Career Decision‐Making Self‐Efficacy Change in Italian High School Students

The authors explored the effects of a structured‐group career intervention among 280 Italian high school students. Hierarchical linear models indicated the intervention's effectiveness in increasing career decision‐making self‐efficacy and, consequently, career exploration, but not in decreasing career choice anxiety. In addition, partial confirmation was found for the moderating effects of participants' expectations and motivation to change on the relationship between career decision‐making self‐efficacy and career choice anxiety. The findings support the development of a systematic vocational guidance program in Italian schools.     

Sexual harassment law: It’s not what you think

Companies and colleges often react strongly to allegations of sexual harassment, even firing men on first offenses, because of their fear of lawsuits. A review of sixty-two federal Courts of Appeals decisions in sexual harassment cases indicates that sexual harassment law is not as broad as suggested by these strong reactions.     

Comprehensive community-based education and neurorehabilitation for children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury

Children and adolescents who experience a traumatic brain injury (TBI) typically have sensory, cognitive, behavioral, and functional skill challenges that must be addressed in acute and post-acute rehabilitation settings. This article describes a community-based school that combines educational, medical, nursing, family, residential-living, and psychological services in a comprehensive program of pediatric neurorehabilitation. The operational, administrative, and clinical features of these service components are presented. A critical aspect of the program is an emphasis on applied behavior analysis procedures for purposes of assessment, treatment formulation, and evaluation. Data are reviewed to demonstrate demographics, patterns of service delivery, and outcome. The school program represents an educational alternative for students with TBI who are discharged from acute-care settings and require comprehensive support services to facilitate their transition and re-entry to public school and community living. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Well‐being and pressures of daily life in two West Bank villages—Exploring context and history

Interest in the well‐being of people exposed to long‐term violence and conflict has tended to focus on measurable effects of acute traumatic events, while attention to the pressures of their daily living context is relatively new. Using qualitative and quantitative data from a 2005 survey of all female family caretakers in 2 neighbouring Israeli‐occupied West Bank villages (n = 820), we explored the associations of demographic, health‐related and contextual factors with reported pressures and WHO‐5 well‐being index scores. The final model explained 17.8% of the variance with negative associations between health‐related factors (“back‐aches,” “stomach aches” “psychological illness in the family”) and family‐related factors (“male head of household aggressive”, “male head of household physically violent”) and the WHO‐5 well‐being index scores. We found positive associations between socio‐economic factors (“standard of living”; “number of rooms”) and village‐related factors (“residency in village A/B”) and the WHO‐5 well‐being index score. Exploring the daily living context of villages A and B illuminated how the impact of historical and political events differed, even in villages that are geographically close. The paper lends support to calls for including politics and history in research on well‐being in contexts of long‐term violence and conflict.     

Neural substrates of the ‘low‐level’ system for speech articulation: Evidence from primary opercular syndrome

We describe a patient with progressive disorder of speech, without language impairment (opercular syndrome). Morphometric analysis confirmed asymmetric volume reduction of the precentral areas (>left). Diffusion imaging showed significant white matter changes in the left frontal lobe, with specific involvement of the left corticobulbar tract and connections between supplementary/pre‐supplementary motor areas and the frontal operculum (frontal aslant tract). We suggest that the organization of expressive language includes a ‘low level’ motor system principally distributed in the left hemisphere that shows specific susceptibility to neurodegeneration, distinct from neural systems subtending praxic, and cognitive aspects of language.     

Women,Human Rights,and Counseling: Crossing International Boundaries

As the world becomes more globalized, psychological and counseling issues have become more pronounced. As social justice issues become illuminated on a global scale, there is increased attention to women as identified victims of social injustices and human rights violations. This article examines the role of professional counselors working with women from an international perspective with the intention to heighten awareness and understanding of the interrelationship of global women's issues and effective counseling interventions.     

Testing Factorial Structure and Validity of the PCL:SV in Lithuanian Prison Population

This study examined the factorial structure and validity of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV) in a European forensic context. A random sample of 257 criminal offenders from the Lithuanian prison population were administered the PCL:SV (Hart et al. 1995). The pattern of validity coefficients in this sample was comparable to other North American and non-North American samples. Several theoretical factorial structures for the PCL:SV were tested and compared. The two-factor model was not supported, while three- and four-factor models provided an acceptable fit to Lithuanian data. The four-factor model showed significantly better fit compared to the two-factor model. Correlations between PCL:SV factors and demographic variables confirm construct validity. However in the four-factor model, when controlling for correlations of the remaining three factors, only the Antisocial factor significantly correlated with variables related to criminal activity. It was concluded that the overall results of the PCL:SV in a male sample of Lithuanian offenders support cross-cultural generalizability of the construct of psychopathy as measured by the PCL:SV.     

Correlates of intellectual ability with morphology of the hippocampus and amygdala in healthy adults

Several prior imaging studies of healthy adults have correlated volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala with measures of general intelligence (IQ), with variable results. In this study, we assessed correlations between volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala and full-scale IQ scores (FSIQ) using a method of image analysis that permits detailed regional mapping of this correlation throughout the surface contour of these brain structures. We delineated the hippocampus and amygdala in high-resolution magnetic resonance images of the brain from 34 healthy individuals. We then correlated FSIQ with overall volumes and with the surface morphologies of each of these structures. Hippocampus volumes correlated significantly and inversely with FSIQ independently of gender, age, socioeconomic status, and whole brain volume. Left and right hippocampus volumes correlated respectively with verbal and performance IQ subscales. Higher IQs were significantly associated with large inward deformations of the surface of the anterior hippocampus bilaterally. These findings suggest that a smaller anterior hippocampus contributes to an increased efficiency of neural processing that subserves overall intelligence.     

Bridging Science and Practice in Violence Prevention: Addressing Ten Key Challenges

This article illustrates ideas for bridging science and practice generated during the Division of Violence Prevention's (DVP) dissemination/implementation planning process. The difficulty of moving what is known about what works into broader use is near universal, and this planning process pushed us to look beyond the common explanations (e.g., providers were resistant/unwilling to change practice) and think about the multiple layers and systems involved. As part of this planning process, the Interactive Systems Framework for Dissemination and Implementation (ISF) was developed and then applied to the fields of child maltreatment and youth violence prevention. Challenges for each of the three systems in the ISF are discussed as well as and action and research ideas to address the challenges. Also described are actions taken by DVP in response to the planning process to illustrate how a funder can use the ISF to bridge science and practice.