The culturally relevant factors of ethnic identification, intergenerational support, and church support were investigated in relation to high-risk exposure on maladjustment in 147 urban African-American adolescents with mild mental retardation. The factors were associated with better adjustment and ethnic identification, which appeared to protect…

When parents are unavailable for their children, or simply do not know what to do when a youngster is experiencing an overwhelming stressor, the parent's response, or lack of, can compound the child's psychosocial difficulties. Even though some youngsters overcome the adversity of inadequate parenting, others cannot and consequently experience…

This descriptive study reports on the delivery of educational services to and resources for emotionally handicapped children in the city of New York. Data were gathered from observations of public and private programs and from interviews with administrative personnel from these programs. Section 1 provides an overview of the children, the law, and…

This document consists of a series of papers which describe components of a systematic research and development program at the Center at Oregon for Research in the Behavioral Education of the Handicapped (CORBEH). The presentations focus upon: (1) the development and use of a social interaction recording system supplying the major dependent…

The discussion of a series of questions with case illustrations delineates the problems and possibilities of helping retarded adults become valuable, productive members of society. Among topics considered are the definition of retarded adults in the community, the need for concern, and community evaluation and needs of the retarded adult. Also…

Background: Optimism and pessimism are positive and negative expectations linked with well-being in adults. Research on the importance of optimism and pessimism in children is limited by the lack of a developmentally appropriate measure of children's expectations. Method: Based upon the Life Orientation Test-Revised (Scheier, Carver, & Bridges,…

Project activities involved: (1) examination of exploratory measures of social incompetency of junior high school adolescents, (2) development and trial of educational units designed in response to problems in black urban schools, and (3) a compilation and review of cross-sectional Test of Social Inference (TSI) data. Extensive test data was…

Discusses the development of adolescent peer groups, student cultures, school violence, and effective interventions. Contends that the likelihood of violence increases when mediation boards and peer counseling are unavailable or ineffective. Includes a bibliography of 12 teacher resources on school violence. (CFR)

Three interdisciplinary centers administered an adjustment program for students with learning and behavior problems. Children referred were given development, visual perceptual, and diagnostic reading tests; were evaluated by medical and other specialists; and were placed in a diagnostic classroom for 2 weeks. Those judged to have gross…

Guided by a conceptual model linking discrepancies between parent and adolescent developmental expectations and adolescent adjustment and the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship, this study examined adolescent and parent beliefs about the age at which specific competencies should appear. Developmental timetables were grouped into…

This article examines interpersonal cognitive problem-solving (ICPS) skills. Based on more than 20 years of research on specific ICPS skills, intervention methods were developed to test the hypothesis that behavior can be modified by focusing on thinking processes rather than the behaviors themselves. The ICPS skills relate to high-risk behaviors…

Variations in amounts of nonparental care across infancy, preschool, early elementary school, and early adolescence were examined. Correlations among overall amounts of care provided little evidence of cross-time continuity; grade 1 self-care and grade 6 unsupervised peer contact incrementally predicted grade 6 problems; and most predictive…

Evaluated prevalence of the co-occurrence of depressive symptoms and conduct problems in a community sample of 10th-grade adolescents participating in a four-year longitudinal study. Found that early hostile parent behavior increased the probability of later occurrence and co-occurrence of elevated depressive symptoms and conduct problems, whereas…

This study was designed to determine if a 1-year structured social skills program would improve academic and interpersonal skills and attendance in young African American males. On a pre-assessment inventory, study participants, 33 fourth grade boys, demonstrated a variety of poor social skills such as poor attendance, poor interpersonal skills,…

Used a variety of family factors to predict development of children who averaged 30 hours of nonparental care per week for each month of their lives and of those who experienced no more than 10 hours of nonparental care per week. Multivariate analyses provided no evidence that family factors predicted outcomes differently for these two groups.…