Children's adjustment in non-traditional families in Israel: the effect of parental sexual orientation and the number of parents on children's development.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined differences in children's psychological and social indicators in non-traditional families in Israel, focusing on fatherless families headed by lesbian mothers and single mothers by choice. Although Israel is considered an industrialized westernized country, centrality of the traditional nuclear family predominates this country. METHODS: This factorial design study included four family types: lesbian and heterosexual mothers, each in both single and coupled parenthood. Children's measures included the Child Behavior Checklist, perception of peer relations and perceived self-competence. RESULTS: Children from single parent as opposed to two-parent families exhibited more externalizing behaviour problems and aggressiveness. Children of lesbian mothers reported more prosocial behaviours and less loneliness than children from heterosexual families. No differences emerged for perceived self-competence across family types. CONCLUSION: Mother's sexual orientation did not affect children's adjustment negatively, whereas single parenthood placed children at greater risk for some difficulties. Implications include the need for apprising health professionals of effects of family types on children's development.

Issues in the identification of comorbidity of mental retardation and psychopathology in a multicultural context.

Identification of the comorbidity of mental retardation and psychopathology in a multicultural setting raises manifold difficulties. The present study explored the sampling and identification issues implicated in estimating the prevalence of this dual diagnosis in a South African clinic sample. The relations between the prevalence of dual diagnosis and socioeconomic status, gender, and severity level of retardation were investigated. The detection rate of 4.36% was significantly lower than that of other studies. Prevalence was found to be greater in areas of high socioeconomic status, among males, and among less severely retarded individuals. Implications of these findings for cross-cultural studies and for allocation of service resources for patients with dual diagnosis are considered.

Adverse political events and psychological adjustment: two cross-cultural studies.

OBJECTIVE: The life events model was extended to the political arena to enable the comparison of children's adjustment reactions to political stress. The cross-cultural impact of adverse political events on psychological adjustment was examined for two closely matched research samples, Arab and Jewish children and Palestinian and Israeli children. METHOD: All children completed the Political Life Events scale and the Brief Symptom Inventory in their home languages. RESULTS: The hypothesis of a linear relation between adverse events and psychological distress was not confirmed in both studies. In study 1, a direct relation emerged for both Jewish and Arab Israeli children. However, in study 2, when separated by nationality, results revealed opposite trends for each nation. For Israelis there was a linear relation, but for Palestinians there was a consistent inverse relation between increased severity of political life events exposure and distress, both for the global index and for specific symptomatology. CONCLUSION: It is proposed that these cross-cultural results stem from differential mediating coping mechanisms, specifically passive versus active strategies, which intervene between the stressor-adjustment link. The need to address short- and long-term consequences of political stress on children's mental health is discussed.

Association between the diagnosis of mental retardation and socioeconomic factors.

Clinic data from the regional hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, over 4 years for 538 children with a diagnosis of mental retardation were examined in order to establish whether differences in mental retardation referral patterns existed between low and high socioeconomic areas. Results indicate that mild mental retardation referrals were underrepresented in low socioeconomic areas and that paramedical agencies were the primary referral source in these areas. Differences in mild mental retardation referral patterns by area over time may stem from service difficulties or variations in referral thresholds. Cross-cultural implications of the findings were discussed with relevance to the development of culturally sensitive community-based intervention programs.

Stressors of hospice home care nurses caring for AIDS patients: a pilot study.

This exploratory study identified stressors of home care hospice nurses caring for hospice patients with AIDS. Five hospice home care nurses provided data obtained from demographic questionnaires and semistructured interviews. Results of this pilot study confirmed that experienced hospice nurses believe there is a difference between caring for AIDS hospice patients and non-AIDS hospice patients, and that nurses face increased stress when caring for AIDS hospice patients. Further research is needed to provide better care for the hospice patient with AIDS, and to acknowledge and respond to the increased demand on the nurses who care for them.

Physical knowledge of sugar water solutions: cross-cultural data.

Children's understanding of sugar water solutions may progress through universal stages: from nonpreservation to preservation to liquefaction to atomism. This claim was investigated in the current study; the claim was originally prefigured in the work of Piaget and Inhelder (1974) and more recently consolidated by Slone (1987). Our sample consisted of 270 South African children drawn from three cultural groups and ranging in age from 4 to 14 years. Children watched a demonstration in which a sugar lump was dissolved in water. Then, using structured interviews, we explored their understanding of this phenomenon. The results generally confirmed the hypothesized developmental sequence. Moreover, because the sequence was consistent across cultural groups, the claim that physical knowledge evolves through universal stages also was supported. Perhaps significantly, however, the progression of knowledge development did not unequivocally lead to the concept of atomism. Developmental implications of these findings are discussed.

The developmental progression of children's knowledge constructions for heating and cooling.

We explored the cognitive development of physical knowledge for heating and cooling in a cross-cultural, mixed-gender sample of 270 children. Subjects were drawn from five age groups ranging in age from 4 to 13 years. Subjects were individually exposed to heating and cooling demonstrations, whereafter they were interviewed and assessed for their understanding of the phenomena in question. Results showed a clear developmental progression. The youngest children gave relatively unsophisticated explanations that focused on the source of heat but failed to explain the process itself. Slightly older children gave explanations that were characterized by a notion of movement (without a kinetic basis). The oldest children gave more sophisticated accounts of the process of heat transferral, which employed notions of convection, radiation, and conduction. This progression was unaffected by population group or gender, although a significant interaction between age and population was observed in the case of heating. The implications of these results for neo-Piagetian research are discussed. Some parallels between the developmental progression observed here and the historical development of scientific concepts of heat are noted.