The child development consultant: an experiment

The effects of a new type of practitioner in elementary schools—the Child Development Consultant—were evaluated in contrast to the effects of persons carrying out typical functions of the elementary school counselor and social worker. This two-year project shows trends but no significant differences favoring one type of worker over the other. Evidence suggests the value of a pupil services practitioner in a school, and indicates that although such practitioners were prepared informally and relatively briefly, their effects are the same as those who engage in full, formal preparation programs.     

On understanding without words: Communication between a deaf-blind child and her parents

This paper is an empirical inquiry into the nature of human communication and understanding. It is organized into three sections. First, there is an overview of the ethnomethodological critique of mainstream social scientific research methodology and the relevance of this critique to clinical behavioral research. Second, the details of an ethnomethodological study of communication practices in a family with an alingual, deaf-blind child are provided. Third, implications of the case study are presented.The author's participation in this research was supported by PSH grant HD04612 NICHD and HD-05540-02, Patterns of Care and the Development of the Retarded, Mental Retardation Study Center, U.C.L.A. Medical Center. I wish to acknowledge the efforts of various persons during different phases of this writing. The general perspective taken in this article was based upon a course of study with Harold Garfinkel and Melvin Pollner. They, Robert Emerson, Warren TenHouten, and Michael McGuire, reviewed a chapter of my dissertation containing this data. Robert Edgerton, Sylvia Bercovici and Donald Sutherland of U.C.L.A.'s Mental Retardation Study Center also helped with suggestions about initial drafts. More recently George Singer, Larry Irvin, Nancy Mandell, and George Psathas have provided support and critiques.     

Shared minds: Effects of a mother's imitation of her child on the mother–child interaction

Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have impaired social interaction right from early development. Previous studies (Dawson & Adams, 1984; Tiegerman & Primavera, 1981, 1984) have suggested that imitating children with ASD is effective in facilitating their social behaviors. The present case report, through a 6‐month intervention, investigated how a home‐based intervention of helping a mother imitate her 21‐month‐old child with ASD impacted the child's development of social communication outside the experimental settings. Our results show that the mother's imitation of her child might be associated with the development of nonverbal joint attention skills. Positive changes in the mother's emotion towards her child and the mother–child interaction also were noted and represent other important effects of parental involvement in therapeutic interventions for children with ASD.     

Eytan: The early development of a gifted child artist

The early graphic development of a precociously gifted child artist, Eytan, for whom a continuous record of drawings exists, is examined in the light of a set of theoretically‐based questions. These concern the course of graphic development, the role of perspective drawings, and the extent to which a precocious achievement of perspective drawing in childhood is a mark of pathology. The issue of giftedness as precocious development or as the mark of unique qualities, and the relationship between art and cognition are also considered.     

The physical environment and child development: An international review

A growing body of research in the United States and Western Europe documents significant effects of the physical environment (toxins, pollutants, noise, crowding, chaos, and housing, school and neighborhood quality) on children and adolescents' cognitive and socioemotional development. Much less is known about these relations in other contexts, particularly the global South. We thus briefly review the evidence for relations between child development and the physical environment in Western contexts, and discuss some of the known mechanisms behind these relations. We then provide a more extensive review of the research to date outside of Western contexts, with a specific emphasis on research in the global South. Where the research is limited, we highlight relevant data documenting the physical environment conditions experienced by children, and make recommendations for future work. In these recommendations, we highlight the limitations of employing research methodologies developed in Western contexts (Ferguson & Lee, 2013). Finally, we propose a holistic, multidisciplinary, and multilevel approach based on Bronfenbrenner's (1979) bioecological model to better understand and reduce the aversive effects of multiple environmental risk factors on the cognitive and socioemotional development of children across the globe.     

The EMBU project--a multinational study of the importance of parental child rearing behavior for the development of psychopathologic phenomena

The influence of childhood experience on psychological development is discussed from various scientific viewpoints. Against this background, the origin of the cross-cultural, multinational EMBU Project on the relationship between upbringing in the family and psychopathology is described. It becomes obvious that a systematic, cross-cultural, and theory-orientated approach can bring significant material for the development of psychiatric theory.     

Freud, Dora, and the maid: a study of countertransference

Early advances in psychoanalytic knowledge, profound though they were, were incomplete structures to be built upon, modified, and partially discarded. In addition to errors due to insufficient knowledge, Freud's difficulties with Dora stemmed from countertransference. Dora's transference included an identification with a governess/maid. Important oedipal role played by a nursemaid in Freud's life made him vulnerable to being left by Dora. The maid, Monika, "the prime originator" of Freud's neurosis, seduced him, chastised him, and taught him of hell. In his self-analysis she was associated with Freud's mother who left him when she gave birth to his sister. When he was two and a half years old, Monika was discharged and jailed for stealing. I suggest that Freud's attraction to Dora revealed itself in his libidinal imagery of the treatment and his premature sexual interpretations, the effects of which he misjudged. Defending against his attraction, he pushed her away from him, did not act to keep her in analysis or allow her to reenter analysis later. In addition, since Dora had left him as he must have felt his childhood nursemaid had, he reacted as if she were that maid. Hurt, saddened, and angered, he used reversal and deserted her, thus damping his feelings.     

The importance of degree versus type of maltreatment: a cluster analysis of child abuse types

The author conducted secondary data analysis of 3 previously reported studies (D. J. Higgins & M.P. McCabe, 1998, 2000b, 2003) to examine whether respondents are best classified according to their experience of separate maltreatment types (sexual abuse, physical abuse, psychological maltreatment, neglect, and witnessing family violence) or whether their experience reflects a single unifying concept: child maltreatment. The author conducted a cluster analysis of the combined dataset followed by a confirmatory discriminant function analysis. Finally, the differences in psychological adjustment between those classified into the 3 different clusters were examined as a test of the 3-cluster solution. The best cluster analysis solution grouped individuals according to the degree to which maltreatment behaviors were reported. Individuals classified into the high maltreatment cluster had significantly more adjustment problems than those in either the moderate or the low maltreatment clusters. The results showed that it may be more meaningful to talk about the degree of maltreatment (frequency and/or severity) experienced by the child rather than about the type.     

The development of socialization skills in an electively mute child

In a booth designed especially for work with both autistic and electively mute children, a 4-yr-old girl named Dolly, who had no communicative speech or imitative skills, was given a preliminary session in which her verbal output was assessed. To elicit sounds from Dolly, an instrument called a “color organ” was used as a positive reinforcer. After this baseline assessment, in 40 half-hour sessions, Dolly was taught to make eye contact with E, and to obey instructions—although it was first necessary to extinguish her disruptive behavior, particularly her opérant crying. In addition, she learned non-verbal imitative behavior, such as hand clapping; and verbal imitative behavior, such as saying “Hi!” Social (play) sessions were begun after session 21, and continued for the remaining time. These were helpful in generalizing Dolly's learned skills to an environment other than the booth; and to other tasks, such as singing “Ee-eye-ee-eye-oh” in the refrain of the song, “Old McDonald”; and pointing to E's eyes, saying “ice”.     

Maternal employment and child cognitive outcomes: the importance of analytic approach

J. Brooks-Gunn, W. J. Han, and J. Waldfogel (2002) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network (ECCRN; 2000b) came to different conclusions about the effects of maternal employment--although they were addressing similar questions using the same data set. Brooks-Gunn et al. concluded that maternal employment in infancy has a negative effect on children's cognitive abilities at age 3, whereas the ECCRN found that early nonmaternal care is not related to children's cognitive abilities in their first 3 years. The authors account for this difference by comparing 2 approaches to data analysis: a top-down testing of continuous variables (the approach used by the ECCRN, 2000b) and an a priori comparison approach that involves pairwise testing of specific dichotomous contrasts (the approach used by Brooks-Gunn et al., 2002). This comparison illustrates the critical importance of analytic approach. It also suggests that Brooks-Gunn et al.'s conclusion from this data set is overstated and should not be used on its own as the basis for practical or policy decisions.     

Conversational perspective of therapeutic outcomes: The importance of preference in the development of discourse

Major theme: Evaluation of therapeutic outcome. Logical development of the theme: We suggest a way for practitioners and researchers to assess if they are on track in conversing towards client preferred goals. We offer a critique of more conventional approaches to studying therapeutic progress, suggesting how a discursive (i.e. focused on interaction and language use) lens can address these limitations. Through this lens we examine therapeutic progress evident in ‘preference work’, where clients demonstrably indicate, imply, agree and disagree with where the therapeutic conversation is heading. Such ‘preference work’ offers a form of evidence of within‐session outcomes in a process of reaching larger client preferred outcomes. Authors’ point of view: We present the results of conversation analysis – a qualitative approach to the study of therapy – to illustrate our discursive perspective on therapy progress and change. Implications: we suggest a way for practitioners to assess if they are on track in conversing towards client preferred goals. We propose that our interactional perspective may significantly contribute to bridging practice and research in therapy.