Responding to children’s ‘emotion talk’: a conversation analysis of a therapeutic encounter between a social worker and two siblings using child-centred play therapy

ABSTRACT

Reflection of feelings is a hallmark strategy of non-directive child-centred play therapy that enhances children’s emotional awareness and equips them with emotionally expressive words. The case presented here describes the application of child-centred play therapy by a social worker with two young children (aged four and six) with sibling rivalry issues. One of the sessions was videotaped, which enabled the use of conversation analysis to dissect the language patterns used by both the clients and the social worker. This in-depth verbal analysis illuminated subtle nuances in the children’s interactions and behaviour while also providing the social worker with the opportunity to reflect on practice. This case discussion presents a snapshot of that session and allows readers to understand how such therapy occurs.     

Climate variability and health in extremely vulnerable communities: investigating variations in surface water conditions and food security in the West African Sahel

In this project we consider the ways that different livelihood strategies impact the climate-health linkage. Specifically, we build on knowledge of livestock mobility in the Sahel and use remotely sensed-based measures of waterholes with health survey data to investigate the linkages between child health outcomes related to food security. We focus on the landscape characteristics relevant to limitedly studied, but highly climate-vulnerable populations, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists in the Sahel. We combine remotely sensed-based data on surface waterholes and spatially referenced health survey data and use flexible regression modeling techniques to uncover the quantitative relationship between waterhole depth and a child’s height-for-age z-score (HAZ). The results suggest that the water depth level of nearby waterholes does indeed impact a child’s HAZ, even after accounting for other environmental factors. This relationship is impacted, however, by the livelihood practices of the area as well as by the source of household drinking water.

     

With a Little Help from Their Friends: Use of Social Support Systems by Persons with Retardation

Within the past two decades there has been an increase in research studying the perspective of persons labeled as disabled, rather than relying solely on outsiders' (nonlabeled persons') perspectives about them. In this paper, a series of interviews with a small group of persons labeled as mentally retarded sought insights into their work environment, friendships, and future goals through their own words. The interviews revealed that they recognized being "different" in terms of the labels applied to them by others, but they did not use those same labels when defining themselves or choosing their close friends.     

Floral abundance and richness drive beneficial arthropod conservation and biological control on golf courses

Urban Ecosystems - Golf courses are among the largest, most ubiquitous highly maintained urban green spaces in the U.S. Although their primary function is recreation, a large portion of golf course...     

Investigating Adolescent Health-Related Quality of Life: From a Self-Identity Perspective

The aim of the study was to investigate the relation between self-identity and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in adolescence. This study assumed that four aspects (i.e. personal, social, ability, and academic identity) of identity firmness could predict adolescent’s HRQOL more than four aspects of identity importance. Meanwhile, this study also hypothesized that psychological and social relationships domains of HRQOL could be largely explained by the concept of identity firmness. One hundred and ninety-eight female adolescents participated in this study. Each participant completed a booklet containing the measures of the Questionnaire of revised edition of identity importance (QII-R), the Questionnaire of revised edition of identity firmness (QIF-R), the WHOQOL-BREF Taiwan version, and Visual-analogue HRQOL items. This study administered multiple regression analyses to test our hypotheses. The results demonstrated the concept of identity firmness could predict adolescent’s HRQOL more than the concept of identity importance. The results also supported our hypotheses that psychological and social relationships domains of HRQOL could be largely explained by the concept of identity firmness. In general, this study supported our hypotheses that the concept of identity firmness is a crucial predictor to adolescent’s HRQOL.     

Chinese Singaporean attitudes towards poverty and inequality: A comparative analysis

Ng IYH, Koh G. Chinese Singaporean attitudes towards poverty and inequality: a comparative analysis Based on a survey of 191 Chinese respondents, this article discusses the attitudes of Singaporean Chinese towards poverty, inequality and government intervention. Using the Z‐test for two proportions and cluster analysis, findings were compared with similar studies in the USA and the UK. Chinese Singaporeans were found to be very aware of the growing inequality, but they adopted a narrower definition of poverty than British respondents. This might be the reason why they were more sympathetic towards the poor and supportive of more government anti‐poverty efforts than were American respondents. From the cluster analysis, the Singaporean sample produced a third group who were ‘satisfied but concerned’, on top of the two polar groups, ‘sceptics’ and ‘liberals’, present in the British study. A majority of respondents also supported the view that more should be done to help the poor and were willing to pay more taxes for that purpose.     

A corrected likelihood method for the proportional hazards model with covariates subject to measurement error

There has been extensive interest in discussing inference methods for survival data when some covariates are subject to measurement error. It is known that standard inferential procedures produce biased estimation if measurement error is not taken into account. With the Cox proportional hazards model a number of methods have been proposed to correct bias induced by measurement error, where the attention centers on utilizing the partial likelihood function. It is also of interest to understand the impact on estimation of the baseline hazard function in settings with mismeasured covariates. In this paper we employ a weakly parametric form for the baseline hazard function and propose simple unbiased estimating functions for estimation of parameters. The proposed method is easy to implement and it reveals the connection between the naive method ignoring measurement error and the corrected method with measurement error accounted for. Simulation studies are carried out to evaluate the performance of the estimators as well as the impact of ignoring measurement error in covariates. As an illustration we apply the proposed methods to analyze a data set arising from the Busselton Health Study [Knuiman, M.W., Cullent, K.J., Bulsara, M.K., Welborn, T.A., Hobbs, M.S.T., 1994. Mortality trends, 1965 to 1989, in Busselton, the site of repeated health surveys and interventions. Austral. J. Public Health 18, 129–135].     

“Taking Mama Steps” Toward Authority,Alternatives, and Advocacy

Ten years ago, the task of blending work and motherhood was arduous, lonely, and painstaking. Most settled for face-to-face interactions or phone calls to friends and family for support. Sadly, frustrated conversations are still happening due to a lack of cultural acceptance, policies, and laws focused on blending work and family life. However, some women are turning to online spaces for social support. In 1991, Donna Haraway posited that online, affinity-based groups contain the potential for activism. Buoyed by digital social media possibilities for social support, we assessed feminist activism within a motherhood support group populated by women from various countries around the world. We found that consciousness-raising can further feminist activism within an online motherhood Facebook group by helping others learn to negotiate their choices, but economic stratification and educational divides still constrain social support; this suggests that digital connections influence affinity-based identities and feminist activism.     

Forecasting the market demand for waste paper

In a recent article in this journal, Livesey and Barcena supplied an interesting but necessarily superficial analysis of the market for waste paper. Their essential conclusion was that, faced with future shortages, and hence increased prices of wood pulp, the paper and board industry would be forced to rely more heavily on secondary fibre. In turn, they felt that ‘in order to ensure an adequate supply of waste paper, governments may need to exert a greater degree of influence over the market than they do at present’.This paper seeks to provide a more rigorous analysis of the ‘waste paper problem’ in terms of future demand and fluctuations in that demand. It also corrects some misconceptions in the paper by Livesey and Barcena as to the likely sources of future supply and the economics of securing those supplies.