Child maltreatment and adult health in a national sample: Heterogeneous relational contexts,divergent effects?

Objective

This study considers the long-term health consequences of child maltreatment. Distinct from previous research, we examine the effects of maltreatment in the context of more general parental evaluations.

Method

Analyses used retrospective and current data from the Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) study.

Results

A considerable proportion of middle- and older-age adults who experienced frequent maltreatment nevertheless evaluated the relationship with their offending parent as “excellent”, “very good”, or “good” (e.g., 47% for physical and emotional maltreatment by mothers). Maltreated respondents generally evaluated their maltreating parents less favorably than non-maltreating parents, but there was considerable variation in these recollected relationships. Adults who experienced child maltreatment reported a greater number of chronic medical conditions and physical symptoms and lower self-rated health, but effects were smaller when they had positive relationships with their parents than when one or more of the relationships was perceived as negative.

Conclusions

These findings highlight a common and seemingly paradoxical pattern among MIDUS participants: the co-presence of harsh parental behavior and positive recollections of parental relationships during childhood. Moreover, these surprising patterns of retrospective interpretation predict very different experiences of adult health – health problems are most pronounced among maltreatment in cases where the respondent had a generally negative relationship with one or more of his or her parents.     

Journal reviewers acknowledged

Mediated Political Realities, Dan Nimmo and James E. Combs (New York: Longman, 1983), 240 pp., $10.95.

The Political Uses of Symbols, Charles D. Elder and Roger W. Cobb (New York: Longman, 1983), 173 pp., $22.50/$9.95.

Keeping a Finger on the Public Pulse: Private Polling in Presidential Elections, Bruce E. Altschuler (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982), 197 pp., $25.00.

"For Immediate Release”;: Candidate Press Releases in American Political Campaigns, Jan Pons Vermeer (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982), 189 pp., $27.50.

Introduction to Mass Communications, 7th ed., Warren K. Agee, Philip H. Ault and Edwin Emery (New York: Harper and Row, 1982), 498 pp., $16.50.

Discovering Mass Communication, Samuel L. Becker (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1983), 492 pp., $15.95.

Mass Communication an Introduction, 3d ed., John R. Bittner (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice‐Hall, 1983), 508 pp., $17.95.

The Dynamics of Mass Communication, Joseph R. Dominick (Reading, MA: Addison‐Wesley, 1983), 552 pp., $16.95.

Broadcasting in the Arab World, Douglas A. Boyd (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982), 306 pp., $29.50.

The Age of Television, Martin Esslin (San Francisco: Freeman, 1982), 138 pp., $7.95.

The Early Window: Effects of Television on Children and Youth, 2d ed., Robert M. Liebert, Joyce N. Sprafkin and Emily S. Davidson (New York: Pergamon, 1982), 255 pp., $25.00/$9.95.

The Interplay of Influence: Mass Media &; Their Publics in News, Advertising, Politics, Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Karlyn Kohrs Campbell (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1983), 287 pp., $11.95.

Television and Radio Announcing, 4th ed., Stuart W. Hyde (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983), 522 pp., $22.50.

Humanistic Radio Production, Harold L. Drake (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982), 116 pp., $19.50/$8.25.     

评定复杂协调性项目运动员能力的理论依据和测试选择

专项运动员协调能力始终是竞技后备人才培养问题的焦点。为了确定协调能力与技/战术能力、调整能力发展水平、青少年运动员和成年运动员心理/生理功能发育之间的相互关系,评定复杂协调性项目运动员能力,利用测试作业对训练过程各个阶段中协调能力的发展动态进行跟踪,比较这些结果,同时对各个运动项目运动员的协调训练程度进行比较分析。测试结果有助于了解青少年运动员协调训练程度的基本概貌,编制针对具体基础性协调能力发展水平的分辨性评定的标尺,同时确定协调训练程度总的水平。结果显示:协调能力作为制约比赛活动效果的因素之一,其意义越来越重要,从而决定了开展针对研制诊断协调训练程度计划的研究的必要性。作为测试作业的基础应当是有科学依据的理论,它不仅使监督性测试具有心理/生理学含义,而且能揭示某一种协调能力发展中存在的个体差异的本质。     

Arithmetic disabilities and ADD subtypes: implications for DSM-IV

This study investigated whether specific academic deficits were associated with attention-deficit disorder (ADD) subtypes. Twenty students (ages 8-12) with attention-deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADD/H) were compared to 20 students with attention-deficit disorder without hyperactivity (ADD/noH). Group differences were compared using a MANCOVA, and paired t tests were used to compare within-group differences. Dependent variables for the within-group differences were four achievement subtest scores from the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised: Letter-Word Identification, Passage Comprehension, Calculation, and Applied Problems. Consistent with much of the previous research, no significant between-group differences were found on the achievement measures. Significant differences did, however, appear in the six within-group comparisons, all involving lower performance on the Math Calculations subtest. For students with ADD/H, only one comparison (with Math Applied Problems) reached significance. Students with ADD/noH, however, had significantly lower scores on the Calculation subtest compared to all of the other achievement subtests. These results provided additional support for the hypothesis that inattention exerts a specific and deleterious effect on the acquisition of arithmetic computation skills. These findings have important implications for the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD as conceptualized in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994), because they suggest that students with ADHD-Predominantly Inattentive Type may be at increased risk for arithmetic calculation deficits.     

Definitions of bullying: a comparison of terms used,and age and gender differences,in a fourteen-country international comparison

The study of school bullying has recently assumed an international dimension, but is faced with difficulties in finding terms in different languages to correspond to the English word bullying. To investigate the meanings given to various terms, a set of 25 stick-figure cartoons was devised, covering a range of social situations between peers. These cartoons were shown to samples of 8- and 14-year-old pupils (N = 1,245; n = 604 at 8 years, n = 641 at 14 years) in schools in 14 different countries, who judged whether various native terms cognate to bullying, applied to them. Terms from 10 Indo-European languages and three Asian languages were sampled. Multidimensional scaling showed that 8-year-olds primarily discriminated nonaggressive and aggressive cartoon situations; however, 14-year-olds discriminated fighting from physical bullying, and also discriminated verbal bullying and social exclusion. Gender differences were less appreciable than age differences. Based on the 14-year-old data, profiles of 67 words were then constructed across the five major cartoon clusters. The main types of terms used fell into six groups: bullying (of all kinds), verbal plus physical bullying, solely verbal bullying, social exclusion, solely physical aggression, and mainly physical aggression. The findings are discussed in relation to developmental trends in how children understand bullying, the inferences that can be made from cross-national studies, and the design of such studies.     

Effect of individualized goal-setting on college biology students' locus of control

This study investigated the effect of Individualized Goal-Setting A-T, relative to Classic A-T, on a student's locus of control (generalized and academic). This study also examined the effect of pretesting, relative to no pretesting, on a student's locus of control. Sixty students in an introductory, Audio-Tutorial, college zoology course were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Control groups (Classic A-T) completed the course in the usual manner. Treatment groups (IGS A-T) completed the course in the usual manner with one exception. That is, they used a different format for Optional Minicourse mastery. This new format released greater control to students over means as well as ends of minicourse mastery. Data were collected through use of the Solomon Four-Group design, with two levels of treatment (Classic A-T, IGS A-T) and two levels of pretesting (pretest, no pretest). Instruments included the Rotter I-E and Schafer Academic I-E Locus of Control Scales. Posttest scores were analyzed by a 2 × 2 multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The following conclusions were made (p < 0.10).

• 1 IGS A-T, relative to Classic A-T, has no significant effect on a student's locus of control.
• 2 Pretesting, relative to no pretesting, has no significant effect on posttest locus of control.

     

New Media

ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING PLUS: MEDIA FOR A TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURE edited by Martin Greenberger (White Plains, NY: Knowledge Industry Publications, 1985—$45.00/29.95)

NEWSPAPERS AND NEW MEDIA by David A. Patten (White Plains, NY: Knowledge Industry Publications, 1986—$34.95/24.95)

GREAT EXPECTATIONS: A TELEVISION MANAGER'S GUIDE TO THE FUTURE by Paul Bortz, et al. (Washington, DC: National Association of Broadcasters, 1986—$40.00, paper)

VIDEO DEMOCRACY: THE VOTE-FROM-HOME REVOLUTION by Richard Hollander (Lomond Publications, P.O. Box 88, Mt. Airy, MD 21771—$14.95)

THE NEW TELEVISION TECHNOLOGIES by Lynne Schafer Gross (Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown, 1986—price not given, paper)

USING COMPUTERS: HUMAN FACTORS IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS by Raymond S. Nickerson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986—$22.50)

THE CULT OF INFORMATION: THE FOLKLORE OF COMPUTERS AND THE TRUE ART OF THINKING by Theodore Roszak (New York: Pantheon, 1986—$17.95)     

School Effects Indices: Stability of One- and Two-Level Formulations

Three residual-based methods for indexing school effectiveness were compared using data from elementary schools in Maryland. Two of the methods were regression-based procedures at the school level, and 1 was a hierarchical linear model approach, with Level 1 at the student level and Level 2 at the school level. The 2 methods were applied to a data source in which schools were evaluated separately at Grades 3 and 5 using 3 forms of a statewide performance assessment that were administered to randomly formed groups within each school. The hierarchical linear model approach had higher stability across test forms, but the stabilities of the 1-level formulations were almost as high. The authors concluded that 1-level approaches are viable alternatives when the added data necessary for the hierarchical linear model approach are unavailable.