Youth who experienced abuse may have significant differences from non-abused youth in social and academic development. Often research including abused adolescents focuses on youth in foster care, which limits the ability to generalize findings outside the foster care population. The current study compared social development and educational…

This study examined the influence of the family environment, day care in the infant's first year, and the fit between child characteristics and the caregiving context as correlates of children's social behavior. Subjects were 39 Caucasian infants and their mothers and caregivers. Mothers and caregivers were asked to rate children's behavior on a…

The perceptual process involved in parental guidance and discipline of children may be sensitive to distortion by aversive environmental conditions. Married couples (N=24) completed a written interview to examine the relationship between exposure to disruptive life-events and a parent's ability to discern different types of child misbehaviors.…

Focusing on relationships between children's behavioral responses and family characteristics, this exploratory, descriptive, and retrospective study investigated bereaved children's responses to the death of a sibling from cancer and examines those responses in relationship to selected individual, situational, and environmental characteristics.…

Childhood aggression is among the most common and least transitory of childhood dysfunctions. Mother-only families have higher rates of childhood aggression than do intact, father-present homes. The effect of father presence and father absence on the aggressive behavior of family members was examined, along with the behavior patterns in families…

Children in a longitudinal high-risk infant follow-up program were evaluated at age 5 to determine whether they demonstrated behavior problems or cognitive deficits exceeding expectations based on conditions in their home environments. Normal expectations were determined through regression analyses on a group of age-matched controls. All high-risk…

This paper on the behavioral manifestations of child sexual abuse first reviews previous research concerning child variables, parent/family variables, sexual abuse in combination with other maltreatment, and physiological outcomes. Criteria for future research are offered and specific research needs in the areas of developmental progression,…

This study examined the psychosocial adjustment of young children who were living in families where domestic violence had occurred, and presented implications for early childhood teachers. The research data were collected in a structured interview with 54 mothers who had at least 1 child between 3 and 6 years of age. These women had left a violent…

Individual symptoms of psychological disorders are often related to general familial conflicts; a psychologically conspicuous individual cannot become healthy as long as family life is deeply troubled. To explore this belief, parents' concepts about their children's behavior were examined. Forty-four parents, who were either involved with a family…

Helping disruptive students successfully complete high school and learn how to develop self-control is a challenge for the school, parents, and society. Some of the specific family characteristics associated with disruptive behavior in the classroom and school are examined here. Parents of 105 adolescent males, who ranged in age from 15 to 17,…

This study examined the importance of several parental factors in shaping the outcome of a behavioral treatment program for children with autism based on the work of O. Ivar Lovaas. The Lovaas approach remediates behavior problems through the redesign of the household environment. Respondents to a questionnaire sent to 18 families were 3 mothers…

Researchers have pointed out that the effects of generic stressors such as poverty may be mediated through other stressors in the microsystem of parent-child relationships or personal characteristics of family members. Specific, potential mediating stressors were sought in this study involving 191 low income Moslem families who had immigrated from…

Because little was known about children with behavior problems in the public schools of the Republic of Panama, researchers studied 100 Panamanian third-grade students with behavior problems. Most subjects were male, scored low on intelligence and achievement measures, and were from low income families. Variables investigated included behavior,…

In this study, the nature of the home environment, the characteristics of the parent/child interaction, parents' childrearing orientations, and parents' self-descriptions were examined prior to divorce (while the families were still intact) and then again following divorce. The sample consisted of families recruited from an ongoing longitudinal…

This study tracked parental stress among 115 mothers of infants and toddlers with disabilities to evaluate patterns of stability and change in parental adaptation during the early childhood period. Parents were given the Parenting Stress Index three times: upon entry into an early intervention program, 1 year later, and when the child reached age…