Twelve focus group discussions on attitudes toward tattoos, health beliefs, and awareness of the long-term consequences of tattooing and stigmatization were conducted with 80 volunteers, 6 to 17 years of age. Attitudes toward tattoos were generally negative, although a more favorable attitude toward small tattoos was discernible among early…

Discusses results of a study in which felons at a Midwestern prison were tested for brain injury by a simple structured interview. To assess prison rule following, disciplinary tickets accrued per day were counted for "reported head injury" (n=41) and reported "no head injury" (n=41). Head injured residents were involved in…

Discusses effectiveness of requiring students and parents to sign forms waiving schools' liability for students' sports injuries. Articulates rationale behind waivers and discusses recent cases in which courts invalidated waivers as violating public policy. Argues waivers are valid, enforceable contract against parents and do not violate public…

Argues that researchers can achieve objectives of advancing basic knowledge and addressing applied problems within a single research program. Provides a framework for this perspective by examining historical trends of basic and applied developmental research and examining potential approaches. Uses research on affordances and childhood injuries to…

Interviewed elite skiers who had recovered from serious injuries about stress associated with injury and the role of social support in recovery. Skiers needed various types of emotional, informational, and tangible support from the occurrence of injury through the return to full activity. Treatment team members, ski team members and home support…

This study investigated the metamemory monitoring abilities of 18 adult survivors of at least moderate traumatic brain injury. Participants also made judgments-of-learning (JOL) predictions of their recall ability immediately or after a list-learning task or after a slight delay. Survivors were as accurate as controls in delayed JOL predictions…

Since opening in 1999, the art studio at the Northeast Center for Special Care (NCSC) serves as a reprieve from the tragedy of loss that pervades every corner of the facility. Working for over two decades with people who have a wide range of disabilities, artist Bill Richards creates a charmed space in the NCSC studio. The neighbors, as they are…

Many American Indian nations, tribes, and bands are at an elevated risk for premature death from unintentional injury. Previous research has documented a relationship between alcohol-related injury and subsequent injury death among predominately urban samples. The presence or nature of such a relationship has not been documented among American…

Objective: To assess parental beliefs that minor childhood injuries play a beneficial role in the development of young children. Methods: Mothers and fathers of 159 children, ages 15 to 40 months, completed the Injury Attitudes Questionnaire (IAQ), designed to assess parental beliefs that children "learn from" and "toughen up" as a result of…

Most people probably do not remember being coached to jump, or--more important--to land. Research on landing concentrates on the impact forces associated with landing, the consequential effect on the legs, and the subsequent injury potential. There is an abundance of literature on how to create stronger and more powerful muscles, which may be…

Mental retardation affects 2 to 3% of the US population. It is defined by broad criteria, including significantly subaverage intelligence, onset by age 18, and impaired function in a group of adaptive skills. A myriad of genetic and environmental causes have been described, but for approximately half of individuals diagnosed with mental…

Axonal degeneration contributes to the development of non-remitting neurological deficits and disability in multiple sclerosis, but the molecular mechanisms that underlie axonal loss in multiple sclerosis are not clearly understood. Studies of white matter axonal injury have demonstrated that voltage-gated sodium channels can provide a route for…

We present a case that is unusual in many respects from other documented incidences of auditory agnosia, including the mechanism of injury, age of the individual, and location of neurological insult. The clinical presentation is one of disturbance in the perception of spoken language, music, pitch, emotional prosody, and temporal auditory…

In this article, the authors provide information designed to enhance the knowledge and understanding of school personnel about traumatic brain injury (TBI). The authors specifically define TBI and enumerate common characteristics associated with traumatic brain injury, discuss briefly the growth and type of services provided, and offer some…

This study investigated the relationship between perceived changes in sense of coherence from pre- to postinjury and adjustment for a group of individuals with spinal cord injury. It was hypothesized that after a spinal cord injury, an individual's belief that he or she had significantly reduced his or her sense of coherence would be associated…