Research with older persons suffering from physical illness presents numerous challenges to gerontologists. Issues of conceptualization pertaining to the definition of illness, its location in the research paradigm, and the context in which illness occurs must be addressed prior to dealing with methodological problems. Access to physically ill…

General data on suicide among the elderly are available but the trends and levels often have been either ignored or misrepresented. Available data indicate that despite declines, suicide rates in the United States remain highest in old age. Impediments to understanding elderly suicide occur due to omissions in available national data bases.…

Health communication, gerontology/geriatrics, and the interdisciplinary team approach to health care are considered together in this paper as a critical field for communication research. The first section of the paper offers a definition of interdisciplinary health care teams, then reviews their goals, composition, history and training. The second…

Attribution theory and gerontology would be enriched by the application of a life-span approach to attribution, involving increased attention to the age of the stimulus person and developmental factors associated with self-attribution. In studies on achievement attributions about older people, chronological age appears to be a more salient cue for…

To investigate the coping skills and adaptational outcomes among elderly survivors of the holocaust and a comparison group of aged individuals who did not endure extreme stress requires overcoming several methodological challenges. First, stress must be defined to include the personal meaning or evaluation of the sources of stress and its…

These proceedings contain the texts of the following 44 papers: "Adult Development in Midlife, Childless Women" (Rita Keneipp); "Analysis of the Relationship between Cognitive Style (Field Dependence-Field Independence) and Level of Learning" (Eugene Tootle); "Reconceptualizing Adult Education Participation" (Peter Cookson); "Adulthood:…

This document contains the following papers on practical applications of research on adult and continuing education: "Elderly Criminal Behavior: Linking Research to Practice," by Donald J. Bachand and Carl I. Brahce; "Father? Teacher? Friend? Instructor-Student Relationships in a Refugee Class," by Gary J. Bekker; "The Small Group: Understanding…

This document contains 33 papers from a conference on research in adult, continuing, and community education. Representative papers include the following: "Highlander Folk School: A Commune Based on Intellectual Property" (Keith B. Armstrong, Donna J. Martin); "Women, Welfare and Mandated Education: An Analysis of Single Mothers'…

These proceedings consist of 44 presentations in these categories: distance education and evaluation; community issues and research; multicultural issues and research; teaching and learning; research methods; and organizational development. The papers are "Philosophical Foundations of Andragogy and Self-Directed Learning" (Alfred);…