Implementation of the PPSI in Psychoeducational Settings

Adolescents approach social situations with different social achievement goals (i.e., social development goals, demonstration‐approach goals, and demonstration‐avoid goals). Applying a latent profile analysis (LPA), a person‐centered approach, this study identified four groups of adolescents with distinct social goal profiles: approach‐oriented, undifferentiated high, demonstration‐oriented, and undifferentiated low. Observed differences in various indicators of social adjustment, including social anxiety, friendship quality, prosocial behavior as well as aggressive behavior, indicated that the approach‐oriented and undifferentiated high profiles showed most adaptive outcomes, whereas the demonstration‐oriented and undifferentiated low profiles showed maladaptive patterns of social outcomes. Profiles with high levels of social development goals showed the most adaptive social outcomes regardless of the level of demonstration‐oriented goals (i.e., demonstration‐approach and demonstration‐avoid goals). These findings suggest that focusing on high‐quality relationships and developing social competence leads to adequately contending with social challenges, and it provides protection against the negative effects of demonstration‐oriented social goals.

Chapter 11 Chapter 11 Public Health as a Change Agent for Disability Gloria L. Krahn , Ph.D., M.P.H., and Brian Ritacco , M.P.A. Charles E. Drum , M.P.A., J.D., Ph.D., Gloria L. Krahn , Ph.D., M.P.H., Hank Bersani Jr. , Ph.D. CopyRight https://doi.org/10.2105/9780875531915ch11 Published Online: August 09, 2012 © American Public Health Association

The BBC and NHK have dominated their national media systems since the 1920s and still play a central role in shaping political, social and cultural life. Both are highly trusted news organizations, and vitally influence national identity. Yet despite remarkably similar organizational and funding structures, they differ in their editorial autonomy, relationship to the state, and in the social and cultural roles they play. While the BBC, proud of its independence, acts as a watchdog on the powerful, NHK prefers a guide dog role cooperating with rather than confronting political elites. The BBC is also more willing to challenge prevailing social norms, often serving as an agent of social change. NHK prefers to avoid controversy, serving as an agent of social stability. The book argues that these differences were shaped by decades of conflict and cooperation between broadcasters, governments, commercial media, interest groups and audiences. The broadcasters adopted distinctive editorial strategies to retain public support and elite approval in the face of technological upheaval, hostility from commercial rivals, and continuous political interference. Both, however, continue to uphold the belief that democratic and social goals are better served by public rather than commercial media.

The use of entertainment as a strategy for social change is a practice that dates back to the beginnings of organized societies. Life-saving information, shared values and beliefs, and socially acceptable practices have been passed down from generation to generation through the art of storytelling, employing a sophisticated skill for integrating popular entertainment with learning. In the highly mediated cultures of the 21st century, media and arts’ practitioners actively use many forms of entertainment to educate their audiences. By the late 20th century, the strategic use of entertainment for social influence and educational purposes was commonly referred to as prosocial entertainment, entertainment with added value, pro-development entertainment, edutainment, infotainment, and enter-educate drama, among other terms. In 1999, several scholars studying the strategic use of entertainment for education and social change settled on the term the entertainment-education communication strategy, which is now a common description employed by communication scholars. Entertainment-education is defined as a communication strategy that intentionally seeks to reinforce or change attitudes, values, beliefs, or social practices by integrating educational content into entertainment productions. There are five essential elements to the entertainment-education communication strategy. First, it involves using entertainment for the purpose of educating or persuading an audience. All kinds of entertainment provide information and are influential. Entertainment-education, however, must be purposeful, so that the entertainment is created with a predetermined educational or persuasive effect in mind. Second, entertainment-education is theoretically grounded. The strategic nature of entertainment-education is based in communication theories or theories in closely related disciplines of study such as social psychology, sociology, and political science. The study of human communication is commonly considered an academic field of study that is multidisciplinary, drawing from many theoretical traditions. Thus the entertainment-education communication strategy draws from many different kinds of theories. Third, entertainment-education seeks to produce high-quality entertainment through which audiences learn. It requires the blending of entertainment values with educational content so that audiences learn while they are being entertained. Entertainment-education operates through all media and the arts, including film, theater, music, folk art, street drama, television programs, radio programs, live performances, and sports events. Whatever can be considered entertaining can also be educational, and thus the entertainment-education communication strategy encompasses all media, arts, and mediated events during which communication takes place. Fourth, entertainment-education is a research-based communication strategy. It involves formative research with potential audiences before a media or arts product or performance is created, and it involves summative research to measure the effects of entertainment-education messages on their intended audiences. Finally, entertainment-education requires collaboration between media practitioners and change agents such as health and development professionals and media scholars who create educational and social change goals. This collaboration can take on many forms but commonly involves a negotiation between creative artists and public officials or educators.

This study utilized descriptive assessment methods to develop hypotheses regarding the function of mealtime behavior problems for three typically developing children. Functional treatment was evaluated in the natural setting with caregivers as change agents. Overall, results of the descriptive assessment suggested that each child's problem behavior was maintained by escape and, to a lesser extent, attention. In addition, this study suggested that direct observation was more reliable than a behavioral interview or questionnaire in acquiring the information necessary to develop hypotheses on factors maintaining a child's mealtime behavior problems. Finally, a functional treatment package consisting of extinction, stimulus fading, and reinforcement of appropriate eating behaviors implemented by the caregivers was effective in decreasing the mealtime behavior problems for two of the children who continued in the study, thus providing support for the hypotheses developed from the assessment.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are impaired in social communication and interaction with peers, which may reflect diminished social motivation. Many children with ASD show enhanced stress when playing with other children. This study investigated social and stress profiles of children with ASD during play. We utilized a peer interaction paradigm in a natural playground setting with 66 unmedicated, prepubertal, children aged 8-12years [38 with ASD, 28 with typical development (TD)]. Salivary cortisol was collected before and after a 20-min playground interaction that was divided into periods of free and solicited play facilitated by a confederate child. Statistical analyses included Wilcoxon rank-sum tests, mixed effects models, and Spearman correlations to assess the between-group differences in social and stress functioning, identify stress responders, and explore associations between variables, respectively. There were no differences between the groups during unsolicited free play; however, during solicited play by the confederate, significant differences emerged such that children with ASD engaged in fewer verbal interactions and more self-play than the TD group. Regarding physiological arousal, children with ASD as a group showed relatively higher cortisol in response to social play; however, there was a broad range of responses. Moreover, those with the highest cortisol levels engaged in less social communication. The social interaction of children with ASD can be facilitated by peer solicitation; however, it may be accompanied by increased stress. The children with ASD that have the highest level of cortisol show less social motivation; yet, it is unclear if it reflects an underlying state of heightened arousal or enhanced reactivity to social engagement, or both.

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the experiences of vulnerable learners from child-headed households through an ecological systems model that includes their homes, community, and school. Special emphasis was given to the role of school psychologists as change agents within the context of schools. This qualitative study included a sample of 98 5th to 7th grade learners in a vulnerable school. Data were collected through individual interviews, focus groups, and a questionnaire with incomplete sentences. The findings provide a vivid description of their living conditions, changing roles, community fears, and school experiences which inevitably affect their psychological well-being and propagate the need for effective school psychological services. Against all odds, the vulnerable school in this study reflects how it can make a positive difference in the lives of the learners simply through the display of love, attention, and care. Based on the findings several lessons, transcending national boundaries, are presented for school psychologists to be successful in assisting learners from child-headed households in vulnerable schools.

Introduction. Expanding the capabilities of a number of modern technologies and improving quality of their products require detailed spark and plasma erosion processes control in metal granules layers (MGL). Problem. Traditional measurement of exclusively electrical parameters of these processes, even in the case of multi-electrode systems, provides only a general vision, not allowing monitoring processes in individual plasma channels. Optical control methods make it possible to simultaneously have information about almost every plasma channel in the MGL. The aim of the article is to study the characteristic components of plasma channels arising as a result of the flow of discharge currents in the MGL and to establish the laws of distribution of their volumes and their ratios. Methodology. During the experiments, photographs of plasma channels resulting from the flow of discharge current pulses between Al granules immersed in distilled water were obtained. Using the specialized ToupView program, the volumes of equivalent ellipsoids of rotation, approximating the colored halos and white cores of the plasma channels were determined. Discrete distributions of the volumes of the halo and cores of plasma channels, as well as their ratios were constructed both with and without procedures for screening out «anomalous» results. The efficiency of approximation of discrete distributions obtained in practice by continuous theoretical distributions Weibull, Rosin-Rammler and log-normal was estimated. Results. It is shown that of all the considered theoretical distributions of halo and cores of plasma channels volumes, as well as their ratios, the most adequate is the log-normal one. Originality. For the first time distributions of volumes of halo and cores of plasma channels were studied and their comparative analysis with the size distributions of erosion particles and dimples on the surface of Al granules was given. Practical significance. Taking into account the new obtained results, a technique for constructing distributions of volumes of halo and cores of plasma channels and determining their parameters has been developed. References 53, figures 7, tables 5.

Process Versus Content in the Study of Judgmental Accuracy

The purpose of this article is to conduct a multi-method evaluation to investigate the effectiveness of a youth development program for military dependent youth entitled, Youth Action Program. The dimensions of an ecological program are used to examine the program post-de-facto. The comparison with elements of ecological programming provided reasons as to this program's perceived impact and its weaknesses. A multi-dimensional evaluation is employed that examines the processes and outcomes in their natural settings. Youth and parents overwhelmingly believed that this program had made a positive difference in their lives. Youth demonstrated an improvement, although not significant, in their self-concept; however, participating youths' levels of social isolation and withdrawal from social contact remained at a high level. The results and need for future research are presented related to evaluating youth development programs and the ecological model.

Some Economics of Floods

Because industrial processes are complicated and time-varying in general, unsupervised, and nonparametric process monitoring methods are necessary. Recently, a graph-based change point detection me...

Evaluation of faecal analysis as an aid to the detection of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency

Meta-analysis has been used to examine the effectiveness of childhood obesity prevention efforts, yet traditional conventional meta-analytic methods restrict the kinds of studies included, and either narrowly define mechanisms and agents of change, or examine the effectiveness of whole interventions as opposed to the specific actions that comprise interventions. Taxonomic meta-analytic methods widen the aperture of what can be included in a meta-analysis data set, allowing for inclusion of many types of interventions and study designs. The National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research Childhood Obesity Evidence Base (COEB) project focuses on interventions intended to prevent childhood obesity in children 2-5 years old who have an outcome measure of BMI. The COEB created taxonomies, anchored in the Social Ecological Model, which catalog specific outcomes, intervention components, intended recipients, and contexts of policies, initiatives, and interventions conducted at the individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and societal level. Taxonomies were created by discovery from the literature itself using grounded theory. This article describes the process used for a novel taxonomic meta-analysis of childhood obesity prevention studies between the years 2010 and 2019. This method can be applied to other areas of research, including obesity prevention in additional populations.

This work initiates a general study of learning and generalization without the i.i.d. assumption, starting from first principles. While the standard approach to statistical learning theory is based on assumptions chosen largely for their convenience (e.g., i.i.d. or stationary ergodic), in this work we are interested in developing a theory of learning based only on the most fundamental and natural assumptions implicit in the requirements of the learning problem itself. We specifically study universally consistent function learning, where the objective is to obtain low long-run average loss for any target function, when the data follow a given stochastic process. We are then interested in the question of whether there exist learning rules guaranteed to be universally consistent given only the assumption that universally consistent learning is possible for the given data process. The reasoning that motivates this criterion emanates from a kind of optimist's decision theory, and so we refer to such learning rules as being optimistically universal. We study this question in three natural learning settings: inductive, self-adaptive, and online. Remarkably, as our strongest positive result, we find that optimistically universal learning rules do indeed exist in the self-adaptive learning setting. Establishing this fact requires us to develop new approaches to the design of learning algorithms. Along the way, we also identify concise characterizations of the family of processes under which universally consistent learning is possible in the inductive and self-adaptive settings. We additionally pose a number of enticing open problems, particularly for the online learning setting.