Noting prenatal and early childhood home visitation by nurses has had positive effects on birth outcomes in several at-risk populations, this study examined the impact of weekly home visits by systematically trained visitors on birth outcomes of high-risk pregnant women within the context of a Florida Healthy Start project. Participating were…

In this study we test the performance of some nonexperimental estimators of impacts applied to an educational intervention--reduction in class size--where achievement test scores were the outcome. We compare the nonexperimental estimates of the impacts to "true impact" estimates provided by a random-assignment design used to assess the…

There is at the present time a strong movement to include in the school curriculum more preparation for character education. The schools have long recognized their obligations in this respect, but more progress has not been made because they did not know how to bring it about. With the coming of trained psychologists, psychiatrists, and other…

Seventeen children who had been removed from deleterious family backgrounds and placed in institutional care were exposed to imaginative play training. They showed significant increments in levels of imaginative play, positive emotionality, prosocial behaviors, and in measures of divergent thinking and story-telling skills, and decreases in levels…

A new definition of and position statement concerning learning disabilities (LD) was developed by the National Joint Committee for Learning Disabilities in response to concerns of professionals and parents regarding the federal definition of LD. Journal Availability: See EC 152 480. (SEW)

Presents PEERS, a broad based intervention program designed for remediating social withdrawal among isolate children and promoting increased peer interactions. PEERS examines deficits in four skill areas: the child's social, language, and motoric competencies, and the parents' child-rearing ability. (MJL)

Current research on training children in social skills, although promising, suffers from conceptual, methodological, and assessment problems. In addition, the rationale invoked for intervention with shy, withdrawn children appears to be questionable. This issue, as well as others, is addressed in a summary discussion. Recommendations for further…

Argues for the development of group intervention techniques to improve the efficacy of course teams in the preparation of distance education materials, reviews recent commentaries on course teams and discusses related issues, and conludes with recommendations to enrich the quality of course team life and output. (Author/EAO)

Evaluated and compared the impact of three counseling interventions for Black youths: study skills counseling, site-visits counseling, and group counseling. Results indicated students benefited from all three interventions but each intervention had different payoffs. Suggests counselors choose interventions to fit the clients' needs. (KMF)

Presents a brief survey of contemporary research in psychology within a tripartite schema: remediation, developmental counseling, and prevention. Addresses methodological issues that focus on designs and trends. Offers suggestions for future research. (Author/RC)

Describes the implementation of an internal change team by the Buffalo, New York, public school district, including stages of growth, outcomes of interventions, difficulties encountered, and lessons that appear transferable to other school settings. Results indicate that, after three years, the effort is apparently having a positive effect.…

Describes a program of early mental health services intervention for younger elementary school students who demonstrate moderate to severe behavioral and/or emotional problems. (Author/DB)

The award and transfer of credit for experiential learning moving forward through either the collegial cooperative model or the political adversarial model is discussed. It is suggested that if institutions fail to solve these problems collegially, they may find policy decisions beyond their control. (MLW)

Selected literature on the use of daily/weekly report cards with parent-managed contingencies to modify school learning and behavior problems is reviewed. The development, implementation, evaluation, and fading of such programs are discussed and were found to be effective in modifying numerous school-related problem behaviors. (Author/RL)

An ecological orientation emphasizing systemlike interdependencies among environment, organism, and behavior suggests several substantial additions to conventional role functions of behavioral school psychologists. Such functions involve taking an active part in evaluating and assessing second-order consequences of behavioral interventions.…