total of 155 participants. Procedure During each health class,