Evaluating children's mental health service systems: An analysis of critical behaviors and events

A lack of studies which evaluate system change by tracking client outcomes is noted in the children's mental health area. This deficit may be a result of the inability of researchers to define outcomes and to draw conclusions about which measures reflect the efficacy of services and service delivery systems. This paper reviews five social validation surveys which examined children's mental health outcome measures. Based on the results of the five surveys, a model of critical behaviors and events is presented. This model will assist evaluators and researchers in understanding which critical events and behaviors should be measured to assess the impact of community-based mental health services for children.     

A selective and critical review of neuropsychological deficits and the frontal lobes

Presumptions about the functions of the frontal lobes, and the sensitivity and specificity of certain tests to measure frontal lobe functions, are having a substantial influence on both clinical and research conclusions. In this paper the authors examine the details of the studies that have contributed to these presumptions, and find that the evidence to support these conclusions is weak. A detailed evaluation of the evidence relating to the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and the Thurstone Word Fluency Test is also presented. Finally, the development of the belief that frontal lobe functions can be specifically measured is reviewed. The authors of this paper conclude that the bewildering array of deficits attributed to frontal lesions still seems to prevail.     

A study of neuropsychological impairment among school-indentified learning-disabled students

This investigation examined the proportion of school-identified learning-disabled (LD) students who scored in the impaired range on the Halstead Reitan Neuropsychological Battery for Children (HNBC) over a 20-year period. A difference was noted in findings for periods before and after the passage of federal legislation (Public Law 94-142); specifically, the proportion of LD students who scored in the impaired range on neuropsychological tests was significantly higher prior to than after this law. A similar pattern of impaired performance across the different tests was noted before and after the legislation. The implications of these results for theorists and practitioners are discussed.     

Compound word effects differ in reading,on-line naming,and delayed naming tasks

Bimorphemic compound words (e.g.,blueberry), bimorphemic suffixed words (e.g.,ceaseless), and monomorphemic controls (e.g.,arthritis) were read in neutral sentence contexts in Experiment 1. The main result revealed longer first fixation durations on compound words than on control and suffixed words. Different effects emerged when naming tasks were used. An on-line naming task revealed substantially shorter naming latencies for compound words than for control and suffixed words. Naming latencies for compound and control words were equivalent in a delayed naming task. These results indicate that on-line naming latencies and word-viewing durations may yield diverging results. They also suggest that activation of constituent words of compound words occurs independently from the specification of conventional word meanings.     

Concordance Between Mothers' and Children's Reports of Somatic and Emotional Symptoms in Patients with Recurrent Abdominal Pain or Emotional Disorders

Mother–child concordance regarding children's somatic and emotional symptoms was assessed in children with recurrent abdominal pain (n = 88), emotional disorders (n = 51), and well children (n = 56). Children between 6 and 18 years of age and their mothers completed questionnaires assessing the children's somatic symptoms, functional disability, and depression. Mothers of children with recurrent abdominal pain reported more child somatic and depressive symptoms than did their children, and mothers of children with emotional disorders reported more child depressive symptoms than did their children. Higher levels of maternal distress were associated with greater mother-child discordance in the direction of mothers reporting more child symptoms than did their children. No significant child age or sex differences were found in concordance patterns.     

An Empirical Examination of Same- and Other-Gender Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

This study examines sexual harassment (SH) whichinvolves members of the same gender, either male orfemale. Data are taken from the 1988 Department ofDefense Survey of Sex Roles in the Active Duty Military. Separate comparisons for male (38% White, 31%Black, and 31% ‘other’) and female (48%White, 27% Black, and 25% ‘other’) targetsare made between sameand other-gender SH related to fourmajor components of a conceptual model proposed by Fitzgerald,Drasgow, Hulin, Gelfand, & Magley (1997). Thesecomponents include sexual harassment behaviors, personalvulnerability, target response styles, and consequences of the SH for the target. The sexualorientation of targets and perpetrators is notconsidered because data were unavailable. Results reveala number of meaningful differences between sameandother-gender SH. The most striking result is that maletargets of same-gender SH experience consequences thatare significantly more pervasive and severe than thoseexperienced by male targets of other-gender SH.Organizational implications are discussed.     

Characteristics and consequences of help-giving practices in contrasting human services programs

Relationships between human services program models and help-giving practices, and between both program models and help-giving practices and help-seeker control appraisals were examined in a study of 107 low socioeconomic background families. Three kinds of human services agencies were included in the study, each of which differed in terms of their implicit and explicit assumptions about the families they served and the roles professionals and families played as part of helping relationships. Results support the hypotheses that (a) a program philosophy that was family centered would be associated with more empowering help-giving practices compared to more professionally centered philosophies and (b) a family-centered program philosophy and empowering help-giving practices would be related to an enhanced sense of personal control over needed supports and resources from a target help-giver.