The child and adolescent social perception measure

Tests currently available for measuring children's sensitivity to nonverbal aspects of communication have been criticized on methodological and conceptual grounds. The Child and Adolescent Social Perception Measure (CASP) was developed to meet the need for a clinically useful measure which examines social perception within a semi-naturalistic context. The CASP consists of 10 videotaped scenes, each of which lasts 19–40 seconds. The verbal content was removed through electronic filtering so that the ability to receive and interpret nonverbal social cues could be measured without bias from verbal cues. Children are shown the scenes and then questioned about the emotions portrayed. Based on standardization with 212 children and adolescents ages 6 to 15 years old, reliability (interrater, test-retest, internal consistency) and initial validity information are reported.Portions of this paper have been presented at the Congress of the World Federation of Occupational Therapists, London, England, 1994, and at the joint conference of the Canadian and American Occupational Therapists, Boston, 1994.We acknowledge funding from the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital Research Grants Program. We thank each of the actors and actresses who generously volunteered their time to produce the videotape; the students and teachers in the schools who participated in the collection of the normative data; and the research assistants who worked many hard hours to make this all possible (Janet L. Smith, Kara Ryan, Dixie McLean, Kate Murie, Taslim Pardhan).     

Conditions Facilitating Participatory-Democratic Organizations*

This paper examines “alternative institutions” in a variety of institutional domains as participatory-democratic modes of organizution. Grounded in comparative data, it posits structural conditions, both internal to an organization and in its environment, which support or undermine the achievement of its collectivist-democratic ideals. While the literature on social movement organizations well demonstrates the fragility of democratic systems and their tendency toward oligarchization, goal displacement, and organizational maintenance, this work suggests, in propositional form, conditions which militate against these all-too-common transformation patterns.     

Educational needs of inpatients with severe & persistent mental illness: a partial replication

Although a great deal has been written about the importance of patient education, few replications of past research have been conducted to increase clinicians' confidence in the conclusions of previous studies. This is especially true of studies conducted in clinical settings where findings may or may not be generalizable to other institutions. This partial replication study tested whether previous findings about patient education in an outpatient setting were applicable to an inpatient setting using a modified version of the instrument. A 1998 study published in this journal suggested that differences may exist between the perceived health education needs of outpatients and their health care providers. In this partial replication, we examined the differences between the educational needs of inpatients and those perceived by their attending nurses. As in the original study, we found discrepancies between patients' actual needs and nurses' perceptions of those needs, supporting the importance of assessing patients' health educational needs in the treatment planning process.     

Effects of mediator competence and mediation process on user satisfaction with child custody,finances, and property outcomes

This study draws on survey data from 205 family mediation service users concerning their satisfaction with the outcomes of mediation to address two research questions: (a) how satisfied are service users? and (b) what factors account for users' satisfaction with the outcome of child custody arrangements and the allocation of finances and property? Overall, users' level of satisfaction with outcomes was high. While the mediation process explained a significant variance in satisfaction with the outcomes for child custody and for finances and property, the mediator's perceived professional competence did not predict user satisfaction with the outcomes for either issue. This study contributes to our knowledge on the significance of mediators' process skill, specifically their calm and clear responses to the socioemotional needs of the mediated parties, on the service outcomes for both types of dispute. The implications for mediation training are discussed.     

Change agent's contribution to recipients' resistance to change: A two-sided story

In the change management literature, most studies on recipients' resistance to change include only the views of agents or of recipients, thereby ignoring that these parties may have different perceptions. In this quantitative study, we include the perceptions of both parties in studying the recipients' resistance and the impact of the agent's leadership behavior. In a sample of 117 agent-recipients groupings, covering 110 different change projects in 90 organizations, we found that agents perceive higher levels of recipients' resistance than do the recipients themselves. Additionally, we found that agents who create space to enable recipients to think and act differently (by employing creating behavior) report higher levels of recipients' resistance, whereas recipients perceive their resistance to be lowered when agents facilitate an emotional connection to the change (framing behavior). The depth of the change appeared to moderate the relationship between agent's leadership behavior and recipients' resistance, indicating that agents and recipients differ in which change leadership behaviors they perceive as increasing or decreasing resistance at different levels of change depth. These findings imply to reconsider the relationship between agent and recipients and we propose some promising avenues for future studies in resistance research.     

Definitions of Need: Can disabled people and care professionals agree?

This paper attempts to examine the ideological frames of reference that inform the definitions of need that are used by disabled and non-disabled people. The main aim of the research upon which this paper is based being to test the degree of congruence of the non-disableds view of need with that of disabled people. Central to this is an exploration of the differences that exist in the perception of disability held by disabled people and nondisabled people. It investigates this through the use of a staged vignette based around a fictitious character (Mr Arthur Angus) and his family. The paper seeks to explore the multidimensional contexts in which individuals operate based upon a deconstruction of the medical/social locus of control model.     

Poverty and the American Family: A Decade in Review

Because of dramatic levels of economic volatility and massive changes in welfare policies, scholars in this decade worried anew about whether our official poverty measure, adopted in the 1960s, is adequate. Poverty's causes continued to be debated, with demographic factors often pitted against policy and maternal employment changes. Some scholars focused on events that trigger spirals into poverty or poverty exits. The literature on consequences of poverty featured new techniques for identifying underlying processes and mechanisms. Researchers also explored “neighborhood effects” and focused on poverty deconcentration efforts. Finally, scholars produced a voluminous literature on the efforts to reform welfare and their subsequent effects.