The goals of the study were to examine the relations between maternal coping and hope among mothers who participated in early intervention program for their infants. Earlier studies focused attention on mothers' experiences of stress and their coping. Within the salutogenic construct, we aim at examining relations between mothers' coping and hope…

This preliminary study compares the family functioning, caregiver burden, and coping abilities between mothers of 300 children with developmental disorders and mothers of 100 children with no such disorders in the Bedouin community in Israel. The mothers completed the McMaster Family Assessment Device Scale, the Caregiver Burden Index, and the…

Drawing on early research on parental involvement and its effect on children's school functioning, it was hypothesized in this study that parents' educational involvement is positively related to two indicators of school functioning: academic self-competence and academic achievement. However, in light of research on the distinction between…

The purpose of this study was to determine some of the causes of the religious and spiritual changes that Orthodox Jewish youth seem to be experiencing as a result of their post high school year of study in Israel. Specific family factors that might influence the future religious and spiritual choices these students make were analyzed. In…

This qualitative study focused on research into the impact on parents of children's out-of-home placement. Twelve couples (24 parents) were interviewed. Three major themes emerged: (a) parents' perception of out-of-home placement as necessary because of children's destructive behavior and parents' victimhood; (b) parents' acknowledgment of…

This article investigates the contribution of maternal mediation in storybook reading, socioeconomic status (SES), and home literacy environment (HLE) to children's literacy level in kindergarten and first grade in Israeli Arabic-speaking families. A total of 109 kindergarten children and their mothers participated. Children's literacy level was…

The present article is the first to consider the impact of intellectual disability on Bedouin-Arab families' caregiver burden, family functioning, marital quality, and sense of coherence. A random sample of 300 Bedouin-Arab parents with one or more intellectually disabled children, and a control group (n = 100) completed the McMaster Family…

The study focuses on language and cognitive abilities of siblings of the linguistically most affected children with autism (i.e. siblings of nonverbal children--SIBS-ANV). Twenty-eight SIBS-ANV (17 boys), ages 4-9 years, took part in the study. All children attended regular schools, and none had received a diagnosis of autism. Controls were 27…

Positive and negative mood have often been considered indicators of wellbeing, affecting behavior and adjustment. This study evaluated the personal and familial predictors of positive and negative mood among 1,024 Israeli students (children with learning disabilities [LD]: 302 boys, 198 girls; children without LD: 308 boys, 216 girls). They were…

In Israel, the government partially supports personal home care services (grooming, feeding, assistance with transfers) as a means to maintain frail individuals in their home environment for as long as possible. Social workers capture a prominent position in these arrangements as initiators and supervisors of personal home care services. This…

The present study analyses the Family Language Policy (FLP) in regards language literacy development of children in Ethiopian immigrant families. Bridging the gap between linguistic literacy at home and at school hinders a smooth societal integration and a normative literacy development. This study describes the home literacy patterns shaped by…

Theories of socialization propose that children's ability to handle conflicts is learned at home through mechanisms of participation and observation--participating in parent-child conflict and observing the conflicts between parents. We assessed modes of conflict resolution in the parent-child, marriage, and peer-group contexts among 141 Israeli…

This article presents an in-depth, small-scale qualitative study of a Hebrew-Russian bilingual family with 8 children, and compares the parents' perspective on the family language policy with their children's evaluation of it. Spolsky's (2004, 2009) model of language policy enables tracing the development of the parents' language…

Posttraumatic stress and recovery were investigated among 820 adolescents living on the Israeli-Lebanese border 1 year after the Second Lebanon War of 2006. It was hypothesized that most adolescents would not report serious symptoms, whereas a minority would complain about high-level prolonged postwar symptoms. Another minority would indicate…

Objective: The aim of this qualitative research was to understand how runaway girls perceive the processes involved in leaving home and the meaning they attribute to it. Method: Findings are based on in-depth interviews with 10 Israeli girls aged 13-17 with a history of running away from home. Results: The meaning of running away as it emerged…