Examined the influence of student debt load on college persistence using data from the National Postsecondary Aid Survey of 1992-93 and a model of student persistence that includes either total accumulated debt or threshold of accumulated debt. Findings indicated threshold of accumulated debt was a more effective method of examining student debt…

Examined possible predictors of physician nursing home practice including residency experiences. A survey of 170 family physicians found physicians with an active nursing home practice were more likely to reside in a small community, have a hospital practice, see more outpatients, and work more hours but not necessarily residency experience of…

Examined predictors of children's moral reasoning development over 4-year period. Found that parental and friend interaction during moral conflict discussions influenced development differently. Minimal moral development was predicted by friends' cognitive challenges to the target child's moral reasoning and by parents' interfering interactions.…

New Zealand high school students (N=221) completed a questionnaire that examined the relationship among factors associated with professional psychological help-seeking behavior. Suicidal ideation, attitudes, psychological distress, treatment fears, and gender were some predictors accounting for 23% of students' self-rated help-seeking intentions.…

Assesses traditional and nontraditional full-time undergraduates on five personal dimensions, two learning dimensions, and two collegiate goals. Results reveal that significant predictors were generally the same for both groups of students. Further reveals that nontraditional students and females had higher GPAs and greater career decidedness.…

A study compared the characteristics of 119 HIV-infected persons with mental retardation to those of 8,175 HIV-infected persons in New Jersey. Compared to others, individuals with mental retardation were more likely to be female, Black, and have injection drug use as a route of infection. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Norwegian students (N=9,679), grades 7-12, were followed in order to determine which variables may account for gender differences in self-reported suicide attempts. Gender differences in previous suicide attempts were significantly reduced when depression was controlled, and was no longer significant when eating disorders were considered. No…

Compared sexual risk behavior of female athletes and nonathletes. Examined mediation, reverse mediation, spurious effects, and moderated causal models, using as potential mediators physical development, educational aspirations, self-esteem, attitudes toward pregnancy, involvement in a romantic relationship, age, ethnicity, and social class. Found…

The purposes of this review were to: outline literature on negative treatment outcomes of behavioral parent training programs; detail variables found to be predictive of negative treatment outcomes; and suggest future directions of study. It is suggested that despite studies documenting positive outcomes of behavioral parent training programs,…

This study evaluates the ability of the hopelessness theory of depression's etiological chain to account for this relation in a sample of 297 undergraduates. Results indicated that emotional, but not physical or sexual, maltreatment was uniquely related to average levels of suicidal ideation across a 2.5-year follow-up. (Author)

A study examined phonological awareness in 17 children with Down syndrome (ages 9-14). Children demonstrated measurable levels of phonological awareness. Significant positive correlations were found among phonological awareness and reading and spelling competence, and ability to spell non-words and non-verbal measures. (Contains references.)…

A study involving 47 families of individuals (ages 4-34) with autism and severe mental retardation found the familial loading for autism and for the broader phenotype was closely comparable to that in a study of children with higher IQ autism, and different from that for children with Down syndrome. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Discusses empirical studies conducted between 1950 and 1970 examining the relations between psychological characteristics of students and subsequent high school dropout. Results clarified some methodological requirements for research on school completion and suggested that social and emotional variables explain some of the variance in school…

Explored sixth graders' sexual behavior and behavior intentions, analyzing health-related risk behaviors and constructs from social support and social cognitive theories based on race and gender regarding their predictive value for students having sexual intercourse. Survey data indicated that very few students had sexual intercourse or other high…

Tests of phonology, semantics, and syntax were administered to 52 preschool children (ages 4-6) with speech sound disorders. Language impairment at school-age (ages 8-11) related to poor performance on preschool tests of syntax and nonsense word repetition, while reading impairment was predicted by poor performance in all preschool test domains.…