A Developmental Framework for Collaboration in Child-Serving Agencies

Collaboration for the purpose of interdependent problem solving represents a fundamental reform of services for children with serious emotional disturbance and their families, which have typically been categorical, poorly coordinated, costly, overly restrictive, and frequently provided outside of the children's home communities. This article presents a developmental framework for collaboration that is based on the experience of families, service providers, administrators, and community members who have been involved in local collaborative processes in their own communities. The framework provides those interested in building collaboration a clear identification of the stages of collaborative development, defining characteristics of each stage, collaborative activities typical of that stage, and identification of the catalyst for change to the next stage. The results of this project indicate that while well-developed professional collaboration is a necessary component of collaboration, it is not sufficient in and of itself. The sites participating in this project related their experiences in building collaborative processes to both the development of strong interagency collaborations and the development of family participation. Their experience indicates that these two processes must be fully developed and woven together to achieve the goal of true collaboration.     

Regrets and Advice from Mothers who have Disclosed their HIV + Serostatus to their Young Children

Qualitative interviews were conducted with mothers (N = 47) who had disclosed their HIV status to their child. Mothers described their preparation and the process of the disclosure event, and discussed any regrets they had about disclosing or the process of disclosing. They were also asked what advice they had for other HIV-positive mothers who were trying to determine whether to disclose their serostatus to their young children. Overall, the majority of the mothers (68%) did not regret disclosing their HIV status. Regrets fell into five categories: preparation, timing, context, content, and outcomes of the disclosure event. Based on these findings, mothers who have not disclosed their serostatus to their children need assistance with behavioral practice and support in order to prepare for the process. Furthermore, follow-up support for the children may be beneficial.     

Social Research in the Advancement of Children's Rights

This article argues that investigators doing developmental and social research with children have, for the most part, failed to acknowledge the inherent implications of their work for children's rights. The impact of these studies upon children's rights occurs at every stage; from hypothesis formulation to hypothesis testing to dissemination of findings. This paper addresses the issue in the context of developmental research on children's ability to report experienced events accurately. This particular research area has generated data that has been extrapolated to legal contexts and created a foundation for assumptions about the credibility of child witnesses. This in turn has had profound effects on children's right to be heard and the weight given to their testimony. The argument is made that there is a need for social scientists to explicitly articulate how their work may impact upon children's rights and what is in fact the social agenda in this regard underlying their research.     

在家庭自由游戏和智力任务游戏中儿童与母亲的交往行为特征

本研究采用家庭录像观察的方法,考察了61名3－4岁儿童在家庭环境中的两个情境－－自由和带有智力任务倾向的拼图游戏情境中所表现出来的行为特征,结果发现：1儿童在两种游戏情境中与母亲交往时所表现出来的行为特征可以从独立性、顺从、言语交流和参与四个维度进行评价。2当儿童的游戏从自由游戏转为带有智力任务倾向的游戏时,儿童与母亲的交往行为方式发生明显变化,交流行为和积极情绪明显减少,而依赖行为和不与母亲交流的行为显著增加。3在上述两种游戏情境中,儿童与母亲的交往行为表现出个别差异,在自由游戏情境中,42.6%为独立型、32.8%为顺从型和24.6%为交流型;在拼图游戏情境中,54％为独立型、23％为顺从型和23％不顺从型。     

无性生育的伦理考量

从有性生育到无性生育,这是人类生育方式的重大变革。无性生育是从细胞水平上对人类生育方式的干预。无性生育技术的出现及其实验,并不意味“人类的自然生育方式将要终结”,它只是有性生育的必要补充。无性生育技术的滥用和无性生育的泛滥有可能导致人类尊严的彻底丧失和以人的尊严为基础的人类明的倒退。对无性生育技术的研究和应用必须实施社会控制。     

Developmental trajectories of internalising behaviour in the prediction of adolescent depressive symptoms

Using a community‐based Australian birth cohort, groups with distinct longitudinal profiles (trajectories) of internalising behaviour from early childhood through mid‐adolescence were identified for boys and girls from parent ratings. Six internalising trajectories were identified for both genders, comprising stable, decreasing, and increasing pathways. Hierarchical regression models predicted the contribution of internalising trajectories to self‐reported age 17 depressive symptoms for males (n = 557) and females (n = 633), after controlling for the effects of a range of adolescent precursors. Internalising trajectories and adolescent psychosocial factors, each contributed to the prediction of subsequent depressive symptoms, with girls and boys on increasing internalising trajectories and boys on a fluctuating high trajectory particularly at risk. Results suggest that parent ratings can identify coherent internalising behaviour pathways that originate early in life and influence subsequent adjustment.     

Psychometric characteristics of the Parenting Scale in a Vietnamese sample

The Parenting Scale (PS) is a well‐established instrument for measuring discipline practices in Western populations. However, whether the PS is a valid and reliable measure in Eastern populations is not known. Thus, this study examined the psychometric properties of the PS in a sample of 433 Vietnamese parents of children aged 2–7 years. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) examined the commonly used Reitman et al.'s two‐factor and Rhoades and O'Leary's three‐factor solutions. Neither factor structure fit the data. An exploratory factor analysis identified a 12‐item one‐factor and 14‐item two‐factor solutions that overlapped substantially with established factor structures. The one‐factor solution reflected Lax/Overreactive parenting and the two‐factor solution consisted of Lax/Overreactive and Hostile subscales. The factor structures were confirmed via multigroup CFA. Internal consistencies were acceptable and ranged between .70 and .85. Each factor was positively associated with parent anger, dysfunctional cognitions about child behaviour, and externalising child behaviour problems. However, when entered simultaneously in a regression, Hostile discipline was not uniquely associated with child behaviour. Overall, results support the potential utility of the 12‐item one‐factor PS as a measure of dysfunctional parenting practices for Vietnamese parents.     

Autistic phenomena in The Adventures of Pinocchio

This paper seeks to demonstrate that the protagonist of Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio illustrates numerous autistic phenomena such as communication difficulties, sensory and perceptual distortions and mindblindness. While Pinocchio is viewed as a literary construct with contraindications of autism, it will be argued that his autistic traits are sufficient to suggest the possibility that Collodi had a partial intuition of the syndrome 60 years before it was identified by Leo Kanner. Approaching Collodi's text in this manner is taken as an opportunity to survey and reflect upon the psychoanalytic literature on autism and to position it in relation to contemporary theories from cognitive neuroscience.     

Influence of Different Sitting Positions on Healthy Infants' Reaching Movements

The authors analyze the influence of different sitting positions (ring and flexion) on the reaching performance (spatiotemporal variables) of full-term infants 6 and 7 months old. In addition, they correlated level of trunk control, measured by the Segmental Assessment of Trunk Control, with performance during reaching. The different sitting positions only influenced the reaching movements of 6-month-old infants, who showed the best performance in the ring position. However, this influence was observed only for the trunk displacement, deceleration time, movement units, straightness index and mean velocity. In contrast, there was no influence of positions on 7-month-old infants’ reaching performance. Regarding the correlations, it was observed that infants with more level of trunk control showed a better performance when reaching, regardless of position and the age assessed.     

Parental Invalidation and the Development of Narcissism

Parenting behaviors and childhood experiences have played a central role in theoretical approaches to the etiology of narcissism. Research has suggested an association between parenting and narcissism; however, it has been limited in its examination of different narcissism subtypes and individual differences in parenting behaviors. This study investigates the influence of perceptions of parental invalidation, an important aspect of parenting behavior theoretically associated with narcissism. Correlational and hierarchical regression analyses were conducted using a sample of 442 Australian participants to examine the relationship between invalidating behavior from mothers and fathers, and grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Results indicate that stronger recollections of invalidating behavior from either mothers or fathers are associated with higher levels of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism when controlling for age, gender, and the related parenting behaviors of rejection, coldness, and overprotection. The lowest levels of narcissism were found in individuals who reported low levels of invalidation in both parents. These findings support the idea that parental invalidation is associated with narcissism.