Examined extent to which client's choices are incorporated in care decisions within prepaid, community-based long-term care program. Decision criteria used by program's case management team regarding client autonomy included indicators of risk to client stability and of limits on organizational resource capacity. (Author/NB)

Encouraging learning-disabled adolescents to find their own successful style of learning requires: (1) breaking down preconceptions about education; (2) breaking down preconceptions about self; and (3) reinforcing such principles as individual responsibility for choices. (DB)

Considers critical thinking in terms of its political and civic functions and the educational conditions that facilitate its development, use, and growth. Argues that the authoritarian and bureaucratic nature of schools exerts a significant and restrictive influence on the thinking of the young. (DMM)

Ten years after the emergence of the communicative approach, recent challenges are charging that consensus on the term "communicative approach" is elusive, that the approach does not make the most of current understanding about psycholinguistics, and that the issue of autonomous language learning is not fully resolved. (MSE)

Findings highlight the importance of development-related control efforts and beliefs for achieving a subjectively favorable balance of developmental gains and losses and for maintaining an optimistic perspective in middle and later adulthood. Results are discussed with reference to a theoretical model of development-related control activities. (RH)

College teaching practices and organizational behaviors affecting them are examined according to key principles identified in a popular book on management, "In Search of Excellence." It is proposed that higher education institutions are not very different from corporations and can benefit from their experience. (MSE)

Examined rates of cognitive and psychosocial development and the influences of salient life experiences of traditional-aged college students. Results from 15 college students over one academic year suggest that intellectual and psychosocial developmental processes are not uniform, occur at discrepant rates, and are significantly affected by life…

This article describes an exploratory analysis of self-determination for individuals with disabilities and factors that promote or inhibit their self-determination. Analysis of a series of focus groups and semistructured interviews identifies typical characteristics of self-determined individuals, revealing that the availability of financial…

Explored model integrating human capital, family resource, employment, and psychosocial factors to explain variation in economic self-sufficiency among 851 single mothers on public assistance. Workplace support was most significant factor affecting degree to which mothers reduced their reliance on welfare as source of household income over…

A program was developed to offer meal-related choices to adults with severe/profound mental retardation. Results indicated that the program, which included a choice-making skill assessment and teaching component along with a staff training and management component, effectively increased choice opportunities offered as well as actual choices made…

For a sample of 96 adolescents, found that, when the affective nature of the parent-adolescent relationship was positive, adolescent adjustment was more likely to be positive when adolescents reported less rather than more emotional autonomy. When family environments were stressful, emotional autonomy was positively associated with adolescent…

Choice making was studied among 7 students (ages 7-17) with Rett syndrome. Half the opportunities to choose food, beverage, and leisure items elapsed without a choice being made. Results suggest that the relationship between selecting and accepting items vary as a function of task configuration, and lack of choice may not necessarily indicate lack…

Critiques self-defense courses. Many of these courses ignore the fact that most violence against women occurs at home. Questions whether self-defense courses are genuinely empowering for women. States that programs may make individuals safer, but they do not reduce endemic violence in our communities. (CC)

Observed the interactions of 24 well and 26 depressed mothers with their 5-year-old children. Found no difference between well and depressed mothers' granting or denial of their children's requests. Depressed, but not well, mothers' responses to child requests could be predicted from their self-reported mood and child behavior. (BC)

This study of 46 highly successful and 25 moderately successful adults with learning disabilities found that the overriding theme in their successful functioning was control. Control was sought through making conscious decisions to take charge of one's life and through adapting and shaping oneself to move ahead. (Author/JDD)