Designed to respond to the information needs of parents of children with disabilities, this digest includes articles on coping with and raising a child with a disability. In the first article, "You Are Not Alone" (Patricia McGill Smith), a parent of a child with a disability speaks candidly about the emotions that many parents of…

The concept of emotional competence entails resilience, self-efficacy, and acting in accord with one's sense of moral character. This suggests argues that emotional competence is demonstrated by the self-efficacy in emotion-eliciting encounters and identifies eight key emotional skills that support its acquisition in interpersonal contexts. The…

This newsletter issue focuses on the specific concerns of many parents as their special child "ages out" of protected special education environments and moves into the adult world. It highlights the practical aspects of the transition years as well as the emotional components involved in "letting go." The newsletter's articles…

A study investigated the validity and usefulness of the Affective Communication Test (ACT) which measures a person's ability to project a nonverbal message to others. The ACT test was reduced to 10 items and administered to 130 college students. The results were analyzed for interpersonal display of effect, public display, and small group display.…

Children involved in divorce often display behavioral and academic changes in the educational enviornment. This study aims to make school personnel more aware of some of the pressures facing children of divorce in order to enable school staff to help alleviate these pressures. Statistics are presented on the numbers of children affected by divorce…

The workbook contains activities and readings to help high school students better understand why people behave as they do and how to apply that knowledge to their own behavior and that of others. The activities focus on developing skills for dealing with frustrations and aggressive feelings which students will meet in school and throughout life.…

The family life sex education unit for eighth graders, "The Years of Uncertainty," consists of a series of daily lesson plans that span a 29-day period of one-hour class sessions. Topics covered are: problem solving, knowledge and attitudes, male and female reproductive systems, conception, pregnancy, birth, birth defects, venereal…

Emotional intelligence (EI) can be a diagnostic tool and a set of guiding principals to address the learning organization's concern of overcoming the barriers to collective learning. EI can be defined as "how well you handle yourself." It refers to "emotional literacy" and a person's capacity to manage emotions and use them as…

According to psychologist Daniel Goleman, a strong IQ can set the baseline for success but does not guarantee prosperity. Goleman believes that factors contributing to "emotional intelligence" (for example, self-control, zeal and persistence, and ability to motivate oneself) are key to success in the corporate world. Howard Gardner has…

Maintains that a loss-gain hypothesis (a negative impression gives way to a positive one) is a more powerful indicator and incentive for future friendship than an opposite sequence (positive to negative). Both of these, however, were eclipsed by a positive-positive interaction as a determinant of interpersonal attraction. (MJP)

Mel Levine writes about learning disabilities in a way that sometimes invites satire. The premise of his 2003 book, "The Myth of Laziness," for example, is that a child who appears lazy probably does not lack motivation, but rather suffers from "output failure." Levine, a professor of pediatrics at the University of North…

This study examined the long-term correlates of victimization in school with aspects of functioning in adult life, using a specially designed Retrospective Bullying Questionnaire, which also included questions about short-term effects (e. g. suicidal ideation and intrusive memories) and victimization experiences in adulthood. Current relationship…

This study first examined a model of the predictors and mediators of both suicidal ideation and violent ideation, particularly since both types of ideation were highly correlated (r = 0.55) among our young adolescent participants. The variables in the model were those identified in media accounts of the histories of the 10 high-profile school…

The principles of psychology are an effective, yet underutilized resource within American schools. Teachers can take advantage of established interventions from the field of psychology and apply them to their classrooms in a realistic, straightforward manner, while still remaining in the role of the educator. A large part of cognitive-behavioral…

In Latin America and the Caribbean, poverty is not merely a problem of marginalized communities. It is the situation in which 240 million people--50 percent of the population--are living. This report describes research undertaken by the Quality of Life Project, which aims to improve the situation of children in these disadvantaged communities. The…