No abstract

The responses of a nationally representative sample of 1,000 parents to a survey concerning parent attitudes, disciplinary practices, and other predictors of competent parenting were analyzed. Cluster analysis identified three subgroups based on their profiles of parenting attitudes and discipline. The first was high on physical discipline, neglect, verbal abuse, and attitudes that devalue children. They reported childhood abuse and domestic violence, marital difficulty, and problems managing anger. The second group was high on nonphysical as well as physical discipline, and had a more positive attitude toward children but also had a profile of psychosocial risk. The third group had low scores on all disciplinary practices, low perceived disciplinary efficacy, and a healthy marital and personal history. These groups are different from traditional parenting typologies, and the findings confirm theoretical predictions concerning the correlates of parenting problems and raise new questions concerning the convergence of physically punitive with nonpunitive discipline practices.

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Prior researchers confirmed socialization models depicting parenting practices and social cognitions associated with prosocial and antisocial behaviors. However, little research has focused on processes underlying the linkbetween parenting and these behaviors. Per Grusec and Goodnow’s internalization model, children and adolescents develop expectancies regarding their parents’reactions to their behaviors. Adolescents’ expected parental reactions to prosocial behaviors were hypothesized to predict prosocial behaviors; expectations regarding antisocial behaviors were expected to predict antisocial behaviors. For this study, 80 adolescents and their parents reported adolescents’ antisocial and prosocial behaviors. Adolescents completed a measure of prosocial moral reasoning and an assessment of how appropriately they expected each parent to react to prosocial and antisocial behaviors. Expected parental reactions to antisocial behavior predicted lower levels of delinquency and aggression (adolescent report). Expected parental reactions to prosocial behavior predicted higher levels of prosocial behavior (adolescent report) and lower levels of delinquency and aggression (mother report).

Many children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders have difficulty making appropriate eye contact and engaging in joint attention. The current study evaluated a computer-assisted instruction package (pairing visual stimuli with vocal stimuli) as a novel treatment to improve the eye gaze accuracy in 3 elementary school children with autism. The researchers measured the latency from a recorded verbal stimulus to the students making eye contact with pictures of familiar individuals displayed on a computer screen, and the duration for which eye gaze on the stimulus was main-tained. An automated infrared camera system for measuring eye gaze was utilized that eliminated the need for an instructor to make subjective judgments regarding participants' eye gaze. For all three participants, duration of eye contact increased, and latency to responding decreased following exposure to the computer-assisted instruction. The implications of these findings for the treatment of individuals with autism are discussed, along with suggestions for future research on the topic.