Classroom teachers and school mental health specialists must be better equipped to determine which students who practice deviant behavior are behaviorally disordered and which students are experiencing faulty social perception. (Author/PHR)

For pairs of full siblings, half-siblings, and cousins, analyzed maternal ratings of children's behavior problems at three times between ages 4 and 10. Found that nonshared environmental influences were substantial at each age but did not contribute to continuities in children's problem behaviors. Results favor a liability model that relates…

Examines whether social phobics differ from nonanxious controls in occupational adjustment. Results indicated that social phobics were underemployed and believed that their supervisor would rate them as less dependable. Social phobics were more anxious when starting their current job but did not differ in job satisfaction. Discusses results…

Youthful prison inmates (N=170) with mental retardation were studied to evaluate adjustment to incarceration, based on the frequency of five disciplinary infractions: hygiene violations, noncompliance with authority, assault on an inmate, assault on a correctional officer, and attempted escape. Results showed that subjects demonstrated poor…

Conducted interviews with 332 intellectually intact residents in 54 nursing homes to study their patterns of interpersonal relationships with staff, other residents, and family and friends outside the home. Results indicated importance of having a close friend for residents' participation in activities, life satisfaction, and nursing home…

The impact of geographic relocation on a married couple and their son with cerebral palsy is discussed. Counseling helped the family to adjust to their new community and resolve such problems as lack of family or friends nearby and the boy's acceptance in a more competitive school where he initially had no friends. (JDD)

Describes cognitive-behavioral approach to family therapy for suicidal people. Reviews relationship between family interactions and suicide. Highlights general strategies for treating suicidal family members. Focuses on adolescents and parents. Includes clinical examples. Suggests family influence on members' emotional and social adjustment is…

Describes sociocultural factors germane to African American families. Analyzes the African American family system and its inherent strengths. Presents a family strengths model of adjustment to disability for African American clients and potential applications of the model to the adjustment process. Includes 29 citations. (Author/CRR)

Investigated prevalence of social maladjustment among students in two rural/suburban school systems. Results from 249 elementary and secondary school teachers indicated that the percentage of students reported as exhibiting characteristics of social maladjustment was sufficiently high to indicate that services beyond special education may be…

Studied social coping among gifted high school students using a revised Social Coping Questionnaire (M. Swiatek, 1995). Results for 212 gifted students show that females were more likely than males to deny giftedness and maintain high activity levels, while males were more likely to use humor for coping. Results also indicate that problem-focused…

Examines school and family social capital, human capital, and financial capital as parallel concepts and investigates their effects on child social adjustment. Findings suggest that although school capital effects are present, social capital and maternal and child human capital effects are more prevalent. Discusses how investment at home and…

More than 230,000 children have been adopted from other countries by American parents since 1989, including more than 72,000 from Eastern Europe. Many arrive with growth and development delays, and medical problems. Yet, little is known about the long-term outcomes for these children. Therefore, we assessed long-term developmental,…

The relationship between living environment, gender and both overall adjustment to college and social adjustment in freshmen students was examined in this study. The College Adjustment Scales were administered to 511 freshmen students living in on-campus housing. There were 259 students living in Freshmen Year Experience (FYE) Halls verses 252…

Background: Evidence suggests there is a heightened risk of psychiatric disorder in children with speech-language impairments. However, not all forms of language impairment are strongly associated with psychosocial difficulty, and some psychiatric disorders (e.g., attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)) are more prevalent than others in…

Sixty-two adults with mental retardation of heterogeneous etiology performed four facial emotion discrimination tasks and two facial nonemotion tasks. Staff members familiar with the participants completed measures of social adjustment (the Socialization and Communication domains of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales and the Social Performance…