Family and community capacity building projects in Tasmania are attempting to address the disadvantage of communities marginalised by socio-economic and other influences. Collaborations between the projects, community members and groups, and education and training organisations, have resulted in a leadership process which has fostered reengagement…

The purpose of this article is to describe a family-centered collaborative approach for developing and implementing augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device training for one family. Family-centered training emphasized collaboration with the primary investigator and focused on needs assessment, the identification of priority…

The authors employed multiple data-collection procedures to determine which of four personal (non-subject-matter-specific) discussion folders would be used most frequently by online learners in two online courses, and which would be rated more favorably and considered more effective than other folders. The folders were studied for the way in which…

The Adaptive/Maladaptive Perfectionism Scale (AMPS) for children measures different dimensions of perfectionism. In this study, subscales derived from the AMPS were compared with results of the Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale (PHSCS) in a sample of fourth- and fifth-grade students (9 to 11 years old). The AMPS dimensions accounted for significant…

The study investigated a scale developed to measure parents' satisfaction with experiences of various aspects of their child's early education program. The Parent Satisfaction with Educational Experiences (PSEE) scale was co-constructed with parents and teachers in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade programs in a large urban school district.…

Pedagogical intervention regarding engagement with natural, artistic and moral beauty can lead to an increase in trait hope. In a quasi-experimental design with college students the intervention group showed significantly higher gain scores on trait hope than did the comparison group; the effect size was moderate. The experimental group also…

Mounting evidence indicates a dispositional component to global job satisfaction. Unfortunately, however, relatively little attention has been given to the potential effects of dispositions on work-related attitudes other than global job satisfaction. We used a five-year prospective design to investigate the relationships of affective disposition…

This article examines the effects of transformational and transactional leadership on teachers' job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior in the context of schools in a specific developing country context, that of Tanzania. It does so by testing a model of such effects using a set of data collected from a…

This study sought to assess the effectiveness of a marital distress prevention program for couples by examining how marital quality, especially marital competencies such as dyadic coping, could be improved by means of a prevention program focusing on the enhancement of coping resources (Couples Coping Enhancement Training). The study consisted of…

This brief article describes the Sixth Annual World Congress and Exposition on Disabilities (WCD), held December 1-3, 2005 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For three days, hundreds of people visited more than 150 exhibits, attended more than 80 work sessions on a wide range of special needs issues and were…

Within the framework of individual developmental theory and intergenerational ambivalence, we examined the complex dynamics of the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship. Using focus group and semistructured interview data, we explored mothers-in-law's and daughters-in-law's perceptions of "being part of the family." The diversity among…

Recent reviews of the literature on distance learning have reached two general conclusions. First, students are about as satisfied with the quality of their education in distance-learning (DL) classes as they are in traditional or face-to-face (FTF) classes. Second, students perform about as well in DL classes as they do in FTF classes. We examine…

Schools across the nation are implementing reform models intended to enable all children to meet state-established academic standards. One of the nation's comprehensive school reform models is Success for All (SFA). This study assessed the impact of the program on elementary school students in standardized reading scores as well as attendance and…

The main purpose of the current research was to develop an abbreviated form of the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) with nonparametric item response theory. The authors conducted 5 studies, with a total participation of 8,256 married or cohabiting individuals. Results showed that the item characteristic curves behaved in a monotonically increasing…

This longitudinal study examines the relationships between perceived family functioning and adolescent psychological well-being and problem behavior in Chinese adolescents with economic disadvantage (N = 199). Results showed that perceived family functioning was concurrently related to measures of adolescent psychological well-being (existential…