This study used baseline data from the Southwest sample of the Latino Acculturation and Health Project to examine whether familism and cohesion are related to problem behaviors in a sample of Mexican and Mexican-American adolescents in the Southwest United States. This study is important to practitioners and prevention and intervention researchers…

Dropping out of school has been associated with a student's ethnicity, socioeconomic status, challenging behaviours and low academic achievement. This paper describes research conducted with 1050 students aged 12-15, in three North Queensland urban high schools to investigate issues related to Indigenous and non-Indigenous students at risk of…

Background: This study examined the predictors, mediators and moderators of parent stress in families of preschool-aged children with developmental disability. Method: One hundred and five mothers of preschool-aged children with developmental disability completed assessment measures addressing the key variables. Results: Analyses demonstrated that…

The article reviews the current status (1993-2007) of psychosocial treatments for children and adolescents who have been exposed to traumatic events. Twenty-one treatment studies are evaluated using criteria from Nathan and Gorman (2002) along a continuum of methodological rigor ranging from Type 1 to Type 6. All studies were, at a minimum, robust…

Early temperament was assessed at ages six, 13, and 24 months via mother ratings on age-appropriate versions of the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ). Home observations of mother-toddler interactions at age 24 months were made, and behavior sequence variables were analyzed. The 24-month form of the ICQ was developed in this study.…

Clinicians need to know the likelihood of a condition given a positive or negative diagnostic test. In this study a Bayesian analysis of the Clinical Behavior Checklist for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities (CBCPID) to predict depression in people with intellectual disability was conducted. The CBCPID was administered to 92 adults with…

Analysis of questionnaires completed by parents of young children with either Prader-Willi syndrome (N=84), Down syndrome (N=56), or typically developing (N=86), found children with Prader-Willi exhibited more compulsions, skin-picking, and tantrums than did the other groups. Discriminant analysis identified two functions (developmental milestones…

A study identified the antecedent characteristics of child and family best predicting behavioral/emotional problems at three years of age. Considered were the relationship of the index of attachment security to several mother-child relationship measures and to other child characteristics, such as difficult temperament and sociability. (Author/NH)

Beyond cases reported to authorities, little knowledge exists on the types, amount, and effects of childhood victimization. Through a national survey of adolescents, researchers examined the prevalence of sexual assault, physical assault, physically abusive punishment, and witnessing an act of violence and subsequent effects on mental health,…

This investigation used data from the 28-year-old New York Longitudinal Study to examine the relationship between various negative emotional and behavioral characteristics (e.g., aggression, anxiety, undercompliance, depressive mood) and adjustment. A total of 133 white, middle-class children were rated on these negative characteristics from…

Changes in patterns of maladaptive behavior related to age-associated adaptive declines were investigated in 529 adults with mental retardation (ages 30 to 84), 202 with Down syndrome. Certain maladaptive behaviors were related to the onset of adaptive declines, (e.g., lack of boundaries). Findings suggest similarities in the course of…

Assessed the relation between behavior problem ratings and family relationship quality among 29 mothers and their 4-year-old children. Findings suggest that the absence of positive parental behaviors is as important as the presence of negative behaviors in behavior problem development. (RH)

While minor physical anomalies (MPAs), a set of 17 non-obvious but measurable characteristics of the hands, face and feet, have been linked to a number of behavioral syndromes in children, such personality correlates of MPAs in adults have not been studied. To explore the relationshp between MPAs and temperament in a college sample, 114 students…

This workshop report presents excerpts of the panel discussions of 10 distinguished family researchers considering the feasibility of joint studies across the three Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration Institutes (the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National…

This study found that accuracy in predicting the out-of-home placement of children with severe disabilities increased little in a large cross-sectional sample (n=5,992) over a smaller semilongitudinal sample (n=141). Factors such as age, adaptive and maladaptive behavior, and ethnicity are discussed. (Author/JDD)