‘An Ordinary Sexual Life?’:A Review of the Normalisation Principle as It Applies to the Sexual Options of People with Learning Disabilities

This paper explains why the normalisation principle has had so little effect on the sexual options open to people with learning disabilities. It analyses discourses about services and about sexuality and suggests that one implicit role of services is the regulation of sexuality and the creation of sexual boundaries. The paper questions whether there are homogenous sexual values, and challenges the assumption that sexuality is 'natural' arguing that this view is simplistic and hides the extent to which rules about sexual behaviour are applied on the basis of social inequalities. Thus, the paper explores assumptions and ideologies about sexuality, normality and integration and reinstates all three concepts to a problematical status. It questions the ways in which people with learning disabilities are really free to be 'sexual' and the penalties they face in breaking out of the roles which have been prescribed for them.     

Robustness Against Inequality of Variances

Various asymptotic-based criteria are used to assess the robustness against inhomogeneity of variance of various standard and/or distribution-free tests in the two sample problem. The extent of robustness is influenced greatly by the equality or not of the two sample sizes, conforming to an earlier principle of G. E. P. Box. With equal sample sizes, t-tests and related trimmed-mean-like tests are robust, but otherwise, the sign test emerges clearly as the most robust test to variance inequality.     

The Quality‐Defining Process in Early Years Services: A Case Study

In this article we argue, through a case study in a large, urban local authority in England, that local stakeholders in early years provision express a variety of perspectives on quality but are constrained by a national framework which promotes an ‘official’ definition of quality. We offer a quality‐defining model that captures the role of both ‘official’ definitions and more pluralistic approaches to quality. Finally, we highlight mechanisms already in place in the structure of early years services that could offer social spaces for the quality‐defining process to take place.     

Chemical Health Effects Assessment Methodology for Airborne Contaminants

Chemical Health Effects Assessment Methodology (CHEM) is a new procedure for assessing hazardous properties of airborne toxic contaminants. CHEM evaluates substances for four major health effect categories: carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, reproductive/developmental toxicity, and toxic effects other than the first three. Three elements are considered in the assessment: weight of evidence, potency, and severity of effect. This approach produces a profile of toxic properties of chemicals which preserves their unique multidimensional character and highlights data gaps.     

Memory and cognition: An information processing model of man

A model is presented based largely on theorization by Hunt, Neisser, and Bernstein as to how human beings may process information. The information processing approach is compared with certain S-R behavioristic ones, and research and theorizing in the areas of pattern recognition, memory, problem solving, language, motor organization, and to a lesser extent motivation, are reviewed in the context of the model. It is concluded that what we see as certain methodological advances over behaviorism (the use of a more flexible language derived in part from computer technology and linguistics, and a greater willingness to use subject protocols and experimenter intuitions as well as behavioral data) have led to four major classes of theoretical advance in the past 20 years. First, there is the multi-trace notion of memory. Second, the apparent compatibility of active information processes with determinism has resulted in their legitimization in theory. Third, there is the notion that information processing mechanisms themselves require memory space as stored data. Fourth, ideas concerning the nature of the data base in long-term memory and its relation to semantics are currently undergoing revision and show promise. Though several individual anticipations of these views are noted in late 19th- and early 20th century psychology, they seem now to have assumed the status of a major paradigm. Finally, it is pointed out as a caveat that the information processing approach and hence our model have tended to limit themselves to verbal processes of educated Western adults studied individually in the laboratory.This work was partially supported by a University of Nebraska at Omaha Senate Research Committee grant to the first author. Valuable suggestions for improvement and probing criticisms were received from Gary Blum and Eckehart Köhler.     

Exposure Therapy for Problem Gambling via Videoconferencing: A Case Report

This case report of a 31 year old woman who described her main problem as an uncontrollable urge to gamble on electronic gaming machines describes the application of exposure therapy (ET) by videoconferencing and the use of a clinical therapy assistant in the treatment of pathological gambling. The case study is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of this treatment with six sessions of therapy and 4 year follow up. The use of videoconferencing is discussed in relation to treatment effectiveness, ongoing follow up for the client and education and support for a community mental health nurse, therapy assistant, in a rural setting in South Australia. The implications of using this modality for the treatment of rural patients with problem gambling is discussed.     

Health benefits of volunteering in the Wisconsin longitudinal study

We investigate positive effects of volunteering on psychological well-being and self-reported health using all four waves of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Confirming previous research, volunteering was positively related to both outcome variables. Both consistency of volunteering over time and diversity of participation are significantly related to well-being and self-reported health. The relationship of volunteering to psychological well-being was moderated by level of social integration, such that those who were less well integrated benefited the most. Mattering appears to mediate the link between volunteering and wellbeing. Controls for other forms of social participation and for the predictors of volunteering are employed in analyses of well-being in 1992. We find volunteering effects on psychological well-being in 2004, controlling for 1992 wellbeing, thus providing strong evidence for a causal effect.     

Organizational constructs as predictors of effectiveness in child welfare interventions

Organizational context, including line worker characteristics and service settings, may help explain the equivocal findings of intervention studies in the field of child welfare. Yet organizational context has been largely ignored in studies of child welfare interventions. The purpose of this article is to expound upon the likely role of the organizational context in explaining service effectiveness in child welfare. Several bodies of literature within child welfare and human service organization and administration are reviewed and synthesized. A conceptual framework that can be used to guide future child welfare research is then proposed.