Aspects of Communication in Families with Young Children

The subjects for this study were 16, non-pathological, four-person families, each with a child three or four years old and a child six or seven. Half the children were male and half female. The interactions studied involved both parents with one child and then with the other. The content of each remark was studied through a system of language-usage categories. This analysis indicated that older children sent and received a wider variety of messages than younger children did. Also, female children received a higher ratio of positive feedback to negative feedback from parents than males did. Who talks to whom, and who talks the most were also studied. These measures showed the formation of strong same-sex coalitions between parent and child. A number of the findings support a general systems interpretation of family interaction.     

Increasing Empathy for Employment Service Counselors: A Practicum

Outservice practicum training of employment service counselors presents a particular challenge to counselor educators. An overview of a two-week practicum-laboratory training program is presented and discussed. The efficacy of the training is examined from the standpoint of helpful levels of empathy presented by the employment service counselors trained. The difference between pretraining and posttraining levels of empathy indicated statistically significant gains were realized.     

Imitation as a dyadic interchange pattern

Abstract.— Imitation was considered one pattern of interactional behavior adopted by children. Forty-eight firstgrade children were paired with experimenters, who first gave instructions for imitation, attention, or for joint or isolate play and later behaved identically toward all the children. Children who received instructions either to copy or to simply pay attention watched and then copied the adults. The other children played with the adults, or played alone and ignored the adults, as expected. Later in a standard phase, children continued to attend and copy if they had initially received explicit instructions to copy, but not if they had gotten instructions only for attention. Children given comparison instructions shifted on some measures, but followed many initial patterns. The implications for interactional patterning in imitation and other recurrent situations were discussed.     

Student personnel services in the university without walls

With the growth of the university without walls, or the open university, a new and expanded role can be in the making for the student personnel professional. This professional's expanded functions should center around outreach services that are necessary for the special groups the open university can serve. An active role for the student personnel professional should become a reality within the nontraditional university.     

Counseling the emotionally troubled: a neglected group

The fact that 15 percent of our child and adolescent population suffers from serious mental health problems requires that we reexamine our traditional system for delivering services. Since the majority of troubled young people are not receiving help from specialists, the counselor should be considered as a primary mental health resource. If this role is to be undertaken, however, counselors will require more adequate training than that which is now being provided. The author examines existing patterns of counseling service in the light of those functions mental health workers should be able to perform.