Relationships among accumulated lifetime life events,prosocial skills,and behavior problems in elementary school children

Relationships among life events, prosocial skills, and behavior problems for 91 first through fourth grade children were examined. The data were based on mothers' reports of their children's lifetime life events, current prosocial skills, and current behavior problems. Higher prosocial skills scores significantly predicted lower Externalizing behavior problem scores. Higher weighted life events scores significantly predicted higher Internalizing behavior problem scores. The weighted life event scores×prosocial skills scores interaction did not significantly predict either Externalizing or Internalizing behavior problem scores. The more parsimonious main effects conceptualization suggests that life events and prosocial skills are orthogonal in young, elementary school children.     

流动儿童同伴侵害的特点及与内化问题的循环作用关系:一项追踪研究

本研究采用纵向设计,以北京市426名四、五年级流动儿童为被试,进行连续4次的追踪测查,考察流动儿童同伴侵害的特点及其与内化问题的动态相互作用关系。结果发现:(1)打工子弟学校流动儿童的同伴侵害与内化问题水平比公立学校流动儿童高;流动儿童的流动性越大,同伴侵害和内化问题越多。(2)控制了性别、年级、家庭社会经济地位(SES)和流动性后,从T1到T2,同伴侵害与孤独感为相互作用关系,且同伴侵害可以显著预测抑郁,但对社交焦虑的预测作用不显著,而从T2到T4,同伴侵害和3种内化问题的相互作用模式完全一致,即T2时的社交焦虑、抑郁和孤独感显著预测T3的同伴侵害,进而显著预测T4的社交焦虑、抑郁和孤独感。(3)抑郁、孤独感与同伴侵害的循环作用在两类流动儿童中具有较强的稳定性,而在社交焦虑和同伴侵害的模型中,打工子弟学校流动儿童的同伴侵害对社交焦虑的作用比公立学校流动儿童更大。可见,同伴侵害和内化问题呈循环作用关系,未来预防/干预研究可以聚焦于减少流动儿童的同伴侵害或内化问题的角度打破二者的恶性循环,帮助他们建立良好的人际关系,构建良性循环,促进他们的积极发展。     

Behavior Problems, Academic Skill Delays and School Failure Among School-Aged Children in Foster Care: Their Relationship to Placement Characteristics

We describe the level of behavior problems, academic skill delays, and school failure among school-aged children in foster care. We also examine how behavior problems are associated with academic problems, and explore how these outcomes are related to children's placement characteristics. Foster parent and child home interviews, as well as teacher telephone interviews were conducted from a randomly selected sample of 302 children aged 6 through 12 years living in out-of-home placement. Interviews included standardized screening measures. Results showed that 27% of the children scored in the clinical range for a behavior problem, and 34% were rated as having at least one behavior problem in the classroom. Twenty-three percent of the children had severe delays in reading or math, 13% had repeated a grade, and 14% had a history of school suspension and/or expulsion. Behavior problems by foster parent report were related to child suspension and/or expulsion from school, but were not associated with severe academic delays or grade retention. Placement characteristics were only sometimes related to these outcomes. Future studies examining the mental health and educational needs of this population should take into account the child's sociodemographic and placement characteristics.     

Reactive temperament traits and behavioural problems in children: the mediating role of effortful control across sex and age

This study examines the mediating role of effortful control between reactive temperament traits (negative affectivity and extraversion) and children’s internalizing and externalizing behavioural problems. The sample was composed of 424 non-clinical children from 3 to 6 years of age (60% male). Use of a structural equation model revealed effortful control-mediated relations between reactive temperament traits and behavioural problems. Nevertheless, uniquely and directly, negative affect predicted externalizing problems and extraversion predicted internalizing problems. Assessment of invariance by children’s sex showed that the mediating role of effortful control tends to be stronger for externalizing problems in boys than in girls. Results showed no significant age differences. According to these results, effortful control as a method of self-regulation seems to be an essential process through which reactive temperament traits affect a child’s psychological adjustment.     

Maintaining placement for troubled and disruptive adolescents in voluntary residential care: The role of reduced youth-to-staff ratio

We evaluated a program to protect the placements of 23 highly troublesome youth in voluntary residential care by reducing youth-to-staff ratios. Specifically, the youth were moved from regular program homes (with eight youth) to reduced ratio homes (with only four youth) instead of being terminated from the program. We provide evidence supporting the assertion that youth in the study sample were highly troublesome and at high risk for program failure and more restrictive placements. Placement in the reduced ratio homes protected the trouble youths' placement, resulting in an additional mean length of stay of 950 day without an increase in program restrictiveness. Further, the reduced ratio homes increased the chances of success in the program for the study sample to a level equivalent to that for the much less troubled comparison sample. Cost estimates are also provided.     

Kinship Foster Care from the Perspective of Quality of Life: Research on the Satisfaction of the Stakeholders

A quality of life studies perspective has guided the design and implementation of research on kinship care as a placement resource within the child protection system in Catalonia (Spain). This research was carried out gathering the points of view of the three main stakeholders: kinship caregivers, children who are placed in extended family and practitioners of the EAIAs (Childhood and Adolescence Interdisciplinary Care Teams). Satisfaction involved in kinship care has been explored. In this article the main stakeholders’ satisfaction with kinship care is presented, and on the other hand, children’s satisfaction with life as a whole and with five specific domains in life is analysed: Education received from their caregiver, their school, their friends, their time enjoyment and their health. As expected, practitioners show the lowest evaluations with this kind of service. Surprisingly, evaluations by children referred to kinship care and to education received by caregivers are higher than those in the normative population aged 12–16 in relation to their own natural family. The findings show implications for practice and they imply challenges for quality-of-life research.     

Integrating systems of care in California for youth with severe emotional disturbance III: Answers that lead to questions about out-of-home placements and the AB377 evaluation project

This paper is the third in a series of reports on preliminary empirical findings from replications of an integrated system of care for youth suffering from serious emotional disturbance. The development of the innovative system of care was pioneered in Ventura County, California, and the replications in three other California counties were legislatively enabled through California legislation (Assembly Bill 377). This report presents results on the expenditure and utilization of foster homes, residential placements made through special education programs, and state hospitals. Evaluation results indicate that foster home and state hospital utilization and expenditures are lower for the counties replicating the innovative system of care than for the state of California as a whole. Expenditures for special education residential placements are either at the state rate or lower in one county. The cumulative evidence supports the conclusion that the replication counties are utilizing restrictive levels of care at lower rates than would be expected, given state-wide patterns. The results, in conjunction with prior findings, are discussed in the context of questions about the possible fates of youth who no longer live in publicly funded residential facilities.     

Severity of sleep problems in children with severe learning difficulties: Description and correlates

In this study we have examined the percentage occurrence of settling and waking problems and of sleeping in the parents' bed in a sample of children with sleep problems. We found that about two-thirds had settling problems, nearly nine-tenths had waking problems, and one-third slept regularly in their parents' bed. Parents of children with sleep problems were more likely to experience a range of family problems than were parents of children without problems, and they were more likely to report a range of symptoms of stress. Most children with settling problems took at least two hours to settle to sleep at night. This behaviour was mainly tolerated or accepted by the parents. Parents gave a variety of suggestions as to triggers for settling problems, from being upset during the day to fears, illness and alterations in routine. Most parents thought the underlying explanation was the child's intellectual impairment. Over half the children with waking problems woke up every night, while 85% woke up at least three nights a week. One-third woke up three or more times a night. About two-thirds took up to half an hour to resettle, with one-third taking up to an hour. Parents (mainly mothers) tended to get up to attend to the waking child. About half of the children were thought to need attention because of physical disabilities. Illness, alteration in routine, becoming ‘overtired’ and ‘upset’ were thought to trigger waking problems. Intellectual impairment was again seen as the more general underlying reason for waking problems. Very few children were receiving treatment for their problems—7% were receiving medication and one was receiving a behavioural programme. Few parents had a systematic bedtime routine for their child and few had a consistent agreed response to settling or waking problems. When we examined the relationship between certain family variables and severity of sleep problems a number of relationships were found. Sleep problem severity was related to maternal responsiveness, maternal stress, impact of the child on the family, maternal behaviour towards the child, maternal attitudes towards the child and marital satisfaction. Severity of sleep problems was also related to certain child characteristics. Children with more severe problems tended to present more problems in their daytime behaviour. Sleep problem severity was also found to be related to child communication skills. These findings, together with those from other pilot studies, suggest that using behavioural methods of managing sleep problems might prove a promising way forward.     

Internalizing problems of adolescents: The role of the informant in identifying family and individual difficulties

The purpose of this study was to examine the family environment and school functioning of adolescents who differed on level of internalizing problems as reported by the adolescent and her/his mother. Thirty-six adolescents, their mothers, and their social studies teacher served as participants. Three groups were formed based on the report of level of internalizing problems: high mother and adolescent report (high concordant); low mother/high adolescent report (discordant); and low mother/low adolescent report (low concordant). The results indicated that the high concordant group, but not the discordant group, differed significantly from the low discordant group in that adolescents from the former group were from home environments with more difficulties (more interparental conflict, maternal depression, & maternal anxiety) and had more internalizing problems and lower grades in school. The results point to the importance of parent-report data when clinically assessing adolescents or conducting research on internalizing problems of adolescents.     

School competence and emotional/behavioral problems among Norwegian school children as rated by teachers on the Teacher Report Form

Of 1,409 eligible children aged 6-13 years in grades 1 to 7 who were randomly selected from a national sample of Norwegian schools, 858 participated in the present study (60.9%). The sample was stratified by school centrality, region and size of grade cohort. The teachers assessed their children's academic performance, adaptive school functioning, and levels of emotional/behavioral problems using the 2001 version of the Teacher Report Form (TRF). Only one child was randomly selected from each grade cohort. Girls had significantly higher scores than boys in the Working Hard, Appropriate Behavior, Learning, and Total Adaptive Functioning domains. For girls, only the Working Hard domain was of medium effect size. While boys had significantly higher scores than girls on Attention, Thought Problems, Rule-Breaking, Aggression, Externalizing Problems and Total problems, only Attention Problems showed a medium effect size. Significant sex by age interaction effects were also found for Rule-Breaking, Externalizing, Internalizing, Anxious-Depressed and Total Problems. In all these comparisons, 10-13-year-old boys had significantly higher scores than 6-9-year olds, while girls had similar problem levels across age groups. Our mean Total Problems score (17.2) was lower than the grand mean (21.6) reported in a multi-country comparison but higher than in another Norwegian large-scale survey. Overall, our findings indicate that teachers in Scandinavia report, just as do parents, relatively low levels of emotional/behavioral problems among school-aged children.     

An analysis of choice making in the assessment of young children with severe behavior problems

We examined how positive and negative reinforcement influenced time allocation, occurrence of problem behavior, and completion of parent instructions during a concurrent choice assessment with 2 preschool-aged children who displayed severe problem behavior in their homes. The children were given a series of concurrent choice options that varied availability of parent attention, access to preferred toys, and presentation of parent instructions. The results showed that both children consistently allocated their time to choice areas that included parent attention when no instructions were presented. When parent attention choice areas included the presentation of instructions, the children displayed differential patterns of behavior that appeared to be influenced by the presence or absence of preferred toys. The results extended previous applications of reinforcer assessment procedures by analyzing the relative influence of both positive and negative reinforcement within a concurrent-operants paradigm.     

A randomized controlled trial of the impact of a teacher classroom management program on the classroom behavior of children with and without behavior problems

This randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluated the efficacy of the Incredible Years (IY) Teacher Classroom Management (TCM; Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2002) program to assess whether training teachers in IY-TCM principles improve teacher behavior, whether any observed improvements impact pupil behavior classroom-wide, and whether these effects can be demonstrated with children at risk of developing conduct problems. Six intervention and six control classrooms comprising 12 teachers and 107 children (aged 3 to 7 years) were recruited. Children were screened for high or low behavior problems using the cut-off points of the teacher-rated Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997). The primary outcome measure was independent classroom observations using the Teacher–Pupil Observation Tool (Martin et al., 2010). Multilevel modeling analyses were conducted to examine the effect of the intervention on teacher, classroom, and child behavior. Results showed a significant reduction in classroom off-task behavior (d = 0.53), teacher negatives to target children (d = 0.36), target child negatives towards the teacher (d = 0.42), and target child off-task behavior (d = 0.48). These preliminary results demonstrate the potential impact of IY-TCM on both teacher and child behavior.     

Quality child care supports the achievement of low-income children: Direct and indirect pathways through caregiving and the home environment

Existing studies of child care have not been able to determine whether higher quality child care protects children from the effects of poverty, whether poverty and lower quality child care operate as dual risk factors, or whether both are true. The objective of the current study was to test two pathways through which child care may serve as a naturally occurring intervention for low-income children: a direct pathway through child care quality to child outcomes, and an indirect pathway through improvements in the home environment. Children were observed in their homes and child care settings at 6, 15, 24, and 36 months. An interaction between family income-to-needs ratio and child care quality predicted School Readiness, Receptive Language, and Expressive Language, as well as improvements in the home environment. Children from low-income families profited from observed learning supports in the form of sensitive care and stimulation of cognitive development, and their parents profited from unobserved informal and formal parent supports. Policy implications are discussed.     

School readiness in children living in non-parental care: Impacts of Head Start

The current study examines the effects of Head Start on the development of school readiness outcomes for children living in non-parental care. Data were obtained from the Head Start Impact Study, a randomized controlled trial of Head Start conducted with a nationally representative sample of Head Start programs and families. The sample included 253 children living in non-parental care (defined as a primary caregiver who self-identified as someone other than a biological, adoptive, or step-parent), who experienced elevated rates of child and family risk factors. Results revealed modest direct short-term and indirect longer-term impacts of Head Start on school readiness outcomes (increased pre-academic skills, more positive teacher–child relationships, and reductions in behavior problems) for children living in non-parental care. Limitations of this study and directions for future research are discussed.     

What the face and body reveal: in-group emotion effects and stereotyping of emotion in African American and European American children

This study examined whether 3- to 7-year-old African American and European American children’s assessment of emotion in face-only, face + body, and body-only photographic stimuli was affected by in-group emotion recognition effects and racial or gender stereotyping of emotion. Evidence for racial in-group effects was found, with European American children being more accurate when assessing emotion in European American photographs than African American photographs for some emotions. African American children were either equally proficient in recognizing emotion in African American and European American photographs or were more accurate with European American photographs for some emotions. Stereotyping of emotion was also found, with boys being more often labeled with “masculine” emotions (e.g., mad) and at least some girls being more often labeled with “feminine” emotions (e.g., happy). However, stereotyping effects were found only when the face was present in the stimuli and were not found with body-only stimuli. In-group effects, however, were not affected by type of photograph (face-only, body-only, or face + body), with children being unable to recognize at least some emotions from just the body postures alone (mad). These results have important implications for how future studies assess emotion recognition in children, particularly in terms of how emotion stimuli are constructed, the diversity of the stimuli, and who judges the stimuli.     

The role of verbal behavior in human learning: III. Instructional effects in children

Lever pressing of children from three age groups (2½ to 4, 5 to 6½, and 7½ to 9 years) could produce reinforcers according to a fixed-interval 40-s schedule: (1) Some were instructed to respond at a high rate, others at a low rate, and (2) they were subsequently taught to provide their own spoken self-instructions consonant with the earlier, experimenter-supplied instructions. All subjects who received high-rate instructions responded at a steady, high rate, which was maintained following self-instructional training. The effects of low-rate instructions were directly related to the age of the children. The two older groups produced low-rate patterns, with the oldest children responding at very low rates; effects were least noticeable in the youngest age group. Following self-instructional training, all three groups showed adult-like low-rate behavior and the oldest children showed an improved ability to estimate the interval length. The results provide further evidence of the importance of language as a determinant of human behavior.     

Opposing effects of phonological similarity on item and order memory of words and nonwords in the serial recall task

This study shows that the classical phonological similarity effect (PSE) in immediate serial recall is critically affected by the lexicality of list items, the type of phonological similarity involved, and the scoring procedure. PSE was present in the serial recall score when phonologically distinct words were compared to words that share the middle vowel and end consonant (rhyming lists). PSE was absent in the serial recall score when phonologically distinct words were compared to words that share the initial and final consonants (consonant frame lists). There was a reversal of PSE in serial recall of nonwords when comparing distinct lists to both types of similar lists. Recall accuracy on the other hand was higher for distinct lists regardless of lexicality. Item errors dominated in relation to order errors in the case of nonwords, whereas order errors dominated in relation to item errors in the case of words. Furthermore, order errors were more common for phonologically similar lists, whereas item errors were more common for phonologically distinct lists. This may be the result of intra‐list and inter‐list interference, respectively. The dominance of the former error type may cause a classical PSE, whereas the dominance of the latter error type may cause a reversal of PSE. Finally, an item identification task yielded no evidence of an association between intra‐list interference and discriminability of items in a list.     

The impact of brief teacher training on classroom management and child behavior in at-risk preschool settings: Mediators and treatment utility

Teachers from fourteen classrooms were randomly assigned to an adaptation of Incredible Years (IY) teacher training or to teacher training-as-usual. Observations were made of the behavior of 136 target preschool boys and girls nominated by teachers as having many or few conduct problems. Peer and teacher behavior were observed at baseline and post training. IY training resulted in increases in teachers' positive and reductions in teachers' negative behavior relative to training as usual, in decreased peer negative behavior toward target children, and in decreased negative behavior of target children high on conduct problems. The impact of IY training on the behavior of target children was mediated by changes in peers' behavior with no direct effects of teacher behavior and differential effects for high and low conduct problem children. Teacher training focused on altering the whole classroom environment may be an effective strategy, even for children with significant conduct problems.     

Filial maturity of middle-aged adult children in the context of parent care: Model and measures

There is a growing recognition of the usefulness of Blenkner's (1965) concept of filial maturity for theory and practice in the domain of adult development. This concept refers to a dynamic state of continuous successful coping with the normative task of parent care in middle-aged adult children. The objectives of the present study were (a) to begin construction of psychometrically sound filial maturity measures; (b) to test a comprehensive model of filial maturity; and (c) to explore gender differences and the role of adult child, elderly parent, and context variables as predictors of filial maturity. Subjects were 298 middle-aged adults. The Louvain Filial Maturity Scale (LFMS-A) contains sevena priori scales probing for Filial Love, Filial Obligation, Filial Helpfulness, Filial Help, Filial Autonomy, Parental Consideration, and Family Solidarity and Help. A LISREL analysis yielded a model in which Filial Love and Filial Autonomy occupied central positions and a considerable percentage of the variance in Filial Helpfulness and Help was explained by the other filial maturity dimensions. Gender differences emerged on the Filial Obligation, Filial Help, and Filial Autonomy subscales, with women scoring higher on the first two scales and men scoring higher on the last. A set of adult child, aged parent, and context variables explained a noticeable percentage of the variance in the scores on the subscales in both men and women.     

生命意义问卷(修订版)在初中生群体中的信效度:留守与非留守学生的比较分析

检验生命意义问卷(修订版)在初中生群体中的信效度,并比较了留守与非留守学生在测量学指标上的差异。采用生命意义问卷(修订版)、超越意义量表、情感调节量表、Rosenberg自尊量表和幸福感指数量表对1300名初中生进行调查,其中有636名留守初中生。探索性因素分析、平行分析和最小平均偏相关分析均表明该量表为双因子结构,验证性因素分析与各类群体拟合良好;与上述效标变量均有显著的正相关;在性别和是否留守学生变量上,个别条目表现出一致性或非一致性条目功能差异;总量表、追寻和拥有意义分量表的δ系数都大于0.9。生命意义问卷(修订版)具有在初中生和留守初中生中均有良好的信效度;可以忽略在性别和是否留守学生变量的条目功能差异;问卷辨识度较高。