Objectives:The trajectories of life satisfaction for 609 individuals who sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) were studied. Hierarchical linear modeling analysis examined individual level growth trends over the first 5 years following TBI using gender, functional independence, age, and time to estimate life satisfaction trajectories. Measures: Participants completed the Functional Independence Measure and the Life Satisfaction Inventory at years 1, 2, 4, and 5 after sustaining TBI. Results: Participants who reported higher functional independence at year 1 also had higher life satisfaction at year 1. Participants with lower functional independence across the 5-year period had life satisfaction trajectories that decreased at significantly greater rates than the individuals with more functional independence. The life satisfaction trajectory declined for the sample, but participants reporting lower cognitive and motor functional independence had significantly greater declines in life satisfaction trajectories. Age and gender were not significant factors in predicting life satisfaction trajectories following TBI. Implications: Individuals with greater cognitive and motor impairments following TBI are likely to experience significant declines in life satisfaction within 5 years of living with TBI.

This study compared the effects of 2 supplemental interventions on the beginning reading performance of kindergarteners identified as at risk of reading difficulty. Students (N = 206) were assigned randomly at the classroom level either to an explicit/systematic commercial program or to a school-designed practice intervention taught 30 min per day in small groups for approximately 100 sessions. Multilevel hierarchical linear analyses revealed statistically significant effects favoring the explicit/systematic intervention on alphabetic, phonemic, and untimed decoding skills with substantive effect sizes on all measures except word identification and passage comprehension. Group performance did not differ statistically on more advanced reading and spelling skills. Findings support the efficacy of both supplemental interventions and suggest the benefit of the more explicit/systematic intervention for children who are most at risk of reading difficulty.

synthesis (2002) of 23 investigations examining characteristics of children who failed to respond to early literacy intervention identified nine studies that documented the co-occurrence of attention deficits and behavioral problems and inadequate response to early reading intervention. Likewise, Nelson and colleagues (2003) conducted a synthesis of the characteristics of young learners (preschool through third grade) associated with nonresponse to early reading intervention and found problem behavior to be among the strongest predictors of poor reading outcomes, with that strength of relation second only to rapid automatized naming. Both reviews highlighted a need for more research to examine the extent to which social behaviors may account for variance in reading outcomes. More recently, Morgan et al. (2008) investigated the degree to which reading and behavior problems were interrelated in a hypothesized bidirectional causal model. Using multilevel logistic regression modeling to quantify whether and to what degree one condition operated as a risk factor for another, they found that first-grade reading problems predicted thirdgrade problem behaviors, including acting out, withdrawing from classroom activities, poor self-control, and task avoidance. Conversely, with the exception of task engagement, none of their problem behavior measures (i.e., poor selfcontrol, poor interpersonal skills, externalizing problem behaviors, internalizing problem behaviors) predicted thirdgrade reading problems. AbstractThis study examined the influences of problem behaviors on kindergarten reading outcomes and investigated the extent to which explicit, code-based reading instruction moderated those relations among 206 children identified as being at risk of reading difficulty. Children from the classrooms of 57 kindergarten teachers in 12 schools were randomly assigned to an early reading intervention program or school-determined comparison intervention. In both conditions, children received 30 minutes of small-group supplementary reading instruction for 21 weeks. Findings from multilevel modeling revealed many associations between problem behaviors and reading outcomes for children in both conditions. Interaction analyses indicated that explicit, code-based reading intervention moderated the negative impact of externalizing problem behavior on end-of-kindergarten measures of alphabet knowledge, phonemic blending, and word reading. This type of intensive systematic reading instruction also moderated the influence of hyperactivity on children's alphabet knowledge and phonemic blending. There were no moderator effects for internalizing problem behavior.

Family satisfaction appears to have pronounced beneficial effects on life satisfaction for persons with less functional impairment after TBI regardless of marital status. In contrast, a stable marriage appears to have no apparent benefits to self-reported life satisfaction over the first 5 years post-TBI. Theoretical and clinical implications of these results are discussed.

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