Although mothers of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) experience high levels of stress and schools constitute an important resource, the relation remains unknown between maternal stress and educational services. Responding to a national, web-based survey, 965 mothers of students with disabilities completed a 163-item…

We investigated children and families who were participating in a mentoring program targeting children with incarcerated parents. Using multiple methods and informants, we explored the development of the mentoring relationship, challenges and benefits of mentoring children with incarcerated parents, and match termination in 57 mentor-child dyads.…

A total of 61 children from first through sixth grades participated in four balance-scale and four inclined-plane problem types in a study testing for invariance of subject classifications as rule-users across problems whose products differed but whose type did not. Results indicated that many children's classifications differed across…

There has been increased interest in family systems approaches to the treatment of children's behavior problems. A study was conducted to compare children's behavior patterns in clinical and nonclinical intact families and to explore the relationship between family functioning and boys' behavior patterns. Subjects consisted of 16 clinic families…

This article presents a critical analysis of empirical studies assessing literacy and other domains of academic achievement among children with cochlear implants. A variety of recent studies have demonstrated benefits to hearing, language, and speech from implants, leading to assumptions that early implantation and longer periods of implant should…

Comparison of 16 autistic children receiving psychotropic medication with 16 similar nonmedicated children and their parents found that discriminators of the parental decision to medicate or not included: family stress; the child's speaking ability; and irritable, driven, non-goal-directed child behavior. (DB)

Results of this longitudinal study (7 years) suggested that the stress attributed to a specific child (including a child with an intellectual disability) by parents (N=93) may be an indicator of more general family stress. Although the strength of parental worry decreased, the pattern of worries did not change over time. (Contains references.)…

A follow-up study of behavior and emotional problems in 53 young people with Williams syndrome 5 years after first assessment found substantial persistence in the overall level of behavior and emotional problems. Comparison with young people with mental retardation due to other causes found Williams subjects had significantly higher overall…

Simon and Smith (MPQ; v31 n1 p265-77 Jul 1985) obtained negative findings in their replication of Smith and Dutton's (1979) lure-retrieval experiment. However, this replication failed to support the conclusion that findings seriously undermine the credibility of all previous experimental studies of play. (Author/KS)

Reported in this paper are the findings of five meta-analyses assessing the relationships among children's interpersonal cognitive problem-solving (ICPS) skills, training, and behavioral adjustment. Five hypotheses were examined: (1) Adjusted children score higher on ICPS measures than do nonadjusted children; (2) Children trained in ICPS skills…

Chinese families (n=101) from two settings (urban and rural) responded to the Family Needs Survey describing life with a child with disabilities. Findings indicated that information was the most pressing need followed by financial help and help locating a doctor. Type of impairment and setting were related to need expression. (Author/DB)

This investigation used data from the 28-year-old New York Longitudinal Study to examine the relationship between various negative emotional and behavioral characteristics (e.g., aggression, anxiety, undercompliance, depressive mood) and adjustment. A total of 133 white, middle-class children were rated on these negative characteristics from…

This study found that accuracy in predicting the out-of-home placement of children with severe disabilities increased little in a large cross-sectional sample (n=5,992) over a smaller semilongitudinal sample (n=141). Factors such as age, adaptive and maladaptive behavior, and ethnicity are discussed. (Author/JDD)

Evaluation of the frequency of ear infections, ear tube drainage, and deafness for 51 autistic children (ages 2-18) indicated that autistic children had a greater incidence of ear infections than matched normal peers and lower functioning children had an earlier onset of ear infections than higher functioning autistic peers. (Author)

This introduction to a special section on psychobiological studies of stress and coping discusses the problems of interpreting and integrating information on stress reactivity derived from a combination of behavioral and physiological measures. (PCB)