The challenges faced by youth can hinder them from reaching their full potential or help them grow and develop as they overcome their challenges. Grit and resilience provide young people with the skills, confidence, and perseverance to overcome challenges, pursue their goals and thrive. In this article, the authors examine the complex constructs…

The Native American Leadership Model is a source for understanding leadership styles through a lens of tribal core values and Indigenous learning methodologies. This model can serve as a tool to reclaim and assert the Indigenous perspective on Native American leadership that was dismantled over centuries through U.S. assimilation policies. The…

Historically, identity researchers have placed greater emphasis on processes of identity development ("how" people develop their identities) and less on the content of identity ("what" the identity is). The relative neglect of identity content may reflect the lack of a comprehensive framework to guide research. In this article,…

The interactionist model (IM) of human development (R. D. Conger & M. B. Donellan, 2007) proposes that the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and human development involves a dynamic interplay that includes both social causation (SES influences human development) and social selection (individual characteristics affect SES). Using a…

Developing basic competencies of the successful professional is seen as the purpose of professional education. The basic competencies of the applied behavioral scientist are described. The conditions and processes for developing competencies are discussed, emphasizing the need for multi-modal learning experiences and the development of the whole…

Data from a recent study of potential effects of friends' characteristics and friendship features on students' adjustment to school are used to illustrate the distinction between two contradictory assumptions about the path of peer influence. The first assumption, which is linked to the work of Bronfenbrenner, takes a negative view, and focuses on…

This paper synthesizes a variety of perspectives, with an emphasis on attachment theory, on the agency/communion polarity as first defined by David Bakan (1966). The question researchers sought to answer was whether or not agency/communion is best approached as a polarity--opposite and opposing forces, forces in the personality which have often…

Discusses the value of diagnostic classification systems to counseling professionals. Describes the Ecological Diagnostic Classification Plan, an approach to diagnosis that includes the environment as a possible cause of pathology and target of intervention. (Author/KS)

The concept of quality of life currently impacts program development, service delivery, management strategies, and outcome evaluation in the area of intellectual disabilities. Maryland uses peer interviewers to assess consumer-perceived quality of life among adult recipients of MR/DD services and supports. In this article we describe the survey…

This paper offers a model of the nature and development of talents, which views genetic factors as determining potential strengths and setting limits and views abilities, aptitudes, and intelligences emerging as a result of experiences, motivations, and styles. Specific talents are characterized by precocity, creative insight, a functional…

Classroom activities for directing student inquiry into the role of the individual in the future are provided in this text. Activities are presented within a framework of respect for and understanding of the past and the present. A matrix for the study of the individual as a whole person is presented. The matrix is devised along the present, past,…

To develop within teachers those adaptive capabilities necessary to enable them to diagnose learner difficulty and potential, to make prescriptions based on valid diagnosis, and to implement the prescriptions, an attempt has been made to analyze the behavioral components of a general adaptive strategy so that instructional systems can be developed…