Theories of family structure have proposed that in healthy families, the parents' marital alliance is primary (MAP), while in dysfunctional families the primary alliance is not marital (MANP) but crosses generational boundaries. Some family alliances involve triangulation, drawing a third person into a dyadic relationship to mediate tension.…

Seven functional families with handicapped children were studied using a case study approach. Through the qualitative paradigm, the development of successful coping mechanisms was examined. The parents completed an instrument called "CHIP, Coping Health Inventory for Parents," and all family members were interviewed. Subject families were…

Substantial evidence is accumulating which emphasizes the significant role of the family for drug abusing adolescents. To investigate the influence of the family on adolescents (N=17) involved in heavy marihuana use, interviews with family members, case studies of each adolescent, and psychological evaluations were conducted to determine the…

Focusing on relationships between children's behavioral responses and family characteristics, this exploratory, descriptive, and retrospective study investigated bereaved children's responses to the death of a sibling from cancer and examines those responses in relationship to selected individual, situational, and environmental characteristics.…

The subjects of this study were mothers of 8-year-old and 14-year-old boys. Each mother was presented with six vignettes, four of them depicting moderately severe problem behaviors and two of them more severe problems. Mothers rated each on: (1) how serious a problem it was; (2) what might have caused it; (3) how they would attempt to deal with…

This paper deals with aspects of positive family affect in intimate family relationships such as: (1) the nuclear family of orientation, including the child-parent subgroup and the sibling subgroup; (2) the nuclear family of procreation, including the marital subgroup and parent-child subgroup; and (3) the dating relationship. Interpersonal…

This study examines the incidence and character of conditional statements ("if...then") in the spontaneous speech of young children. Twenty-four pairs of siblings, ranging in age from 2.1 years to 7.3 years, were observed and recorded while interacting in their homes for a period of 1 hour. Sixty-nine statements including "if"…

Experimental modification of destructive and assaultive sibling interaction was carried out within the home environment. Two brothers (6 and 3 years old) were treated through token positive reinforcement techniques in an effort to improve their behavior towards each other. A "time out" from reinforcement procedures involved an isolation period for…

This pamphlet contains a series of studies that grew out of the parent education project of the Institute for Development of Human Resources. The objectives and general design of the project consisted of instruction of 200 environmentally disadvantaged mothers by parent educators using a sequence of infant stimulation exercises conducted in the…

An examination of mean scores for two samples of 884 and 1570 high school students who were administered the National Merit Scholarship Qualification Test (NMSQT) in 1962 and for the entire population of 794,589 students given the same test in 1965 revealed consistent effects of birth order on mean score. Earlyborn, and firstborn in particular,…

Changes that occurred in the use of the dimensions of power and function were investigated in a cross-sectional study of second-born and only children aged five to 13 years. The investigation focused on age of child, sex of child, sex of sibling, age-spacing between sibling and sibling status of child. Results indicated that children significantly…

Major tenets summarizing Jensen's two-level theory of mental abilities were examined in a static-group comparison, correlational study. Caucasian siblings in grades one through four from low- and middle-socioeconomic (SES) populations were administered five Level I (associative learning ability) tasks and Raven's Progressive Matrices. Consistent…

The language development of monozygotic twins, same-sex dizygotic twins, siblings of monozygotic twins, and siblings of dizygotic twins, ages 3-17, was studied to estimate how much of the individual variation in children's language skills results from genetic factors and how much from environmental experience. (BRT)

A mother describes how her experiences with a second, developmentally normal son helped her better understand and relate to her Down's syndrome child, including recognition that not all normal patterns of behavior are positive and not all abnormal behaviors are necessarily negative. (JW)

The effects of stress on family members who live with and care for a mentally retarded child are described through the vehicle of a case study. The father's behavior, expectations of siblings, and the vulnerability of the family unit are highlighted. (JW)