We identified 201 individuals who obtained IQs of 85 or below in high school and participated in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (a prospective longitudinal study that followed sample members from age 18 through age 53). Their life course development was contrasted with their siblings who obtained IQs above 100. Life course outcomes were assessed…

This study evaluates impact of collaborative efforts of parents and school professionals in the treatment of autism in a five-year-old boy. Method of treatment was discrete trial training across settings (e.g., home and school) and change agents were the child's parents, siblings, special education teacher, resource teacher, and speech…

The purpose of this study was to determine how parents and family relationships are characterized in realistic young adult fiction. A random sample of 20 realistic young adult novels was selected from the American Library Association's Best Lists for the years 1987-1991. A content analysis of the novels focused on the following: (1) whether…

This paper focuses on pre-adolescent children and how they cope with parental divorce. It considers the case of split custody, more common among older children than younger ones, in which one parent has custody of one or more of the children and the other parent has custody of one or more of the siblings. It focuses on the sibling relationship and…

Drawing on Roger Schank's and Robert Abelson's theory of scripts as a way of viewing learning as behavior at four hierarchical levels, the study examined the literacy learning behavior of two Chicano sisters (one in the second grade and the other in kindergarten) reading orally from storybooks in a home setting. The English story books received in…

Skeletal models of the regression of occupational status on schooling that correct for response variability and incorporate a variance component structure are presented. The models were derived from an analysis which used multiple measurements of educational attainment and occupational status for 518 male high school graduates and their brothers.…

A combined qualitative/quantitative methodology was employed to explore the interplay between the development of 16 German families and their individual members. Describing the dual approach, discussion concerns (1) the development of an appropriate framework for focusing observations; (2) the introduction of the concept of "family task"…

The emotional needs of gifted children are seldom considered by psychologists either during their training or in their subsequent professional practices. Most psychology trainees appear to be exposed only to the Terman (1925) studies which concluded that gifted children have significantly fewer social and emotional problems than does the general…

The paper presents observations of families having adult members with learning disabilities and describes a residential program to facilitate the transition to independent living of lower functioning learning disabled young adults. The program, called Independence Center, involves placing participants in apartments with roommates and helping them…

This packet, a product of the Advancing Educational Techniques (AET) Project, addresses the theme of empowerment on the part of those working with children who are differently able. The first section explores the concept of empowerment as addressed in current literature and includes an annotated bibliography. Other sections of the packet focus on:…

The primary purpose of this study was to describe the linguistic behavior exhibited by a female subject (age 2 years, 4 months) during naturally occurring social interaction with children of different ages. Verbal and nonverbal behavior were studied; of additional interest were variables influencing the emergence of linguistic behavior. Data were…

This report presents data on the nursery school and kindergarten enrollment status of children 3 to 5 years old for the years 1967 to 1976. The school enrollment data of children in this age range is related to the education, occupation, marital status and labor force characteristics of their mothers as well as age, race and number of siblings in…

Patterns of successful and unsuccessful resolution of grief over death of a child were studied in 25 families who had lost children across an 11-year-span. The families varied considerably in age, income, education, and parental occupation. Data were gathered by means of an intensive, open-ended interview schedule. The research focused on two…

Many psychological theories point to the importance of siblings in individual personality development. The impact of sibling status on interpersonal and achievement orientation was examined with undergraduates (N=1782) who completed a series of objective personality measures and a background questionnaire. Sibling status was defined in terms of…

The interpersonal conditions which may maintain a child's aggression in the family were investigated by observing immediate, ongoing interactions in families of normal and aggressive adolescent sons. Normal-son families (N=6) and aggressive-son families (N=6) were videotaped engaging in a 50-minute discussion of questionnaire items designed to…