An evaluation scale of family environment for identification of children at risk of school failure

This study describes the development of the Home Environment Resources Scale, a Brazilian measure for families with children ages 6 to 12 years. The scale measures aspects of support for school achievement, made available to the child at home. A first version of the measure with 11 subscales was administered to 100 mothers or guardians of children with poor school achievement in a clinical setting. Analysis of the items in the first version resulted in a final version comprising 8 subscales with acceptable indices of internal consistency. Two validity studies were conducted. One aimed at verifying to what extent the Home Environment Resources Scale could discriminate the home environment of students referred to a mental health clinic on account of poor school performance. The sample included mothers of 53 referred and 23 nonreferred children. The two groups differed significantly in home resources and on four subscales. The other study assessed the validity, i.e., prediction of the academic outcome of children entering Grade 1. 70 children and their mothers participated. Results indicate that school achievement and social competence at school are mediated by family support.     

Perceptions of and satisfaction with retirement: a comparison of six European union countries

The main aim of this study was to assess perceptions of and satisfaction with retirement among 1,686 recently retired people from 6 European Union countries. The authors compared their responses to a set of questions taken from the Retirement Satisfaction Inventory (F. J. Floyd et al., 1992). The first significant result was that Belgian, British, Finnish, French, and Spanish retirees all expressed very similar assessments of life satisfaction, whereas Portuguese retirees expressed a lower level of satisfaction. The 2nd result was that the major determinants of overall satisfaction in the 6 countries were (a) health and resources and (b) anticipated satisfaction. Finally, the data revealed that cultural background only accounted for a limited amount of variance in overall satisfaction with retirement.     

Personality disorder not otherwise specified: searching for an empirically based diagnostic threshold

The purpose of this paper is to propose a method for empirically investigating diagnostic criteria for personality disorder not otherwise specified (PDNOS). From a large, nonclinical sample of military recruits and undergraduate students who were screened for personality disorders (PDs), 572 completed the Structured Interview for DSM-IV Personality. Data from the interviewed group were used to identify a diagnostic threshold for PDNOS by comparing those who did (n = 88) and did not (n = 484) qualify for a PD diagnosis. For both groups, subjective distress increased and measures of social and occupational functioning decreased as a function of the number of PD criteria met. A classification and regression tree modeling procedure was applied using self-report scores on measures of mood, anxiety, and personality traits to arrive at probabilities for predicting the presence of a PD diagnosis based on the pattern of reported traits present. These probabilities were then used to derive an empirically based diagnostic threshold for PDNOS. In this sample, the most appropriate threshold for a PDNOS diagnosis appears to be the presence of 10 PD criteria for a person who does not qualify for a diagnosis of any other specific form of PD. This definition identified 5.5% of the young adults who were interviewed in this study.     

Social risk and protective factors for suicide attempts in low income African American men and women

A case-control study was conducted to examine a broad array of potential social risk and protective factors for suicide attempt among 200 African American men and women receiving care at a large, public, urban hospital. Specifically, we examined the effect of the following potential risk factors for suicide attempt: life hassles, partner abuse, partner dissatisfaction, and racist events; as well as the following potential protective factors: effectiveness of obtaining resources, social embeddedness, and social support. Using logistic regression, suicide attempter status was predicted by two independently significant social variables: one risk factor (life hassles) and one protective factor (social support). Male versus female suicide attempters were not distinguished by the social variables. These findings, which support the utility of an ecological conceptualization of risk and protective factors for suicide attempt, help to clarify the independently significant social environment risk and protective factors for suicide attempts among economically disadvantaged African Americans in particular. Research on both risk factors and protective factors provide a basis for culturally competent interventions aimed at reducing both the risk of future suicide attempts and completions.     

Pragmatism and Developmentalism in Brazilian Educational Thought in the 1950s/1960

This article proposes to analyse some aspects of the appropriation of New School thinking in Brazil, particularly Deweyan pragmatism, in the 1950s and 1960s. The analysis is based on the assumption that the developmentalist ideology that punctuated the debate on the economic, political and social restructuring of the country in these two decades constituted fertile ground for the return and expansion of pragmatist thinking amongst Brazilian educators, articulating itself, sometimes in contradictory ways, with this ideology. The focus of the analysis will be on the writings of the group of educators which circulated around the figure of Anísio Teixeira, at the time director of the National Institute for Pedagogic Studies (INEP), an organ linked to the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), which set itself the task of producing research that would support public policy in the field of education, as well as constituting itself as a center for teacher education and the stimulus and development of innovative experiences in the public school system. The appropriation of Deweyan pragmatism, in this context, had a triple perspective: pragmatism as scientific method, implying a specific conception of science, particularly the social sciences, with emphasis on the application of scientific knowledge in the solution of practical problems; as a way of democratic life; and as a synonym for experimentalism, in the sphere of schooling.     

Examining the personal-professional distinction: ethics codes and the difficulty of drawing a boundary

The Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association (APA) applies to the professional role behaviors of members and not to their personal behavior. This article discusses some of the difficulties inherent in drawing distinctions between the personal and the professional. Consideration is given to the importance of clarifying public statements. Four ethics codes other than the APA Ethics Code are examined for how they treat the personal-professional distinction. A number of questions are posed to assist in determining the tilt a behavior takes. A concluding recommendation suggests that APA Ethical Standards be applied only to professional role behaviors, whereas aspirational principles might be applied to personal behavior.     

The development of infant learning about specific face-voice relations

This study examined the development of infants' ability to perceive, learn, and remember the unique face-voice relations of unfamiliar adults. Infants of 2, 4, and 6 months were habituated to the faces and voices of 2 same-gender adults speaking and then received test trials where the faces and voices were synchronized yet mismatched. Results indicated that 4- and 6-month-olds, but not 2-month-olds, detected the change in face-voice pairings. Two-month-olds did, however, discriminate among the faces and voices in a control study. Results of a subsequent intermodal matching procedure indicated that only the 6-month-olds showed matching and memory for the face-voice relations. These findings suggest that infants' ability to detect the arbitrary relations between specific faces and voices of unfamiliar adults emerges between 2 and 4 months of age, whereas matching and memory for these relations emerges somewhat later, perhaps between 4 and 6 months of age.     

Social competence in children of alcoholic parents over time

In the current study, the authors tested the hypothesis that children of alcoholic parents (COAs) show deficits in social competence that begin in early childhood and escalate through middle adolescence. Teachers, parents, and children reported on the social competence of COAs and matched controls in a community sample assessed from ages 6 to 15. Hierarchical linear growth models revealed different patterns of change in social competence across development as a function of the reporter of various indicators of competence. Moreover, female COAs showed deficits in social competence in early childhood that receded in adolescence and that varied across subtypes of parent alcoholism. Implications of these findings for understanding the development of social competence in children, and at-risk children in particular, are discussed.     

Relational factors of vulnerability and protection for adolescent pregnancy: a cross-sectional comparative study of Portuguese pregnant and nonpregnant adolescents of low socioeconomic status

This study explores multiple relational contexts that promote vulnerability and protection against early pregnancy in a potential risk group of Portuguese adolescents. A comparative analysis was made between two groups of female adolescents of low socioeconomic status: pregnant adolescents (n=57) and adolescents without a history of pregnancy (n=81). Results suggest that several variables belonging to different contexts-family and school and peer relations--are important in the characterization of the two groups. Lower levels of mother's overprotection and father's emotional support, presence of early pregnancy in adolescent's mother, lower level of emotional proximity to peer relations, and higher number of school failures are significantly associated with adolescent pregnancy.     

Cognitions associated with attempts to empathize: how do we imagine the perspective of another?

Although the theoretical importance of perspective taking has long been recognized, surprisingly little work has documented the cognitions associated with attempts to imagine another's point of view. To explore this issue and to determine whether perspective taking increases the likelihood of self-related thoughts, two experiments were carried out. In the first, a thought-listing procedure was used to assess observer cognitions; in the second, a less reactive measure was used. Instructions to imagine the self in the target's position and instructions simply to imagine the target's perspective produced increased levels of self-related cognition relative to a traditional control condition; the imagine-self condition also produced more self-thoughts and fewer target thoughts than did the imagine-target condition. The control condition produced thoughts suggesting that the observers were distancing themselves from the target. Observers receiving no instructions at all reported cognitions that closely resembled those of observers who received imagine-target instructions.