The paper reviews the relevant literature and discusses the nature of Chicano concerns in regard to the implementation of legislation mandating developmental assessment of poor children. (Author/CL)

This investigation is a follow-up of the subsequent psychiatric histories of children who did or did not participate in a preventively oriented school mental health program. Early detected vulnerable children were found to have disproportionately high later appearances in a community-wide psychiatric register. Retrospective analyses of the…

Assessment of behavior disorders and emotional disturbances in children is difficult to achieve because a generally recognized classification system does not exist, definitions of emotional disturbance are not clear, incidence figures vary, and many hypotheses are available. A multidimensional approach to assessment is recommended. (Author/CP)

The effect of the mentally retarded child on the family was examined by a structured interview technique on a sample of 80 Australian families. Results suggested that parents be given the information earlier and that fathers be included in this crucial interview. (DB)

This study used a quasi-experimental design to examine the effect of being diagnosed with a learning disability on elementary school children's self-esteem. Findings indicated that self-esteem increased significantly above prediagnosis of a learning disability while self-esteem levels in a control group of children without learning disabilities…

Though no identifiable demographic or family characteristics of a child exclude the possibility that a child has been sexually abused, some characteristics are associated with greater risk: female gender, preadolescents and early adolescents, having a stepfather, living without a natural parent, having an impaired mother, poor parenting, or…

An Australian psychiatrist reviews the history of child abuse, especially trends in the last 20 years. Issues addressed include a lack of standards for the diagnosis of maltreatment, lack of knowledge concerning effective prevention, high rates of worker burnout and turnover, and decision making by unqualified workers. (DB)

Background: Gender bias has been reported in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with a variety of illnesses. In the context of our 10-station fourth year Objective Structured Clinical Evaluation, we queried whether this could influence diagnosis in a geriatric case. Case writers hypothesized that, due to this bias, the female standardized…

The report examines reasons for widely different proportions of handicapped children identified in 24 local school districts across six states and surveys the implementation of special education programs in those districts. Interviews are said to have been conducted with over 1000 persons, including students, teachers, parents, administrators, and…

Presented are the findings of the 1976 Chapel Hill Study of the Region IV status of services to Head Start handicapped children. Brief introductory sections cover the roles of various Region IV network components in the provision of comprehensive services to special needs children and the design of the data collection system to investigate the…

A course in the early detection and outpatient management of alcoholism for medical residents is discussed. Unlike other courses on alcoholism that have emphasized changes in physicians' attitudes, this course was designed to promote changes in residents' practice behavior and to foster the development of necessary clinical skills. (MLW)

Background: Although DSM-IV requires symptoms in three criterion domains for a diagnosis of autistic disorder, the extent to which those domains are phenotypically independent is an unanswered and important question. The identification of "endophenotypes" of the autistic syndrome may be very useful for genetic and neurobiologic studies of autism,…

Forty-nine 2 years olds with social and language characteristics suggestive of autism were identified by community professionals and screening tools, then given a diagnostic assessment and reexamined at age 4 1/2. Agreement between autism clinic and screenings was high, with 88% receiving a diagnosis on the autism spectrum. The children were lower…

The phenomenon of pica has been described within the literature in many ways, from a socially acceptable practice to a life threatening behavior. Recent prevalence rates of pica indicate relatively low occurrence of this phenomenon that makes it difficult to easily identify trends in practices related to pica. Recent literature on pica (1990 to…