Depression, marital satisfaction, and marital and personality measures of sex roles*

The present study examined the relationship between depression, marital satisfaction, and marital and personality measures of sex roles. Subjects included 50 couples in which the woman was clinically depressed (and of which 26 were maritally distressed), and 24 nondepressed, nondistressed control couples. Results indicated that compared to nondepressed couples, husbands and wives in relationships in which the wife was depressed showed greater inequality in decision making and dissatisfaction with the distribution of decision making and household tasks; wives additionally indicated greater dissatisfaction with distribution of childrearing responsibilities. The relationship between marital roles and depression was largely mediated by the impact of marital distress in the clinic couples. In addition, depressed wives were less masculine than nondepressed wives, and women with high levels of masculinity reported less depression than women with low levels.     

Infant Symbolic Play as an Early Indicator of Fetal Alcohol‐Related Deficit

Infant symbolic play was examined in relation to prenatal alcohol exposure and socioenvironmental background and to predict which infants met criteria for fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) at 5 years. A total of 107 Cape‐Colored, South African infants born to heavy drinking mothers and abstainers/light drinkers were recruited prenatally. Complexity of play, sociodemographic and psychological correlates of maternal alcohol use, and quality of parenting were assessed at 13 months, and intelligence quotient and FAS diagnosis at 5 years. The effect of drinking on spontaneous play was not significant after control for social environment. In contrast, prenatal alcohol and quality of parenting related independently to elicited play. Elicited play predicted 5‐year Digit Span and was poorer in infants subsequently diagnosed with FAS/partial FAS and in nonsyndromal heavily exposed infants, compared with abstainers/light drinkers. Thus, symbolic play may provide an early indicator of risk for alcohol‐related deficits. The independent effects of prenatal alcohol and quality of parenting suggest that infants whose symbolic play is adversely affected by alcohol exposure may benefit from stimulation from a responsive caregiver.     

14‐month‐olds exploit verbs’ syntactic contexts to build expectations about novel words

During their second year of life, infants develop a rudimentary understanding of grammatical categories based on their knowledge and use of frequent function words. The current study inquired whether, at only 14 months of age, infants can track co‐occurrence patterns between function words and content words (e.g., determiners can precede nouns, and pronouns can precede verbs), and use these previously encountered syntactic contexts to build expectations about which function words can co‐occur with novel words. Using a habituation paradigm, French‐learning 14‐month‐olds were presented with utterances containing two novel words preceded by function words (either two determiners in the Novel Nouns condition or two pronouns in the Novel Verbs conditions). We found that at test, infants looked longer during trials in which the novel words occurred in an unexpected syntactic context (following a pronoun for infants in the Novel Nouns condition and following a determiner for infants in the pooled analysis of the three Novel Verbs conditions). Hence, our results confirm previous findings on infants’ sensitivity to noun contexts and most importantly demonstrate that their sensitivity to the co‐occurrence of verbs with pronouns begins much earlier than previously understood.     

Clinical correlates and repetition of self-harming behaviors among female adolescent victims of sexual abuse

This study investigated self-harming behaviors in 149 female adolescent victims of sexual abuse, first, by determining the rates of nine types of self-mutilating behavior at intake and nine months later and, second, by investigating comorbidity of clinical correlates associated with these behaviors. The adolescents were divided into three groups according to level of self-mutilating behavior and then compared on symptom self-reports; 62.1% of the adolescents engaged in at least one self-mutilating behavior. A graded relation was observed between level of self-mutilating behavior and rate, and total number of clinical disorders. At nine month follow-up, one in four teenagers still reported a moderate or high level of self-harm. The need for systematic assessment and intervention of self-mutilating behaviors is discussed.     

Family crisis intervention

Family crisis intervention is based on crisis theory and involves the use of individual crisis intervention techniques with one or more family members starting with the person who initiates the request for help. In addition, the relationship between the crises of the individuals involved is formulated and articulated, including the identification of distinct and common hazards and themes. The usual emphasis with children and young adolescents in crisis is on helping their parents to help them. The paper does, however, treat the issue of direct work with children. As in individual crisis intervention, the treatment contact is limited to six weeks, clients are self-selecting, and the goal is the most adaptive resolution of an immediate problem that is possible given the existing inner and outer resources of the family and its members. This implies that the resolution should not impair the functioning or well-being of any individual family member.     

Network Analysis in East Africa: The Social Organization of Urban Transients*

Des analyses sociologiques de villes en Afrique de l'Est et ailleurs, indiquent qu'elles peuvent être décrites de façon utile en tant que composantes de réseaux sociaux. On a cherché, récemment, à classifier les propriétés structurales de plusieurs genres de réseaux. Cependant, on a négligé l'analyse de facteurs sous-jacents à la persistance de ces réseaux. Cet article est centré sur la mobilité géographique que l'on conçoit comme l'un ces facteurs. De cette manière, on est non seulement amenéà mieux comprendre les réseaux sociaux urbains mais aussi à suggérer une complète refonte de la théorie sociologique urbaine classique. Sociological analysis of towns in East Africa, and elsewhere, indicate that they may be usefully described as composites of social networks. Recently much discussion has been directed towards a classification of the structural properties of various kinds of networks. However, less attention has been paid to an analysis of the factors underlying the persistence of these networks. This paper focuses on geographical mobility as one such factor, not only as a means of understanding urban social networks but also to suggest a rethinking of classical urban sociological theory.