This study examined the effectiveness of the Behavior Summarized Evaluation to discriminate 58 autistic from 58 nonautistic mentally retarded children. The measure clearly separated the two samples with between-group differences highest on four items indicating the most particular pattern in autistic children was the association of autistic…

Elementary classroom teachers rated the withdrawn and social behaviors of 41 children with language impairments (LI) and 41 typically developing peers using the Teacher Behavioral Rating Scale. Teachers rated children with LI as more reticent than typically developing children, and boys with LI as displaying more solitary-active withdrawal…

Studied the impact of support groups on the psychological well-being of adolescents with sickle cell disease (SCD). Response of 79 adolescent SCD group members show that psychological well-being was best predicted by fewer physical symptoms and greater satisfaction with the group. Findings suggest the beneficial effects of SCD support groups. (SLD)

Substance use disorders affect not only the identified client but significant others as well. This article contrasts the enabling and codependency constructs, reviews empirical studies of enabling, and offers a conceptualization of partner responses to addiction that could enhance future research efforts and clinical applications in this area. (BF)

Many adolescents experiment with marijuana; the National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that 46% of high school seniors have tried this drug at some time. Pushing boundaries is what young people do, and some researchers believe that trying marijuana is a normal part of growing up. RAND Corporation researchers have revisited Shedler and Block's…

The spread of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) depends very much on the way people behave. Individuals from some groups have been successfully persuaded to modify behaviors that put them at increased risk of HIV infection. The salient questions for future AIDS prevention and control programs are…

Both behavioral and cognitive coping strategies are determined by an individual's perception of the stressful stimuli. To investigate the relationship of an individual's usual coping style to differential responses to a behavioral or cognitive stressor in four response systems (heart rate, muscle tension, galvanic skin response, and subjective…

Alcohol researchers have sought to characterize the relationship between cue responsivity and alcohol consumption by alcoholics. This study used the beverage tasting paradigm to test for differences in cue responsivity in adolescent sons of alcoholics. It was hypothesized that, compared to sons of nonalcoholics, sons of alcoholics would be more…

This investigation was designed to ascertain the relationship between alienation and specified forms of drug use in three differing collegiate settings. The results indicated that, contrary to many subjective judgements, there was essentially no significant relationship between students' degree of alienation and their use of drugs. (Author)

Explains a study designed to consider the influence of positive and negative affect induced by cognitive mediation on behaviors thought to reflect depression. Concludes that results show fairly strong support for Velten's (1968) methodology and suggest that affect can be manipulated in the laboratory. (Author/EJT)

Reviews the theory and research on the physiological or genetic origins of parenting behavior, noting that an ethological or evolutionary analysis of parenting behavior supports the idea that primates, including man, have evolved psychological structures which are particularly adapted to respond to cues from young children. (Author/JM)

The concept of social role range (SRR) deals with the magnitude of an individual's repertoire of different interpersonal behavior patterns and exhibits the properties of a personality trait. Over a broad range of interpersonal settings, individuals tend to be consistent in the magnitude of their SRR's. A role play technique was devised for…

Characteristics of the situation in which a fear-arousing communication is received affect the effectiveness of the communication. The influence of situational factors affecting a recipient's interpretation of the arousal induced by communication were investigated with smokers (N=37) who were exposed to a fear-arousing anti-smoking movie. Prior to…

An exploration of writing anxiety suggests that it is a normal form of behavior rather than a pathology, but that it varies in degrees of its dysfunctionality. Excerpts from the log books of college students in a writing anxiety workshop illustrate four broad categories of writing anxiety: procrastination, feeling emotionally distressed, thinking…

THE ACADEMIC, OCCUPATIONAL, AND SOCIAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF A SAMPLE OF HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES (STUDIED PREVIOUSLY WHILE IN SCHOOL) WERE EXAMINED TO ISOLATE THE FACTORS OF ADOLESCENCE WHICH ARE RELATED TO LATER ACHIEVEMENT OR FAILURE IN COLLEGE OR AN OCCUPATION. THE PROJECT WAS A FOLLOWUP STUDY AND WAS CONCERNED WITH AN ANALYSIS OF DATA GATHERED AT TWO…