Next Steps in Research on Children Exposed to Domestic Violence

The papers in this special issue of Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review provided an overview of what is known about children's exposure to domestic violence, and include indications of gaps in extant research. These gaps and research needs are summarized in this conclusion. Specifically, there is need for further research in several broad areas: definition and measurement of children's exposure to domestic violence; development of research methods and statistical designs that provide detailed information and provide for evidence of intervention effectiveness; impact of domestic violence on parenting and family functioning; the role of child factors and exposure to violence factors in predicting developmental risk and resilience; medical and health consequences of exposure to violence; and the nature of child-system interaction in response to domestic violence. Research needs in these areas are discussed in greater detail, and specific questions are raised for further development.     

Children Exposed to Community Violence: The Rationale for Early Intervention

Children are exposed to violence in their homes and communities at extraordinarily high rates. Given the alarming rates of exposure and its known impact on child developmental outcomes, crisis intervention geared at interrupting the negative effects of violence exposure are increasingly important. This review provides a rationale for the implementation of early and crisis intervention strategies for children exposed to community violence and recommends principles for applying these interventions. These principles are based on the body of research concerning risk and protective factors for children who have been exposed to violence. Relevant factors are reviewed and recommended principles are explicated that correlate to these factors. Issues concerning developmentally informed crisis intervention, support of parental executive functioning, and the need for active community partnership to help ameliorate risk factors are highlighted.     

Next Steps in Research on Children Exposed to Community Violence or War/Terrorism

The articles in this special issue of Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review provide an overview of what is known about children's exposure to community violence and war/ terrorism, and indicate significant gaps in extant research. These gaps and research needs are summarized in this conclusion.     

Prevalence of Child and Adolescent Exposure to Community Violence

Emerging as one of the most significant health issues facing American youth today, child and adolescent exposure to community violence has generated much interest across multiple disciplines. Most research to date has focused on documenting the prevalence of community violence and the emotional and behavioral ramifications. This paper provides an overview of the current literature regarding prevalence of youth exposure to community violence, and identifies those areas where further research is warranted. In addition to examining overall rates of community violence exposure, this paper reviews the prevalence of different types of community violence, such as weapon use, physical aggression, and crime-related events. Predictors of community violence exposure, including gender, age, race, socioeconomic status, behavior patterns, and geography, are discussed.     

Introduction

This issue of Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, Children Exposed to Domestic Violence: Current Status and Research Directions, addresses the current status of our knowledge as well as critical research needs in the area of children exposed to domestic violence. Although much has been learned in recent years about children exposed to violence, significant research gaps remain, the identification of which may help to build a more complete and rigorous science base in this area. This journal issue represents the distillation of a 3-day workshop on children exposed to violence, held in July of 2002, that identified what is known about children exposed to violence and what this information tells us about future research directions. Although many federal agencies have supported some research in this area, there is a need for more targeted attention on the topic, particularly with regard to measurement, sampling, and interventions/services. The papers in this issue were selected with these themes in mind. Although no single issue could cover the entire field, we intend to offer a representative sample of where we are and where we need to go with the hope of stimulating additional thought, collaboration, and research in this important area.     

The Ethics of Type 1 Diabetes Prediction and Prevention Research

There are approximately one million cases oftype 1 diabetes in the US, and the incidenceis increasing worldwide. Given that two-thirdsof cases present in childhood, it is criticalthat prediction and prevention research involvechildren. In this article, I examine whethercurrent research methodologies conform to theethical guidelines enumerated by the NationalCommission for the Protection of Human Subjectsof Biomedical and Behavioral Research, andadopted into the federal regulations thatprotect research subjects. I then offer twopolicy recommendations to help researchersdesign studies that conform to these ethicalrequirements.     

Ritualistic Behavior in Young Children

The aim of this study was to examine ritualistic behavior at its developmental peak. Children 20–59 months of age were sampled through a national system of daycare centers in Israel (N = 228). The order of onset of the ritual behaviors measured was virtually identical to that reported for an American sample (D. W. Evans et al., 1997). Gender and age effects were found for fearfulness but not for ritualistic behavior. Maternal reports of ritualistic behavior were highly correlated with reported fears, and with shy and emotional temperament. Mothers of the children who were in the top 10% in their use of rituals according to maternal report, worried about their child's ritualistic behavior, even though maternal worry was not correlated with ritualistic behavior for the whole distribution.     

小学儿童空间物体位置编码（Ⅰ）

采用找物范式研究小学7、9、11岁儿童利用点与点之间的关系对目标物位置进行编码的认知发展。结果表明：两点距离编码和三点共线编码认知成绩的年龄效应显著,9岁组和11岁组儿童的认知成绩显著好于7岁组儿童的认知成绩。两个不同实验任务对儿童认知成绩的影响不同,7岁组儿童两点距离编码认知成绩显著好于三点共线编码认知成绩,9岁组和11岁组两个任务的认知成绩差异不显著。提供编码线索后,认知成绩有了较大的改善。     

The early acquisition of verb meaning in German by normally developing and language impaired children

The research reported here focuses on the early acquisition of event structure in German. Based on longitudinal studies from 5 normally developing (ND) and 6 language-impaired (LI) children, a model of "event structural bootstrapping" is presented that spells out how ND children log into the verb lexicon. They project a target-consistent event tree, depicting the head-of-event of transitions. Young LI children, failing to employ this bootstrapping strategy, resort to radically underspecified event representations. The results from a truth-value judgment experiment with 16 ND and 16 LI children showed that ND children perform correctly on transitional verbs, while LI children perform at chance level on the same tasks. These findings are accounted for by the model of event structural bootstrapping to the extent that LI children lack an explicit representation of the head-of-event.     

Social Anxiety Disorder in Childhood and Adolescence: Current Status and Future Directions

This paper reviews the current status of research on the phenomenology, etiology, maintenance, assessment, and treatment of childhood and adolescent social anxiety disorder (SAD). Despite being one of the most prevalent disorders of childhood and adolescence, SAD paradoxically stands as one of the least recognized, researched, and treated pediatric disorders. The small treatment outcome literature provides preliminary support to the effectiveness of various forms of cognitive behavior therapy. The majority of studies to date, however, are limited by inadequate control conditions. Other findings include some support for the utility of parental involvement in treatment, significant advancements in outcome measures (e.g., normative comparisons, indices of naturalistic social functioning), and impressive durability of gains for the majority of treatments. Future directions are suggested, including experimental and naturalistic studies of developmental pathways and maintenance factors, the incorporation of positive psychology constructs (e.g., positive emotions, hope, self-control) in treatment and prevention, and the continued delineation of differences between child, adolescent, and adult manifestations of SAD.