Couple resilience and life wellbeing in firefighters

The validity of the Couple Resilience Inventory was tested using 102 married or cohabiting firefighters. This instrument measures types of relationship behavior that often occur during stressful life events and that are expected to be associated with an ability to cope with employment in a stressful occupation. It includes scales measuring two nearly orthogonal dimensions, with one dimension pertaining to positive behavior and the other to negative. Firefighters completed an online questionnaire that included the Couple Resilience Inventory and measures of relationship satisfaction, exposure to traumatic events, and life wellbeing. In line with hypotheses, scales measuring positive and negative couple resilience were nearly orthogonal to each other, and distinct from a measure of relationship satisfaction, but both scales correlated positively with exposure to traumatic events, and both correlated in opposite directions with relationship satisfaction and life wellbeing. Results were consistent with the theoretical model and they supported instrument validity.     

Enhancing Outcomes for Struggling Readers: Empirical Analysis of The Fluency Development Lesson

This study investigated the efficacy of the Fluency Development Lesson (FDL) in improving reading achievement in primary grade struggling readers. 30 readers, enrolled in a summer reading clinic, participated in daily 40-min mini-reading lessons across 5 weeks. During the fluency lessons, readers practiced and developed their literacy skills through participation in repeated readings, word work, rehearsal, and performance. Assessments measured comprehension, reading fluency, including word recognition accuracy, reading speed, and prosody. Control students also took the pre- and post-intervention tests; their performance did not change with repeated testing. The Fluency Development Lesson students showed significant gains on all measures.     

Shared Responsibility and Civic Engagement in Very Old Age

Although late-life potentials are increasingly recognized as a valuable resource for shaping social change, contributions of the very old to civil society are still regularly overlooked. The authors outline a comprehensive perspective on very old age (or the fourth age), which integrates vulnerability and developmental potential, and report findings from the Generali study of the very old in Germany. This mixed-methods study included 400 qualitative biographical interviews with people aged 85+ and a standardized survey of 800 employees of municipalities and voluntary organizations. The authors found that feelings of shared responsibility and motives for engagement in family and community, especially for younger generations, were highly prevalent among the very old participants. Approximately one half of them reported being civically engaged, mostly in informal settings, and many had been engaged before. The very old participants emphasized the importance of positive intergenerational relationships, physical health, positive perceptions of aging, and supportive environments as major factors that might promote their civic engagement. However, perspectives of institutional staff were different. Institutional staff rated the very old more negatively as compared with the young-old and saw the barriers to civic engagement primarily within the individuals (e.g., in their old age and poor health). The authors’ findings indicate that lacking institutional opportunity structures may contribute to the exclusion of some very old people from civic life.     

The Association Between Therapeutic Alliance and Treatment Outcomes in a Group Triple P Intervention

A growing literature has examined the association between therapeutic alliance and treatment outcomes in child therapy. Few studies, however, have specifically investigated the role of therapeutic alliance within evidence-based parenting programs for children with externalizing behavioural difficulties. The current study prospectively collected measures of therapeutic alliance for 117 families completing a Triple P parenting program in a community children’s mental health center. Higher levels of mother and father rated therapeutic alliance were associated with greater gains in parenting skills and parental sense of competence. Parental rated therapeutic alliance was also associated with greater improvements in child conduct problems for mothers, but not fathers. However, therapist ratings of therapeutic alliance had limited associations with treatment improvement. The implications of the findings for clinical practice are discussed.