Provides present stages of development and preliminary validation of the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI), a self-report instrument for measuring the quality of alliance. Results from three studies were used to investigate instrument's reliability and validity and the relations among the WAI scales. Data show that WAI is reliably correlated with a…

Eighty normally hearing children (ages 4 to 8) judged the clarity of sentences that were systematically bandpass-filtered to increase intelligibility. Study of 10 subjects at each age found that children 5 years or older were able to make reliable clarity judgements using paired comparisons or category rating; however, the method of paired…

Studied African American culture, using a new, shortened, 33-item African American Acculturation Scale (AAAS-33) to assess the scale's validity and reliability. Comparisons between the original form and AAAS-33 reveal high correlations, however, the longer form may be sensitive to some beliefs, practices, and attitudes not assessed by the short…

Details a social constructionist reconfiguration of metaphor analysis (SCMA) that is advanced as a powerful, reflexive analytic tool for discourse-centered social constructionist investigations. Applies SCMA to a body of organizational socialization discourse and illuminates a set of prevailing assumptions that both enable and disable…

Both expectancy-theory and needs-theory variables were used to predict college student performance (overall grade point average) for 81 students. The average valence variable from the expectancy theory model was found to be the best overall predictor of actual academic performance, but the need for autonomy score was also a predictor. (SLD)

A study of 100 article citations from 11 library science journals showed only 45 article citations that were completely free of errors, while 11 had major errors--i.e., errors preventing or hindering location of the reference--and the remaining 44 had minor errors. Citation accuracy in library science journals appears similar to accuracy in other…

Discusses characteristics that attract parents to family day care providers. These characteristics include the caregiver's reliability, credibility, appearance, responsiveness, and ability to be empathetic. (BB)

Relatives of patients with dementia completed questionnaires about caregiver stress and patients' functional and psychiatric problems during initial evaluation, at 4-17-month follow-up, and retrospectively. Retrospective accounts correlated well with initial reports but psychiatric symptoms were underreported in retrospective accounts. Spouses…

Presents general principles for cleaning data sets. Suggests techniques: check for column shifts, data completeness, marginal frequencies, and selected cross-tabulations; examines a sample of cases. Gives strategies for preventing data processing errors. (SK)

Fifteen deaf and 11 hearing children (ages 8-10) witnessed slides depicting a wallet theft and were interviewed using a free recall approach followed by increasingly directive questions. Although accuracy of the two groups did not differ in free recall, deaf children provided less accurate responses to directive questions, whereas accuracy of the…

Reports findings from a study of the confidence expressed by ministry-level decision makers in five developing countries (i.e., Somalia, Botswana, Liberia, Yemen, and Nepal) about the quality of the national-level education data available to them and reasons for the perceived 16-40 percent error rate. (DMM)

Examined knowledge of mothers with children from 6 to 58 months regarding which item in play and language pairs was more advanced developmentally. Found that mothers' orderings matched those established in developmental literature and were stable over two weeks. Language knowledge was stronger than, and unrelated to, play knowledge. Accuracy was…

A study investigated the usefulness of cerebral magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in detecting possible child abuse in 12 children with unexplained neurologic findings. MRI findings were diagnostic for physical abuse in eight cases. A diagnosis of child abuse was made in two more cases by a combination of MRI and survey findings. (Author/CR)

This study estimated the reliability and construct validity of the Global Assessment of Relational Functioning (GARF) Scale, a preliminary tool for assessing relationship functioning. Therapist interns (n=29) and clinical supervisors (n=6) independently rated 94 client families using the scale. (Author/MKA)

Examines the therapeutic relationship in parent/child therapy by using social reinforcement with parents and children as it relates to Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). Discusses the role of social reinforcement, the importance of therapist accuracy and consistency, and the therapist-to-parent-to-child sequential chain of behaviors.…