The proceedings of a series of four full-day workshops held during May, 1979, by the Deinstitutionalization of Status Offenders Project of the Department of Children and Youth Services and the Connecticut Justice for Children Collaboration are presented. Areas of concern addressed by the workshops included the following: (1) adolescent…

To determine the extent of family stress from having a retarded child in the family, two groups of retarded children, some mongoloid, (age range 4 to 19 years) and their families were compared in a longitudinal study. An institutionalized group of 116 children was compared with a community group of 38 children matched for age. Family functioning…

Analyzes behavior of three adolescents following three months of targeted family problem solving training. Findings reflect incomplete understanding of the controlling variables and suggest systematic study of the variables during intervention to reduce behavioral variability and to increase understanding of adolescent drug use. (SA)

Examined how peer acceptance and friendships moderated the link between family adversity and child externalizing behavioral problems. Found that peer acceptance in kindergarten and Grade 1 moderated the relationship between family adversity measures and externalizing behavior problems in Grade 2; friendship served as a moderator for harsh…

Examines factors affecting parental stress and caregiving demands and the use of support services. Data obtained from parents of children (N=231) with mental retardation or chronic illness indicate that coping with significant behavior problems was more important than disability type in determining most forms of parental stress and mental health…

Examines the mechanisms through which children with externalizing behaviors impact parents' feelings of stress and perceptions of parenting. Results, based on parent and teacher reports of 75 first-grade children, indicate that spousal support was the most important resource variable. Parents highly agreed on perceived support in childbearing.…

This study examined the long-term treatment outcomes for 13 families who had participated in the two phases of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy by examining the effects of treatment phase sequence one and two years earlier. Results suggest this treatment may be successful in achieving long-term gains for most families of conduct-disordered…

Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesis that parental distress would mediate relations between parental lifetime alcohol and physical health problems and child behavior problems. Results indicated that sons of parents with alcohol and physical health problems are at elevated risk for behavior problems, partly related to…

Differences in depression between Puerto Rican and non-Latina White mothers providing care to their adult child with mental retardation were examined. The focus of this study is on how family problems may mediate the effect of the adult's behavior problems on the mother's level of depressive symptoms and how this process differs across the two…

Conduct disorder (CD), primarily a childhood disorder, is associated with oppositional defiance disorder and antisocial personality disorder. Differentiating between the disorders requires a preview of the intensity of the disorder. There are many approaches to treating CD. The traditional approach has been psychoanalytically oriented…

Preventive educational programs are potentially useful in reducing the effects of divorce on children and families. Parenting After Divorce is an ongoing study designed to evaluate preventive programs. Divorcing families with children aged 7-12 are identified from court records and contacted to participate. Families are randomly assigned to one of…

Although the literature strongly suggests that children of divorced families suffer emotional disturbance and conduct disorders for at least a limited time, the treatment alternatives have not been widely discussed in the research literature. In clinical practice, individual or family therapies are most often considered, along with occasional…

This paper describes the application of a systems approach model to assessing families with a labeled noncompliant child. The first section describes and comments on the applied methodology for the model. The second section describes the classification of 61 families containing a child labeled by the family as noncompliant. An analysis of data…

Doane concluded that several measures reliably discriminate disturbed from normal families, and that one measure in particular is a reliable predictor of thought disorder in offspring. Jacob and Grounds raise serious questions regarding her evalution of family interaction literature. Doane responds to their critique and clarifies the issues.…

This study examined the relationship between six dimensions of parental marital conflict and adolescent health risk behaviors, including substance abuse and sexual activity. Subjects were 151 European American adolescents and 110 Mexican American adolescents, ages 12-15, and their parents. Parents reported on their inter-parental conflict at…