This article presents a simile for understanding the power of paradigms, mental models, and mind-sets as religion-like phenomena. The author clarifies the meaning of the three phenomena to help readers to see how the phenomena become significant sources of resistance to change. He concludes by outlining a paradigm-shifting process to assist…

Alcohol screening and brief intervention (SBI) is recommended for all primary care patients but is underutilized. This project trained 111 residents and faculty in 8 family medicine residencies to conduct SBI and implement SBI protocols in residency clinics, then assessed changes in self-reported importance and confidence in performing SBI and…

Gilbert Gottlieb's data and epigenetic approach support the conclusion that organisms are functionally-whole agents at each phase of development rather than simply incompletely developed adults prior to sexual maturity and deteriorated adults in old age. This implies that organisms construct distinct ontogenetic niches at each phase of…

This article highlights the defining principles, progress and future directions in developmental psychopathology in relation to this special section. Six fundamental principles of developmental psychopathology are identified and the pervasive impact of this integrative framework on research, theory, and practice in behavioral health fields over…

This paper emphasizes the importance of parent education, particularly in our current rapidly changing society. The history of parent education is briefly reviewed and a new program called STEP, Systematic Training for Effective Parenting, is described. (Author)

Since behavioral interventions for challenging behaviors in children with developmental disabilities have limitations in the family setting, this paper presents a theoretical and working model of intervention that integrates contemporary behavioral and systemic orientations. Four stages for intervention are provided, each consisting of practical…

The 10 author-contributed papers were given at a 1974 conference on the roles, problems, and skills of school psychologists and special education teachers who serve as consultants to facilitate the mainstreaming of handicapped children. The first section contains four case studies focusing on student behavior change (S. Deno), the Vermont…

This paper discusses the concept of a family system in terms of an interactive system of interrelated, interdependent parts and suggests that VHS movies can act as perturbations, i.e., change promoting agents, for certain dysfunctional family systems. Several distinct characteristics of a family system are defined with particular emphasis on…

The process of implementing Goal Attainment Scaling at the Reno Veterans' Administration Center Mental Health Service, where it had never been employed and where most of the staff had never heard of the technique, is described. The difficulties of introducing a unique measurement instrument such as Goal Attainment Scaling into an existing system…

The paper offers a broad-based behavioral approach to language generalization which is affected by basic cognitive processes, behavioral learning strategies, environmental variables, and the child's present knowledge base. Implications of this approach for application of a systems approach to intervention are discussed. (Author/DB)

Using effectivemess, efficiency, self-sustenance, and communicability as criteria, a conceptual model, called SCRAPE, was developed at the University of Texas to systematically describe educational behaviors. The key elements of the system are: (1) diagnosis and prescription, (2) instructional events, (3) achievement evaluation, and (4) consequent…

Urges an adventure filled, experientially based systems approach to environmental education. Says cannot afford linear, piecemeal approaches to either the processes of life or the processes of living, that the challenge is to see the whole system and to learn to act in ways that maintain that wholeness. (Author)

This report identifies provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Amendments of 1997 that relate to 10 recommendations proposed by a 1996 conference of the National Association of State Directors of Special Education on the Individualized Education Program (IEP). The conference used an accountability model that views…