Twenty families in the San Francisco Bay area (California) with new Atari home video game sets were studied from February through June 1981 to obtain data on how the game-playing affected family interaction. Records of play were kept for one week each month and each family member was interviewed at the beginning and the end of the study. It was…

This study was aimed at measuring the relative contribution of life events (potential stressors) and social support to the use of coercive control behaviors by mothers. Social support was measured both in terms of mothers' embeddedness in their social environment and of their preceived lack of support. Conflictual relationships were also…

This study was undertaken to identify the relative contribution of personal and environmental variables to the reported frequency of use of coercive control behaviors in a nonclinical sample of mothers. Seventy mothers of 6- to 8-year-old children participated; half were from single-parent families. Results of analysis of variance indicate that…

The nature of human interaction, particularly within the context of family, is necessarily complex due to the multitude of characteristics which influence the individual's intention toward the other, as well as the characteristics and effects of interaction as a function of the co-construction of meaning between interactants. This paper delineates…

A socioeconomic status (SES) and social support questionnaire was administered to the families of 559 singleton infants in a National Institute of Health collaborative study conducted at five university medical centers. A subset of six items measuring both SES and social support (which accounted for 87 percent of the common variance) was developed…

An important concern related to the increase in numbers of home computers is the integration of technology into the family system. This paper defines a theoretical perspective and research strategies from which to assess gender-related perceptions surrounding home computer use. The perspective is drawn from B. Bernstein's (1971, 1973) notions of…

Evidence is accumulating that experiences of children within the violent family are fundamental causes of the continuing problem of family and societal violence. To examine attitudes and values as a function of experience with family violence, 114 male undergraduate students completed a questionnaire assessing general demographics, and several…

Summarizes ideas on five main issues presented at the World Conference on Computers in Education held in Norfolk, Virginia, in August 1985: impact of transferring practical information processing to technology; size of devices; information technology costs; computers at home, in public schools, and universities; and information technology's impact…

This study compares various approaches for incorporating family risk factors in explanatory models of children's achievement over the first 4 years of school. Living in poverty, in a single-parent household, in a household whose primary home language is non-English, and having a mother with less than a high school diploma are well-known risk…

Twenty-four children (aged 7-16 years) with seizure disorders (SD) were compared to 30 children with diabetes mellitus (DB) and 30 children with no chronic illness. Using a variety of assessment devices, the children were compared on intelligence, academic achievement, attention, memory, perceived competence, and parents' perceptions of child and…

This study addresses three questions: (1) whether sex is related to ability and interest in computers; (2) whether a relationship exists between the presence of a computer in the home and a child's ability and interest in computing; and (3) the combination of factors that account for students' perceptions of success in developing programming…

To determine whether support systems ameliorated the impact of divorce on family stress and child adjustment, the present study examined the availability to divorced families of various support systems, including the extended family, church, work, and community groups. Specifically, the study addressed the impact of parental support systems on…

Data from observations, parent questionnaires, and child interviews were collected from 36 preschool children and their parents for this investigation of the relationships between preschool children's play patterns at home and at school, and variables from the home environment. In addition, comparisons were made between: (1) mothers' responses to…

Parental communication, particularly in the areas of cognitive clarity and affect, has been implicated in the etiology of psychiatric disorders in children. This paper reports a method for studying Healthy Features in parental communication, aspects of verbal style that counteract a child's exposure to genetic and social environmental risk…

Within a longitudinal design, the present study assessed parental attitudes, quality of stimulation in the environment, historical factors, and children's temperament to identify determinants of cognitive ability at 54 months. Children (n=147) were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: a center-based intervention, a home-based…