Last summer Congress passed the new GI Bill, and the president signed it into law. Americans can take great pride in such a program, one that helps veterans attend college after they return home. However, few are aware that many of those veterans will also encounter a variety of non-financial problems that require substantial adjustment as they…

Nearly four months after Hurricane Katrina laid waste to their hometown, Jonathan and Shelley Midura are packing up the family's van and heading back from this Washington suburb to New Orleans. They just have to figure out where their three children will go to school. In this article the family shares their thoughts and feelings on changing…

Experts have long suggested that re-establishing routines, particularly school routines, can be therapeutic for children who have experienced upheaval in their home lives. This article briefly describes an 8th grader's experience with this, after losing her home to Hurricane Katrina and having her life moved to suburban Washington.

We highlight major themes emerging from the articles in this special issue. These themes include (a) the importance of theoretical frameworks and clearly defined constructs for guiding the development of interventions, (b) a consideration of intervention effects on ethnic minority children, (c) the importance of positive social interactions and…

School adjustment and achievement are at the heart of a child's development. Both are influenced by a myriad of factors that are complex and interconnected. For children with difficulties, school psychologists are integral to the assessment of those diverse factors and to the implementation of intervention strategies that help those children…

The author relates that she was an introvert child. It has always taken her time and energy to find her place in a group. As a grown-up, she still needed quiet time to regroup during a busy day. In this article, the author presents an interview with Marti Olsen Laney, author of "The Hidden Gifts of the Introverted Child." During the interview,…

Fitting in and being liked by peers is important to children of all ages. It is unrealistic to expect such a young child to be satisfied with national or ethnic pride, at the price of having close friends. In the best school situations, children achieve a realistic balance between feeling they belong with their peer group and retaining pride and…

Describes the author's personal experience as a blind student at the Living Skills Center for the Visually Impaired, a transition program in San Pablo, California, and at college. Also describes a curriculum developed to help students with visual impairments make the transition to college. (DB)

Developmental advising is the process of helping nontraditional students adjust to academic life, seek individual growth, and set goals. Advisors should use all campus and community resources in helping nontraditional students. (SK)

In this article, the author presents the story of a teacher struggling to help one of her students who is constantly clinging to her. The author provides several tips for teachers on how they can deal with anxious children. If the teacher has an aid, she could consider sending the assistant out to the playground with the group for a while, the…

In this article, the author states that no matter how experienced and exposed to life college freshmen may appear, no matter how sophisticated they may seem, they are vulnerable and unsure of themselves a lot of the time. The child in them grapples with the emerging adult; they are eager to enter adulthood but understandably fearful of what they…

This paper argues that transitions, such as the transfer from primary to secondary school, are particularly significant with regard to exploring changes in identity and construction of self. A particular identity (seen as the way the self is represented and understood by an individual and by others) may be viable in one setting and not in another.…

Argues that quality children's literature depicting positive and negative aspects of school can be an important resource in helping children adjust to new experiences in the classroom. Contains a list of American books dealing with the school experience.(FL)

One possible solution to the problem academic advising is to conceive of it not as the singular province of any one group, whether teaching faculty or counselors. Advising is seen as not the activity of teachers only, but as an integral part of teaching. (MLW)

The article presents a personal profile of the many adjustment problems facing a physically handicapped seventh-grader who had spent the previous six years in a special school and was now being mainstreamed into a regular junior high, and how it affected his family. (DLS)