Supplementation of urban home visitation with a series of group meetings for parents and infants: results of a “real-world” randomized, controlled trial

Objective: Home visitation has been shown to be effective in reducing rates of child maltreatment and in enhancing psychosocial outcomes in children and their parents. Even when available, however, it is underutilized by parents in some urban settings. We tested a supplemental 10-session group intervention for its ability to increase active participation in home visitation, enhance the quality of caregiving behavior of parents, and improve social developmental outcome in children.Method: A randomized controlled design was utilized, involving two separate cohorts of parents of 3- to 18-month old infants, totaling 148 parent-child dyads. The intervention focused on practical experience in promoting parent-infant attachment relationships.Results: At 6 months follow-up, there was a substantial increase in the proportion of intervention group parents participating in home visitation, compared to parents in the control group (Fisher’s exact p = .008). Parents in the intervention group exhibited a trend for improvement in their capacity to appropriately interpret infants’ emotional cues (p = .08), independent of the effects of home visitation itself. Attrition in both the treatment and control groups was inversely associated with income and level of education.Conclusions: Group meetings may constitute an effective means of engaging stressed urban families in home visitation.     

Social validity of the critical incident stress management model for school‐based crisis intervention

The Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) model for crisis intervention was developed for use with emergency service personnel. Research regarding the use of the CISM model has been conducted among civilians and high‐risk occupation groups with mixed results. The purpose of this study is to examine the social validity of the CISM model for school‐based crisis intervention as perceived by school psychologists and school social workers trained in the model. The results suggest that the CISM Model had a positive effect on service delivery, but the training itself did not adequately address the developmental appropriateness or the cross‐cultural appropriateness for school‐based application. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 44: 765–777, 2007.     

Knowledge about Pronouns: A Developmental Study Using a Truth-Value Judgment Task

In this article we report on children's (3 to 7 years) and adults'knowledge of grammatical and pragmatic principles of pronoun interpretation. A controlled version of a truth-value judgment task involving sentence-picture matching revealed (i) a continuous role of structure-dependence in pronoun interpretation across the full age range tested; (ii) a significant effect of pronoun directionality (although its exact form changed with development ); (iii) and a growth into adulthood of pragmatic bias in pronoun interpretation. The results contribute to current debates regarding the continuity of principles of "Universal Grammar" and also to issues of research methodology in first language acquisition.     

The structural relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behavior in university faculty in China: the mediating effect of organizational commitment

Asia Pacific Education Review - The present study focuses on the relationship between university faculty members’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), affective organizational...     

Relational Mentoring of Doctoral Social Work Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities

This article explores the distinctive mentoring experiences of social work doctoral students at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). With a philosophical emphasis on social justice, self-determination, racial identity and pride, and social integration, social work faculty at HBCUs mentor African American and other students in PhD programs for academic achievement and successful leadership in the professoriate. The mentoring experiences at HBCUs are underpinned by tenets from relational/cultural theory and the Black feminist theory of “other mothering.” Using Howard University as a case study, this article examines relational mentoring experiences of PhD students in preparation for the academy and for leadership in social work education and practice.     

Dissociation predicts later attention problems in sexually abused children

OBJECTIVE: The goals of this research are to develop and test a prospective model of attention problems in sexually abused children that includes fixed variables (e.g., gender), trauma, and disclosure-related pathways. METHODS: At Time 1, fixed variables, trauma variables, and stress reactions upon disclosure were assessed in 156 children aged 8-13 years. At the Time 2 follow-up (8-36 months following the initial interview), 56 of the children were assessed for attention problems. RESULTS: A path analysis involving a series of hierarchically nested, ordinary least squares multiple regression analyses indicated two direct paths to attention problems including the child's relationship to the perpetrator (beta=.23) and dissociation measured immediately after disclosure (beta=.53), while controlling for concurrent externalizing behavior (beta=.43). Post-traumatic stress symptoms were only indirectly associated with attention problems via dissociation. Taken together, these pathways accounted for approximately 52% of the variance in attention problems and provided an excellent fit to the data. CONCLUSIONS: Children who report dissociative symptoms upon disclosure of CSA and/or were sexually abused by someone within their family are at an increased risk of developing attention problems. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Findings from this study indicate that children who experienced sexual abuse at an earlier age, by someone within their family, and/or report symptoms of dissociation during disclosure are especially likely to benefit from intervention. Effective interventions should involve (1) providing emotion regulation and coping skills; and (2) helping children to process traumatic aspects of the abuse to reduce the cyclic nature of traumatic reminders leading to unmanageable stress and dissociation.     

Family preparation for school entry and the role of transition practices

Entry into school represents as much a challenge for children as it does for their parents. The authors examined the ways in which transition practices help children and their families feel prepared for school entry, as measured by the child's emotional adaptation during the first days in class and the family's sense of being prepared for this transition. Data were collected from a sample of 412 parents. The results indicate that children's emotional adaptation during the first days in school is related to their families' preparedness for school entry. Moreover, families' preparation is partly explained by the number of transition practices perceived by the parents. These data support the importance of transition practices in the preparation of the family as a unit. Transition practices could serve to reassure parents and their children that the school is ready to welcome them.     

Encounters with exclusion through disability arts

This paper examines disability arts and its role in identifying exclusion and barriers to participation within society. The work of selected writers, poets and musicians is presented and its value as a form of ideological critique is explored. It is suggested that disability arts has the potential to succeed where other forms of ideological critique fail because of the way in which difference is deployed, playfully and pragmatically, in order to make a political difference.     

Evaluation of patterning instruction for kindergartners

Abstract

To determine whether patterning instruction was as useful or more useful than other forms of instruction, kindergarten children (age five) were taught either patterning or early literacy or mathematics or social studies in matched sessions. Instruction was conducted in 15-minute sessions from November through mid-April. Posttests on patterning, mathematics, early literacy, and three executive functions showed that the children taught patterning became significantly better at patterning than those in the other instructional conditions. No differences were found between the children taught mathematics, early literacy, or social studies. Correlational analyses indicated that the relations of patterning ability, working memory, and inhibitory control to mathematics achievement were similar. Cognitive flexibility was not very strongly related to any other measure and the executive functions were relatively independent of each other for the children who were age five.