This article introduces the construct of personal talent curation. "Personal talent curation" is one's assessment of one's talents--of one's strengths and weaknesses--but also the building of an adaptive match in life between those talents and both one's career pursuits and one's personal lifestyle. Sometimes, this match means pursuing a…

Many autistic people and people with non-spectrum neurodevelopmental disabilities (e.g. intellectual disability) report feeling lonely, which can negatively impact their well-being. There is little longitudinal research, however, tracking changes in how autistic people experience, conceptualize, and cope with loneliness throughout their lives. A…

The current study aimed to examine posttraumatic growth (PTG) after earthquake victimization. Variables that may be related to PTG were examined by using Model of Life Crises and Personal Growth (Schaefer & Moos, 1992). In order to examine PTG, the roles of demographic variables, event-related variables, environmental factors, system factors,…

Background: The transition to adult life for those leaving foster care is a multidimensional phase of their personal development. Care leavers' life outcomes are poorer in education, employment, income, housing and parenthood compared with their peers from the general population. They suffer more than other youngsters from mental health and…

Adults need certain capabilities to get and keep a job, provide responsive care for children, manage a household, and contribute productively to the community. When these skills have not developed as they should, or are compromised by the stresses of poverty or other ongoing adversity, our communities pay the price. But where do these capabilities…

The first year of college constitutes a time of substantial transition for incoming students. Clearly, students vary greatly in their ability to cope with and adjust to these new challenges, and some students face far more challenges than others. A potentially important resource for successfully accomplishing this life transition is positive…

This article had four goals. First, the authors identified a set of general challenges and questions that a life-span theory of development should address. Second, they presented a comprehensive account of their Motivational Theory of Life-Span Development. They integrated the model of optimization in primary and secondary control and the…

In "Speaking of Faith," radio journalist Krista Tippett recalls the time when she began to recognize the hypocrisy and contradictions in the behavior of the people around her. Tippett's experience is not only far from unusual, it is formative. It led her to make some important decisions in her life, including the desire never to live a life of…

The dominant model of posttraumatic growth (PTG) suggests that growth is precipitated by significant challenges to one's identity or to core assumptions that give one's life meaning, and develops as one goes through meaning-making or schema reconstruction processes. Other perspectives suggest, however, that such growth occurs by other means. We…

Wisdom is considered one ideal endpoint of human development across cultures. Studies have provided evidence for certain facilitating conditions such as challenging and stressful life events because they increase differentiation through accommodative changes, resulting in greater tolerance for uncertainty, and less projection tendencies and…

Used two retrospective measures of childhood stress to evaluate divorcing adults' (N=333) progress through the transition initiated by marital separation. Found the stress measures to have satisfactory reliability. Their relationship to indicators of transitional status suggests that exposure to early conditions of stress may affect how well…

This study analyzed the lifespan development of 80 women who are contemporary creative writers. Themes in the women writers' lives were characterized by developmental events, including nurturing of talents by both male and female teachers and mentors; professional situations; and core personality/personal attributes that were similar to men…

The Resiliency Scale (C. Jew, 1992) is a recently developed measure intended to assess an individual's level of three facets of resiliency (optimism, skill acquisition, and risk-taking). Separate exploratory factor analyses with three diverse groups have led to definition of subscales bearing some similarities. In this study, items comparable…

Whereas aggressive multimodal therapies are responsible for improved survival rates of children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer, concern has grown regarding the potential for adverse and delayed developmental effects resulting from these treatments. In light of this concern, this study assessed 207 adult survivors of childhood cancer in…

The project, "Learning Disabilities--Community Advocacy, Support, Employment, Education" (LD-CASE), was initiated to expand the personal/social, educational, and employment options of individuals with learning disabilities. The project is designed to provide LD adults with experiences that will increase their self-advocacy skills, establish…