Family Profiles of Cohesion and Parenting Practices and Latino Youth Adjustment

Using a sample of 279 (52% female) Latino youth in 9th grade (M = 14.57, SD = .56), we examined profiles of family cohesion and parenting practices and their relation to youth adjustment. The results of latent profile analyses revealed four family profiles: Engaged, Supportive, Intrusive, and Disengaged. Latino youth in the Supportive family profile showed most positive adjustment (highest self‐esteem and lowest depressive symptoms), followed by youth in the Engaged family profile. Youth in the Intrusive and Disengaged profiles showed the lowest levels of positive adjustment. The findings contribute to the current literature on family dynamics, family profiles, and youth psychological adjustment within specific ethnic groups.     

Engagement in Behavioral Parent Training: Review of the Literature and Implications for Practice

Engagement in behavioral parent training (BPT), including enrollment, attrition, attendance, within-session engagement, and homework completion, has long been a critical issue in the literature. Several estimates of various aspects of engagement have been suggested in the literature, but a systematic review of the available literature has never been accomplished. This review examines engagement data across 262 studies of BPT. Recruitment attrition, program attrition, attendance, and within-session engagement are examined across studies, with particular emphasis on the impact that SES, study purpose (efficacy vs. effectiveness), treatment format (individual vs. group), and age of child may have on those rates. Results of this review suggest that the significant amount of attrition occurs prior to enrollment in BPT, with at least 25 % of those identified as appropriate for BPT not enrolling in such programs. An additional 26 % begin, but drop out before completing treatment. Still the combined dropout rate of at least 51 % leaves at best half of identified parents completing treatment. While SES status had a small effect on attrition, other variables were not found to meaningfully impact engagement. Information on within-session engagement (homework and ratings of participation) was not often reported in studies. Key issues in this literature (e.g., varying definitions of engagement, limited attention to reporting key aspects of engagement) are discussed, and recommendations are made to further improve this important area of research and clinical practice.     

Life skills instruction for children with developmental disabilities

The Preschool Life Skills program is an intervention package designed to teach functional skills to prevent problem behavior in typically developing children. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of the instructional package (renamed “Life Skills”) with children with developmental disabilities. The program involved teaching 12 life skills to nine participants across four instructional units. The units were instruction following, functional communication, tolerance of denial and delay, and friendship skills. Teachers provided instruction through a three-tiered instructional approach, starting with class-wide instruction followed by small group and one-to-one instruction as necessary. We extended previous research by using visual prompts during all three tiers and progressively increasing intertrial intervals during one-to-one instruction. Results indicated that the intervention led to skill acquisition with all nine participants. The skills maintained 4 weeks after instruction ended.     

Linguistic context and children's recall in a probe word task

A probe word task was used to test first-, third-, and fifth-grade children's recall of words in varying linguistic contexts. Consistent with expectations based on short-term memory considerations, words that occurred in meaningful sentence contexts were better recalled than those appearing in strings of unrelated words, and words that appeared toward the end of the sentence or string were better recalled than those occurring toward the beginning. At the same time, the effects of prior text on recall, seen clearly in tasks used in constructive memory research, were not present in this short-term memory task. These findings suggest that while within-sentence semantic relational and syntactic information may be used for partial analysis while material is still in working memory, this state does not permit access to already analyzed information in prior text.The authors express appreciation to Richard Schwartz, Ronnie Wilbur, and Harlan Schweer for their suggestions throughout the course of the study.     

Applying Primary Prevention Precepts to Campus Substance Abuse Programs

The authors identify five primary prevention programming precepts dealing with perspective, targets, methods, intentionality, and ethic. They describe how the United States Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE) sponsored University of Cincinnati substance abuse prevention project was developed by following these precepts. They hope that this information will aid others in their development of primary prevention programs in college substance abuse (i.e., alcohol and other drug abuse) or in other areas.     

Gender and success-related attributions: Beyond individualistic conceptions of achievement

Two hundred male and 42 female senior public administrators responded to a questionnaire that explored gender differences in self- and social attributions for career success. Attributions to professional, personal, and political contacts were examined in addition to ability, hard work, and luck. Ability and hard work were found to constitute a central factor, labeled the “Alger factor,” in attributions for oneself as well as for colleagues of both sexes. Professional contacts were seen as more important than nonprofessional contacts or luck by both sexes; women, however, perceived the Alger factor as more important to their own success than to that of male colleagues, and viewed professional contacts as more important to male colleagues than even the Alger factor. There were gender differences in the relationship of luck to the Alger factor: self-attributions to luck and to the Alger factor were positively correlated for women but negatively correlated for men, perhaps because of a differential sense of entitlement for the sexes. While affirming the centrality of the Alger factor in causal attributions, this research underscores the need to reconceptualize current research paradigms based on individualistic conceptions of achievement.