The authors present a synthesised review of the methods for assessing mental development and autism, with an emphasis on the general tendency to reduce the age of diagnosis. Based on clinical experience, a number of particularities are described in terms of: testing, working with parents, observing and reflecting on the nature and meaning of autistic behaviours. On focus is a toolkit for detailed assessment of mental development that was elaborated within the inter-university cooperation between Sofia Medical University and Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)-Belgium. Illustrated and discussed are typical profiles of cognitive and socio-communicative functioning of children with ASD and other neurodevelopmental disorders, which help a differential diagnosis to be made by the multidisciplinary clinical team. Further described are the advantages of early assessment of mental development as a basis for future educational and therapeutic programs.
We first summarize the history, extent, and characteristics of institutionalization of non-orphan children in Bulgaria. Then we describe a study of certain psychological characteristics of mothers who use institutionalization compared with mothers similar in ethnicity and close-to-poverty circumstances, those using state daycare programs, and those using weekly care programs for their children. Institutionalizing mothers had been institutionalized themselves far more often than had the other mothers. On two attachment measures, as expected, institutionalizing mothers were less secure and more insecure than daycare mothers, with weekly care mothers intermediate. On a parental representation task, results were somewhat more equivocal. Results suggest that psychological characteristics, especially attachment style, are important in decisions to use institutionalization as a means of child care.
This study explored sociopolitical control among parents of school‐age children in a suburban municipality of a large post‐socialist city. The participants completed a questionnaire that asked them about their sense of sociopolitical control in terms of leadership competence and policy control, as well as about other aspects of their lives, including mental health. The findings show that the participants have a greater sense of sociopolitical control in terms of leadership competence than in terms of policy control. Moreover, the findings show that voting in the last presidential election and degree of depression influenced negatively the sense of leadership competence among parti‐cipants. Within the context of empowerment, the findings have implications for practice which focuses on consumer‐based activities that allow citizens more leadership opportunities and control at the local level. Future research is needed that replicates this study, taking into account its limitations. In order for citizens in post‐socialist countries to create civil societies at the same time that they implement market economies, they must be empowered. Some evidence suggests that several factors, including mental health problems, may influence the sense of empowerment among citizens in post‐socialist coun‐tries. Within the context of empowerment, this study examines sociopolitical control among citizens in a suburb of a large post‐socialist city. The findings in the study have implications for social welfare practice in this city and for future research.
The use of institutional care in countries in transition to capitalist economies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia continues to grow. This paper shows how common understandings of reasons for entry to care that blame parents lead to policies that are unable to address the situation of children and families. Effective social policy needs to fi nd ways to see the predicaments of parents and overcome the blindness that can be induced by prejudice and ideology. The paper demonstrates how a small research project involving Roma women as researchers in Bulgaria was able to make parents visible and challenge commonly held views leading to the development of an effective local alternative to residential care.
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