Adults with mental retardation (n=22,740) were studied to investigate age-related changes in functioning and their relation to subsequent mortality. Individuals with Down syndrome, compared to non-Down syndrome individuals with mental retardation, were at earlier and higher risk for adaptive regression whether prevalence, incidence, or mortality…

A study examined 10,835 high school students with disabilities who took the American College Testing entrance examination, to determine whether more coursework completed by the students resulted in higher test scores. It was found that "coursework completed" was the best predictor of scores in math but not in English. (CR)

Two exploratory studies describe patterns found in middle school discipline referral records. The first project involved the establishment of criteria for identifying the "most difficult" middle school students who would be candidates for a specialized mentoring program. The second project compared the discipline referral patterns of…

A two-year study of 239 families comprising both substance-abusing and nonsubstance-abusing parents found parental substance abuse greatly increased the likelihood of poorer family functioning and re-reports for maltreatment to the child protection services. The findings support the need for including parental substance abuse in risk assessment…

Examined whether the socialization of emotional expression within the family was consistent over time and whether it was related to emotional expressiveness and positive adjustment in late adolescence. Results from 40 adolescents of European American families reveal that females tended to report a higher level of emotional expressiveness and a…

Review of the contribution of various oral language abilities to early reading performances found that, although phonemic awareness was the best predictor of early reading skills, metasyntactic ability also often accounted for significant variance. Once children acquire initial decoding skills, narrative discourse and other metalinguistic skills…

Studies the relationship between education level and probability of re-employment, using Labor Ministry data on 2,077 Finnish unemployed persons. Models of search theory predict that those with less than nine years of education and those with master's, licentiate, or doctor's degrees have the lowest re-employment probabilities. Unemployed persons…

Severity of hearing loss predicted poor reading comprehension scores for children with reading impairments in Grade 3 (N=67) and Grade 6 (N=36) in a study done in five areas of Quebec (Canada). Good scores of a few Grade 6 students with severe hearing loss indicated that these students can keep up if wide gaps do not exist at the outset of…

Associations among children's beliefs about intelligence and effort, goal orientations, self-reported learning strategies, and academic achievement were studied with 319 children in grades 3 through 6. Results revealed a coherent set of beliefs about intelligence and academic performance, and that beliefs are powerful predictors of achievement…

A study compared 422 Head Start children with a putative diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with typical Head Start children from kindergarten through third grade. Children with putative ADHD who had received medications were significantly more likely to be found eligible for special education than non-medicated children.…

Data from the longitudinal Oregon Youth Study for 202 at-risk young men discerned 4 career pathways: long-term unemployment, short-term unemployment, full employment, college education. Long-term unemployment was associated with lowest education attainment and personal adjustment during childhood/adolescence. Most important predictors of pathways…

Tests a theoretical model of mastery motivation with 169 4-year-old African American at-risk children and their parents. The results showed that parents' education predicted parenting beliefs, parents' global self-efficacy predicted parenting beliefs and parent-child relationships, parenting beliefs predicted parent-child relationships,…

A study involving 247 adults with intellectual disability living in group homes, and semi-independent and independent apartments, found residents' personal and behavioral characteristics explained more of the variance of total lifestyle satisfaction than the living arrangement. Participants who did not need mobility assistance or has less problem…

Examined antisocial behavior, parent-child relationship quality, inept parenting, and adolescents' beliefs as predictors of parents' monitoring during high school. Found that greater concurrent monitoring knowledge related to less antisocial behavior, more parent-reported relationship enjoyment, more time together, and stronger adolescent-reported…

The 32-item Attitudes about Romance and Mate Selection Scale (ARMSS) was developed to measure constraining beliefs about mate selection. Results of factor analysis showed few gender differences in the degree to which constraining beliefs about mate selection are held by single young adults. However, significant differences were found when age,…