Development of a Biomedical Program of Research in the Blackfeet Community: Challenges and Rewards

American Indian (AI) communities have high levels of stress and trauma and are disproportionately affected by numerous preventable diseases. Here, we describe an academic–community partnership based on a collaboration between Blackfeet Community College students and faculty in Psychology and Immunology at Montana State University (MSU). The collaboration, which has spanned over 5 years, was sparked by community interest in the relationship between stress and disease on the Blackfeet reservation. Specifically, community members wanted to understand how the experience of psychological stress and trauma may affect disease risk in their community and identify factors that promote resilience. In doing so, they hoped to identify pathways through which health could be improved for individual community members. Here, we discuss all stages of the collaborative process, including development of measures and methods and themes of research projects, challenges for community members and non‐indigenous collaborators, future directions for research, and the lessons learned. Finally, we note the ways in which this partnership and experience has advanced the science of community engagement in tribal communities, with the hope that our experiences will positively affect future collaborations between indigenous community members and non‐indigenous scientists.     

Confirmatory factor analysis of single- and multiple-factor competing models of the dissociative experiences scale in a nonclinical sample

Previous research on the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) has demonstrated that (a) dissociation is quantifiable in both clinical and nonclinical samples and (b) a three-factor structure (amnesia, depersonalization, and absorption) is tenable for clinical samples. The factor structurefor nonclinical samples is less clear, with one- and multiple-factor solutions proposed. To clarify the DESfactor structure in nonclinical samples, confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on (a) one-, two-, three-, and four-factorfirst-order models and (b) two bifactor (hierarchical) models of DES scoresfor two samples of nonclinical university students. Results of delta(chi2) and goodness-of-fit indices support the three-factor (first-order) model as bestfitting of the datafor these samples. The utility of this DES model for screening both dissociative pathology and elevated normal dissociative behavior in clinical and nonclinical populations is discussed.     

The Dance: Essence of Embodiment

An analysis of movement, and particularly of dance,helps us to see in an extraordinarily effective way the meaningof embodiment. This paper then looks through the eyes ofdance theorists and at philosophers who consider dance andmovement and their meaning of embodiment. A study of movementand dance encompasses the fullest meaning of embodiment: that theembodied way of being-in-the-world is also an embedded way ofbeing in a world of others. Dance has critically importantsocial ramifications. In our own and other cultures, dance playsan important role in healing and in health enhancement.     

Infant mental health: A new frontier

This overview is an adaptation of the keynote speech given at the First Annual Conference of the Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health, held in Ann Arbor, Michigan on March 24, 1977. A review of situations found by infant specialists and the statistical evidences of risk for infants suggests some of the components of a community-based support system.     

Mothers of high-risk infants: Is their initial use of early intervention a predictor of later coping?

In a program for high-risk and handicapped infants that began at hospital discharge, mothers' initial use of intervention visits was investigated as a predictor of maternal functioning 9 months later. Measures included ventilation and advice seeking in the first month and 9-month maternal mood, coping, HOME scores, and use of intervention. Early ventilation and advice seeking were related significantly to mothers' self-reported confusion, but not to staff ratings of maternal mood. No significant relationships were found between early use of intervention and later coping, HOME scores, or use of intervention. Results are discussed in terms of mothers' generally good adaptation and the need for caution in drawing conclusions from their behavior soon after the birth of a high-risk or handicapped child.     

The Johns Hopkins University: Training center for social scientists

In 1878, Professor Benjamin Peirce of Harvard, president of the American Social Science Association, viewed the Johns Hopkins University as the headquarters for social science in the United States. With the guidance provided by Franklin B. Sanborn, secretary of the ASSA, the Hopkins initiated formal instruction in social science in 1888, with Amos G. Warner and Daniel C. Gilman as instructors. This article is concerned with the contributions the ASSA and the Hopkins made in developing a theory/practice model for education for the social sciences.     

Suggested behavioral interventions in the classroom to assist students prenatally exposed to drugs

The population of children exposed prenatally to alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamine, and other legal or illegal substances has been rapidly growing in America. The known characteristics of this group include deficits in rule-governed behavior, impulsivity, attention to task, language, sleep attachment, learning, social competence, coordination, hypersensitivity to environmental stimuli, and conduct problems. The purpose of this paper was to describe the characteristics of this population and match known, empirically demonstrated, data-based strategies, such as teacher attention and praise, token reinforcement programs, daily report cards, contingency contracting, self-instructional training, self-management, peer tutoring, Direct Instruction, and combining behavior therapy with stimulant medication therapy, to specific academic and social deficits in children with parental histories of substance abuse. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.