An interview with a child to assess psychiatric disturbance: A note on its reliability and validity

Forty-six children with enuresis were given a psychiatric interview. The two writers made independent ratings of 10 behavioral variables. Seven of these showed satisfactory interrater reliability. No relationship was established between child psychiatric disturbance assessed in this way and estimates of disorder obtained from information given by mothers and teachers.Professor Max Hamilton, Department of Psychiatry, University of Leeds, kindly provided computing facilities. The work was supported by a grant from the Yorkshire Regional Health Authority.     

Educational counselling of adults

There is increasing world-wide interest in the need for counselling of adult learners, an interest demonstrated by a recent UNESCO symposium. The work of the Educational Guidance Service for Adults, Belfast, is described, indicating the range of clients coming to the service and the methods used to help them.     

Genetic influences on language impairment and phonological short-term memory

It has been known for some years that specific language impairment (SLI), an unexpected failure to acquire age-appropriate language skills, is highly heritable. However, molecular genetic studies have been hampered by the heterogeneity of the disorder and the predominant lack of clear genotype-phenotype relationships. We review recent studies suggesting that a better understanding of the genetics of SLI might emerge if we move away from clinical criteria for diagnosis to look instead at a theoretically based quantitative and cognitive measure of the phenotype: a test of phonological short-term memory (STM). Deficient phonological STM has been linked to specific genetic loci, and might play a role in determining some types of reading impairment as well as SLI. Identifying those cognitive deficits that work best as indices of heritable phenotypes will help us to uncover the aetiology of developmental disorders.     

BOOK AND ARTICLE REVIEW SECTION

Book reviewed in this article: Crites, John O. “Measurement of Vocational Maturity in Adolescence: Attitude Test of the Vocational Development Inventory,” Psychological Monographs. McCall, John N. and Moore, Gilbert D., “Do Interest Inventories Measure Estimated Abilities,” The Personnel and Guidance Journal.     

Talk about preschool: Patterns of topic discussion and elaboration related to gender and ethnicity

Sixty-six mothers and their 4-year-old children recorded conversations about the children's experiences during a typical preschool day. Each dyad's ethnic background was either Hispanic or Anglo, with similar numbers of mother—daughter and mother—son pairs represented in each ethnic group. Both low- and middle-income dyads participated. The mother—child conversations were analyzed in order to identify the dyads' tendencies to elaborate on discussions of aspects of the school day related to learning, other individuals, and behavioral conduct as a function of the ethnicity of the dyad and the gender of the child. Gender of child was associated with dyads' propensities to devote differing percentages of their total conversational utterances to the discussion of other individuals and behavioral conduct, and interacted with ethnicity to produce different patterns of discussion related to the topic of learning. Mothers of boys used more elaborative utterances in their discussion of learning-related topics than did mothers of girls. Possible implications of these results for children's subsequent school-related attitudes and performance are discussed.     

SOCIETAL LIMITATIONS OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE,PARTICULARLY FOR THE EX-PUBLIC OFFENDER

In the past, society has restricted the vocational opportunity of some of its members. This restriction has affected the individual's self-concepts and his mode of adaptation. The ex-public offender, due to societal limitations of vocational choice, may anticipate some difficulty in obtaining and licensing. Other problems, which handicap the person with a criminal record, are denoted and discussed.     

Prevalence of dual diagnosis in an institution for individuals who are developmentally handicapped

The prevalence of dual diagnosis (developmental handicap with accompanying mental illness) was examined in a population of 71 persons who are institutionalized and developmentally handicapped. The Reiss Screen for Maladaptive Behavior (Reiss, 1988) revealed that 69% of the popula- tion had a dual diagnosis. The incidence of dual diagnosis was not related to level of functioning, although the type of psychopathology varied considerably across levels of functioning. In contrast to findings from the Reiss Screen, previous psychiatric diagnosis indicated a much lower rate of dual diagnosis (26.8%), as did current psychiatric assessment. There was little agreement between the two psychiatric assessments, or between the Reiss Screen and the psychiatric assessments. The Reiss Screen appears to provide information of more practical value for community placement decisions than is provided by the psychiatric assessments. Limitations to the concept of ?dual diagnosis’? for characterizing the mental health needs of persons with a developmental handicap are discussed.