This study examined relationships between the caregiving environment, severity of disability, and several aspects of family ecology for 102 adolescents with disabilities. Family ecology variables included poverty status, parental intelligence, social support, and marital quality. The disability categories were mental retardation; orthopedic…

The analysis presented here focuses on different problem situations extracted from everyday interactions in which individual developmental changes of the child interfere with well-established interaction patterns of the family. These problem situations require conjoint mastery of two objectives: (a) successful integration of the child into the…

Rural regional planning that will satisfy man's real needs, and not merely those of an economic nature, must take into consideration all factors, all possible interactions, and most important of all, those values which cannot be expressed in terms of money. The report details the functions and problems of rural areas revealed by analyses of rural…

This study introduced and demonstrated a new methodology for item and test bias studies: moderated differential item functioning (DIF). This technique expands the DIF methodology to incorporate contextual and sociological variables as moderating effects of the DIF. The study explored differential domain functioning (DDF), so that the focus of…

This presentation describes research on families with mentally retarded children, focusing on trends since 1983, the year that family research issues were reconceptualized in a paper titled "A Model of Stress, Coping, and Family Ecology" by Keith Crnic and others. The trend analysis concentrates on four issues: (1) the magnitude of the impact of…

Psychologists' roles are changing and expanding in many ways. In the next decade, psychologists will probably continue their involvement away from the clinic and into the community. Deinstitutionalization should create many new opportunities for psychologists, particularly in the areas of community support system coordination and service…

Current economic and political problems and the unclear nature of human services delivery systems create problems for the application of an ecological perspective in planning services for children with emotional disturbances. During conservative periods, the ecological approach, which emphasizes the role of environment, is generally replaced by…

This paper discusses how the health care needs of underserved children, particularly urban children, can be met through an ecological model of health care. Ecoprimary care, infant mortality, and the experiences of King/Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles (California), an example of maximization of resources, are described. (SLD)

The psychometric integrity of a measure of ecological stress in families with children who are handicapped was investigated using bootstrap factor analytic logic and the FACSTRAP program. The instrument is known as the Questionnaire on Resources and Stress--Friedrich short form. Subjects included both parents (N=132) in each of 66 intact families.…

Members of a group of hospitalized children under 4 years of age (48 under care for child abuse, 97 for accidents, 41 for failure to thrive, and 23 for ingestions) were matched individually on age, social class, and race with controls suffering from comparable acute medical conditions. A structured maternal and paternal interview yielded 63…

Depression is the single most widespread mental health problem facing the elderly, with pharmacotherapy the most frequent standard treatment modality for these patients. A psycho-therapeutic alternative to pharmacotherapy is Life Enhancement Counseling, a counseling approach matching therapeutic techniques to client characteristics and providing…

One hundred and eighty school personnel held a workshop with representatives of the petroleum, natural gas, and electrical power industries. The objectives of the workshop were (1) to provide participants with a common body of knowledge and a common understanding of the energy crisis and its implications for the public schools, (2) to delineate…

This paper summarizes the findings of a series of studies on the effects of "ecological variables" on mother-father-sibling-infant interactions. Under consideration were: (1) the effects of stress on the parental preferences of young infants; (2) the effects of the presence of one parent on the interactions within the other parent-infant dyad; (3)…

Assessment in early childhood special education should go beyond diagnosis of the child in isolation and include evaluation of the child using an ecological perspective. The ecological perspective assesses interactions of the child with significant people in the environment such as parents and teachers. Three aspects of ecological early childhood…

There has been a resurgence of interest in human ecosystems, attributable to the growth of community mental health centers and public sector funding. The first of two papers discusses human ecology models based on this resurgence. Implications for future development of the mental health area are presented with the challenge to integrate…