An assessment of the quality of developmental day center playgrounds for exceptional children

This study assessed the playgrounds of developmental day care centers and compared them with playgrounds of regular certified day care centers. Twenty playgrounds, randomly selected from the listing of developmental day centers, were compared with a matched sample of 20 playgrounds from certified day care centers in one state. A revision of Frost's Playground Rating System (1978b) was employed to rate the two groups of playgrounds on content, safety, and function. Data were analyzed using an analysis of variance technique. The quality of developmental day center playgrounds for exceptional children was inferior to that of regular day care center playgrounds in terms of playground content. No significant differences were noted on safety or function.     

Caregiving role affects family relationships of African American grandmothers as new mothers again: a phenomenological perspective

Currently, African American grandmothers are becoming caregivers to grandchildren whose parents, for various reasons, are not providing them with adequate care. Replacing their adult children, as parents, while continuing to mother them along with caring for grandchildren are essential components of this complex situation. A part of the findings from this qualitative study of the experience of grandmother caregivers indicated that family relations are affected with their grandchildren, the parents of their grandchildren, and their other adult children. Implications for culturally sensitive, family-centered clinical practice and future research are discussed.     

Providers' perceptions of how rural consumers access and use mental health services

This article describes the third phase of a research study undertaken within a Canadian provincial regional health authority to explore and analyze mental health services and other resources used by rural consumers after discharge from inpatient mental health programs. The focus of this article is the qualitative research findings obtained from mental health service providers and members of allied agencies. This article will discuss the literature on rural consumers' access and use of mental health programs and services; describe the context and method used to conduct the focus groups with rural service providers; characterize access and use problems from the service providers' perspectives; and suggest strategies to address these problems.     

Approximate optimal allocation in repeated sampling from a finite population

Samples of size n are drawn from a finite population on each of two occasions. On the first occasion a variate x is measured, and on the second a variate y. In estimating the population mean of y, the variance of the best linear unbiased combination of means for matched and unmatched samples is itself minimized, with respect to the sampling design on the second occasion, by a certain degree of matching. This optimal allocation depends on the population correlation coefficient, which previous authors have assumed known. We estimate the correlation from an initial matched sample, then an approximately optimal allocation is completed and an estimator formed which, under a bivariate normal superpopulation model, has model expected mean square error equal, apart from an error of order n^-2, to the minimum enjoyed by any linear, unbiased estimator.     

The Devil is in the Detail: Clinicians,Academics and Researchers Resolving the Problems of Clinical Research

The difficulties associated with conducting valid family therapy research within a clinical practice discourage many potential researchers. This article will describe collaboration between a group of academics, researchers and clinicians who decided to explore the process and efficacy of systemic family therapy conducted within a working private practice. The specific questions we are addressing are, whether the requests clients bring to their first session of therapy can be reliably classified by practitioners, whether these requests change over time, and whether the nature of the request is associated with therapist and client ratings of therapeutic outcome. Additional questions about the form and nature of the therapeutic alliance as experienced by both client and practitioner are also being explored. This paper will map the passage of the work from inception to its current state where over 140 clients are active participants. In doing so attention will be paid to the obstacles encountered: practical, financial and ethical, and the solutions devised to address these.     

Relational and Individual Resources as Predictors of Empathy in Early Childhood

The goal of this study was to examine children's cognitive and language development and social engagement of mother as mediators of the relationship between maternal emotional availability at 15 months and children's empathy at the ages of two and four. Participants were 661 low-income, ethnically diverse mother-child dyads participating in a trial of home visitation in the Denver area. Using home- and lab-based free-play episodes, mothers' emotional availability (15 months) and children's social engagement of mother (21 and 24 months) were assessed. Standardized measures were used to assess children's language development (21 months) and cognitive development (24 months). Empathy was assessed using a simulated injury paradigm at ages two (both 21 and 24 months) and four. The predictive models supported the hypothesis that the child's cognitive and social resources mediate the relationship between maternal emotional availability and children's empathy with respect to empathy at the age of two toward both mothers and an unfamiliar examiner. These results indicate that parental sensitive behavior is not the only important condition for predicting children's empathy, and that children's own internalized resources are a likely mechanism of transmission from parents caring for their children to children learning to care for others.     

ENDOGENOUS PRESIDENTIALISM

We develop a model to understand the incidence of presidential and parliamentary institutions. Our analysis is predicated on two ideas: first, that minorities are relatively powerful in a parliamentary system compared to a presidential system, and second, that presidents have more power with respect to their own coalition than prime ministers do. These assumptions imply that while presidentialism has separation of powers, it does not necessarily have more checks and balances than parliamentarism. We show that political leaders who prefer presidentialism may be supported by their own coalition if they fear losing agenda‐setting power to another group. We argue that the model is consistent with a great deal of qualitative information about presidentialism in Africa and Latin America. (JEL: D72, P5, O1)     

Gendered forms of responsibility and control in teenagers' views of alcohol

There has been a shift in the most recent UK Government's Alcohol Strategy (2012) from personal responsibility towards a model of shared responsibility for young people's drinking. On closer examination of the strategy, however, it appears that rather than exonerating young people from blame, governance is merely extended to include wider partners. Using findings from nine focus groups with young people in Liverpool, UK, we explore who they believe are responsible for their drinking behaviours and how they learn to become ‘good drinkers’. Our findings show that while teenagers were aware of dominant alcohol-related messages and maintained a moral position as responsible citizens; they also negotiated and resisted norms about teenage drinking. Although both boys and girls agreed that parents were the primary responsible authority for regulating their drinking, there was gendered disagreement about personal responsibility. The girls described how they were ultimately responsible for any adverse consequences if they drank too much whilst the boys considered a wide range of partners who would be implicated. However, unlike the girls, the boys described a willingness to either abstain or moderate their alcohol intake in order to remain in control and avoid any alcohol-related trouble or harm.     

The Multi-method Comprehensive Review: Synthesis and Analysis when Scholarship is International,Interdisciplinary, and Immense

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This article presents a new strategy for reviewing large, multidisciplinary academic literatures: a multi-method...