Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a measure of practitioner sense of competence when treating children with disruptive behaviours. Design/methodology/approach: Two online surveys were conducted with health, social work and psychology practitioners (n = 113 and n = 239, respectively) working within varied Australian clinical…

Objective: To explore the symptomatic features of homesickness in Australian adolescent males during their first year at boarding school, as well as its dimensionality, coping strategies, and the relationship with academic, resilience, emotional and mental health factors. Method: Drawing on a larger, longitudinal study (n = 174 students), survey…

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), with its three forms (youth, parent and teacher version), is widely used to assess emotional and behavioural disorders in children and adolescents. The present study examined the factor structure and psychometric properties of the teacher version of the scale (SDQ-T) with adolescents from…

High-quality early childhood education is a vital experience for young children with and without disabilities. Social and communication experiences in the context of play represent a core curriculum that sets a foundation for later learning and participation. Using a new self-report instrument, this article describes data collected in a…

The aim of this study is to develop a multidimensional measure for assessing children's personal agency to handle parental conflict through their coping self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1997). Coping self-efficacy beliefs are individuals' perceived ability to motivate themselves, access cognitive resources, and perform the actions required to take…

The present study explored the component structure of coping in preschoolers as measured by the Children's Coping Scale-Revised (CCS-R) through principal component analysis (PCA). The study also examined the relationship between different coping patterns and mental health (as measured by the Strengths and Diffculties Questionnaire; SDQ) in…

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, its diagnosis and its treatment have been controversial since the 1970s (Kean, 2012), with opinions differing with respect to the diagnostic process, whether it in fact exists, or if it is an excuse for poor parenting and teaching (Maras, Redmayne, Hall, Braithwaite, & Prior, 1997). There are currently…

The objective of this study is to examine the trajectory of internalizing problems across middle childhood among a population sample of Australian children, and to understand the timing of explanatory factors related to children's development of internalizing problems, by using multiple-indicator latent growth curve modeling. Participants were…

Students' wellbeing is an essential component of their ability to function well, not only at school but also in all life domains. Many studies have investigated student wellbeing. However, empirical studies about the wellbeing of students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are scarce. Furthermore, many studies have adopted a…

Background: The Motivation Assessment Scale (MAS) and the Questions About Behavioral Function (QABF) are frequently used to assess the learned function of challenging behaviour in people with intellectual disability (ID). The aim was to explore and compare the psychometric properties of the MAS and the QABF. Method: Seventy adults with ID and…

This study is the first to examine the effectiveness of the "Fun FRIENDS" programme, a school-based, universal preventive intervention for early childhood anxiety and promotion of resilience delivered by classroom teachers. Participants (N = 488) included children aged 4-7 years attending 1 of 14 Catholic Education schools in Brisbane,…

Purpose: It may be argued that some shared psychological mechanisms (attribution) and structures (schemas) are likely to play a role in how individuals perceive stress. This paper seeks to propose and test some hypothesised relationships between stress attribution domains and burnout dimensions. Design/methodology/approach: The participants were…

Children with Asperger syndrome (AS) have IQ within the normal range but specific impairments in theory of mind, social interaction and communication skills. The majority receive education in mainstream schools and research suggests they are bullied more than typically developing peers. The current study aimed to evaluate factors that predict…

This study investigated whether the Communication Checklist-Adult (CC-A) could identify subtypes of social and communication dysfunction in autism probands and their parents. The CC-A is divided into subscales measuring linguistic ability as well as two aspects of social communication: the Pragmatic Skills subscale assesses the level of pragmatic…

The study adopted a person-centered approach to examine whether clusters of children could be identified on the basis of temperament profiles assessed on four occasions from infancy to early childhood, and if so whether differing temperament clusters were associated with subsequent differences in behavior problems, social skills, and school…