A survey of 124 families with mentally retarded children identified those families who did and did not use respite care services. Families who tended to use respite care were larger, made greater use of professional support services, and had children with more severe handicaps and more serious behavior problems. (Author/JDD)

Children ranging from fifth to twelfth grade, and their parents, were presented with items pertaining to family transgressions and asked to judge the legitimacy of parental jurisdiction, justify its wrongness or permissibility, and assess its contingency on parental authority. (PCB)

Describes a training program developed and operated by parent educators at the Children's Health Council that is designed to help pediatric resident medical students at Stanford University in their efforts to understand parents better and give them useful advice on common child rearing questions. (BB)

This guide outlines the characteristics of dyslexia and its educational implications. Parental understanding of the problem and support for intervention efforts are stressed. Various learning activities are suggested, along with guidelines to help the child cope with the disability, become better organized, study for tests, etc. (JDD)

Presents an annotated bibliography of magazines that parents and teachers can use with preschool and primary grade children. (BB)

Suggests that parents can encourage independence, self-reliance, and healthy self-concept by involving children in appropriate household tasks. Describes a six-week project designed to encourage parents to attain this goal. (KS)

Investigates the effects of social class (middle vs. lower) on verbal and nonverbal maternal controls, maternal sensitivity, and child compliance. Suggests current conceptualizations of lower class mother-child interaction need to be reconsidered since no social class differences were revealed in the experiments. (HOD)

Examines the relation between fathers' participation in family work (child care and home chores) and children's sex role attitudes in an interview study of 160 Caucasian middle-class families. (HOD)

Both school boards and parent teacher associations should have a systematic program for exchanging information and for involving parents in school policy-making processes. Responsibilities of each group are listed. (CB)

A comparative study found that parents and principals use different criteria when judging the same teachers. Principals are influenced by situational factors and the extra work that establishes some teachers' leadership. Parents are influenced by the connections teachers make with families and the quality of classroom life their children…

Assesses the interrelations among the functional properties of maternal speech, the structural properties of maternal speech, and child language growth for a period of six months for 22 two-year-old children and their mothers. (HOD)

Children ages 2-3 years (N=46) described by their parents as hyperactive, inattentive, or noncompliant, and 22 controls were observed with their mothers during play. Among reported results was that mothers of problem children made more negative control statements at follow-up than mothers of controls. (Author/JW)

Using a data sample from the New York Longitudinal Study, this study tests the hypothesis that the relation between maternal role satisfaction and child adjustment is mediated by the quality of the mother-child relationship. Results illustrate use of a process model in the explanation of the relation. (Author/NH)

The relationship of parents' voting patterns and their sense of involvement with education was investigated. The study indicates that (1) varying perceptions of responsibility may create different information needs, and (2) the research reemphasizes that context of a program is an important variable in program evaluation. (KH)

Discusses questions about Massachusetts magnet schools, including (1) reaching parents who do not choose magnets; (2) how the school affects different groups of children; (3) how equity is embodied in life at school; (4) how magnet schools achieve unity; (5) whether parent choice leads to parental empowerment; and (6) why the magnet schools have…