Prevention of depressive symptoms in school children

This paper describes the development and preliminary efficacy of a program designed to prevent depressive symptoms in at-risk 10–13 year-olds, and relates the findings to the current understanding of childhood depression. The treatment targets depressive symptoms and related difficulties such as conduct problems, low academic achievement, low social competence, and poor peer relations, by proactively teaching cognitive techniques. Children were identified as ‘at-risk’ based on depressive symptoms and their reports of parental conflict. Sixty-nine children participated in treatment groups and were compared to 73 children in control groups. Depressive symptoms were significantly reduced and classroom behavior was significantly improved in the treatment group as compared to controls at post-test. Six-month follow-up showed continued reduction in depressive symptoms, as well as significantly fewer externalizing conduct problems, as compared to controls. The reduction in symptoms was most pronounced in the children who were most at risk.     

Improving urban and disadvantaged schools: Dissemination and utilization perspectives

There has been increasing concern in a number of countries about the perceived deterioration of schools that serve immigrant, minority or poor children. Field reports suggest that such schools tend to be bureaucratic, politicized, and isolated from the most up-to-date information about educational innovations that may improve the educational opportunities for disadvantaged children. Even in countries with relatively well-established dissemination systems, these schools may be “out of the knowledge utilization loop.” In this paper, the organizational properties of U.S. urban schools that may lead to their isolation from knowledge will be discussed, and a variety of strategies to improve dissemination and utilization will be outlined, including political/community organizing, linking dissemination to organization development, increasing the salience of ties between universities and schools, the development of teacher networks, and action research. The paper will conclude with some principles for designing a dissemination system that will effectively promote knowledge utilization in urban centers. p]The conditions in some of our schools are so bad, and the physical and social environments in which these schools are located are so frightful, that we may have to cross off some...as expendable. (Halpin, 1966, as quoted in Englert, 1993: 3.) Her research and teaching interests include innovation processes in education, knowledge use in schools, and schools as workplaces. Recent publications include articles on social values and the quality of teacher work life,Reforming the Urban High School: What Works and Why with Matthew B. Miles, andReshaping the Principalship, with Joe Murphy. The preparation of this paper was supported, in part, by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Effective Secondary Schools, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (Grant No. G-008690007). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of either of the supporting agencies. An earlier version was presented at a conference on dissemination and school improvement held at Haifa University, June 1993.     

A controlled evaluation of the impact of a parent training programme on child behaviour and mothers' general well-being

This study was designed to assess the impact of a parent training programme run by the Eastern Health Board (EHB) on two factors, child behaviour and mothers' general well-being. Thirty-nine mothers (Experimental group), and forty mothers on a waiting list for the course (Control group), were assessed before the Experimental group commenced the course and again when the Experimental group had completed the course. The Experimental group was also assessed one year after completing the course. Although initially the Control group started from a slightly better position, statistically significant for one of the four measures, mothers in the Experimental group changed more during the course and rated their children as having fewer and less intense behavioural problems, and saw themselves as having fewer psychological symptoms and increased levels of self-esteem at post-course assessment. These beneficial effects were maintained at follow-up.     

The not-so-silent couple in the individual

This paper aims to examine two often separate areas of analytical enquiry, the nature of the self, with its foundation in the concept of a primary self which may achieve a sense of coherence over time, and the nature of internal objects, a concept that forms the basis of theories concerning part selves and sub-personalities. It is argued that these concepts might be integrated to provide a unified model of the self, thereby integrating theoretically disparate aspects of mental structure and functioning. Through an examination of clinical material, the archetype of the coniunctio is evoked to offer an understanding of how, in the absence of a stable conjunction of (maternal) reverie and (paternal) thinking functions, a series of linked but oppositional internal couples may be created which lends to the self the experience of a combined and sustaining inner couple. The internal couple creates a source of psychological survival for the self, with the function of providing a reliable structure in which the processes of the self may unfold, but equally requiring strict adherence to a pernicious system of internal defences that allows for very little interaction with others outside the self. At the same time, these defences inevitably become blocks to further development, and the work of transformation is thwarted. For transformation to occur, it is necessary for the self to find another, often the analyst, who may be allowed to partake in the internal conjunction, thereby promoting a better grounding for the self.     

Characteristics that help mothers maintain their infants'' focus of attention

Disadvantaged mothers' use of interactive strategies which maintained their infants' focus of attention were examined at 6, 12, and 24 months to evaluate for patterns in this interactive strategy and determine if patterns could be predicted from early infant and maternal characteristics. Four distinct clusters were identified with mothers in each cluster increasing in their use of maintaining over time but differing in the age at which the increase occurred. While infants' biologic risk was unrelated to cluster membership, more positive scores on mothers' perceptions of child rearing history, child rearing attitudes, self-esteem, and social support when the infants were 6 months old were reported by mothers who displayed a pattern of high levels and steady increase in maintaining. More negative scores on these characteristics were reported by mothers who displayed low levels of maintaining and delays in increasing this interactive strategy. Results are discussed in light of disadvantaged mothers' ability to adapt to their infants' changing needs and early identification of mothers' who may have greater difficulty in the adaptational process.     

The Relations of Regulation and Emotionality to Children's Situational Empathy-Related Responding

The relations of dispositional regulation (attentional control, ego control), ego resiliency, and emotionality (general emotional intensity and negative emotionality) to situational measures of sympathy and personal distress were examined. Situational sympathy and personal distress were assessed with facial, self-reported, and heart rate reactions to an empathy-inducing film. Teachers and parents completed measures of children's dispositional regulation and emotionality. In general, children who evidenced sympathy (e.g., facial sadness, mean heart rate decline, and self-reported sympathy) were rated higher in regulation and resiliency, although findings sometimes were obtained for only one sex. Children who evidenced personal distress (e.g., facial distress), as well as facial sadness, were rated relatively high in emotionality. Gaze aversion from the film was correlated with regulation and boys' resiliency, and was negatively related to negative emotionality.     

The Continuum of Deep/Surface Dyslexia

A right-handed male sustained traumatic brain injury which resulted in anomia, dyslexia, and agraphia. The most severe CT (computed tomography)-identified brain damage was located in the right parieto-temporal lobe. In the first months following the injury, the pattern of reading errors was similar to that associated with deep dyslexia. However, nonlexical derivation of phonology from print was not abolished. As the patient's ability to associate letter patterns with sounds improved, oral reading also improved. Although he no longer produced semantic errors in oral reading, he continued to produce oral reading errors that were visually and phonologically related to the targets. Four months after the injury, the error pattern observed in the patient's oral reading was consistent with very mild surface dyslexia. The significance of these observations to dual-deficit models of acquired dyslexia is discussed, as are their implications for rehabilitation.     

A Postmodern Analysis of a Course on Clinical Supervision

A qualitative study of a supervision course included pre-and post-interviews of the participants in addition to in-class participant observation. In an effort to be consistent with a postmodern perspective, the data were reviewed by the four members of the research team, each of whom shares his or her analysis, or story. Common themes which emerged in response to the focus on student change include greater awareness of isomorphic processes, ethical and legal issues, and evaluative processes.     

Neural Systems Mediating American Sign Language: Effects of Sensory Experience and Age of Acquisition

ERPs were recorded from deaf and hearing native signers and from hearing subjects who acquired ASL late or not at all as they viewed ASL signs that formed sentences. The results were compared across these groups and with those from hearing subjects reading English sentences. The results suggest that there are constraints on the organization of the neural systems that mediate formal languages and that these are independent of the modality through which language is acquired. These include different specializations of anterior and posterior cortical regions in aspects of grammatical and semantic processing and a bias for the left hemisphere to mediate aspects of mnemonic functions in language. Additionally, the results suggest that the nature and timing of sensory and language experience significantly impact the development of the language systems of the brain. Effects of the early acquisition of ASL include an increased role for the right hemisphere and for parietal cortex and this occurs in both hearing and deaf native signers. An increased role of posterior temporal and occipital areas occurs in deaf native signers only and thus may be attributable to auditory deprivation.