Anne P. Copeland

Spousal adjustment on international assignments: the role of social support

Abstract The role of social support on international relocations is important because an overseas assignment presents both the disruption of established social support networks and the challenge to develop new ones. Such changes can be especially stressful for relocated accompanying spouses, due to competing family responsibilities, social isolation, sociopolitical constraints, and changes in their social and/or work status. Participants in this study were 194 women who had moved temporarily to a new country primarily because of their husband/partners’ jobs; they were living in one of 17 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, or Latin America. Women with higher adjustment (a) were in more cohesive families, (b) had had more involvement in the decision to move, (c) felt they had fewer losses in friendship networks, (d) had more functions of social support adequately met, and (e) received more of their support from local rather than long-distance providers, compared with those with lower adjustment.

A Self-Control Classroom for Hyperactive Children.

In this study we investigated the effectiveness of a package of self-control procedures in a classroom with six hyperactive boys ages 7 to 10. A within-subjects reversal design was used. Measures of on-task behavior and class misbehavior, as well as measures of activity level, were recorded. Results indicated that the self-control package was effective in improving misbehavior and attention to tasks during the individual seat work but not during group instruction. Activity level was not affected by the treatment. Changes in the schedule of self-monitoring for the boys in the class produced an increase in variability and some deterioration in their behavior. Those boys of lower mental age seemed most affected by the schedule shift.

The relevance of subject variables in cognitive self-instructional programs for impulsive children

Although it has become increasingly clear that cognitive self-instructional (CSI) programs are effective in altering the style and behavior of impulsive children, individual differences in responses to these programs have not received much attention. The relevance of these subject variables is stressed inasmuch as they can be used to make more efficient and individualized intervention plans. The CSI research literature and other self-control paradigms are review3d for indications of subject variables that would predict improvement from CSI training. Although theoretically and empirically based suggestions can be made about who should receive CSI training, there is clearly a need for further research in this area.

The selective attention of learning-disabled children: Three studies

Three studies were performed to assess the selective attention of learning-disabled (LD) children. In the first study, 10 LD and 16 non-LD children were given the Speeded Classification task. LD children sorted cards more slowly than non-LD children, and children in both groups had trouble ignoring irrelevant information. Non-LD children became more accurate across trials, while LD children did not. In the second study, one group of 13 LD children was taught to accompany their Speeded Classification sorting verbally in an attempt to improve their performance; the other group of LD children (n=12) received no such instruction. The experimental group, however, showed poorer performance across trials compared with the control group. In the third study, the children from Experiments 1 and 2 were given the Central-Incidental Learning task. Older children learned more central memory items than younger children and, LD children learned more incidentally than non-LD children.

Examining a premise underlying self-instructional techniques

Twenty learning-disabled (LD) children were administered the Matching Familiar Figures Test before they played alone in a room while their behavior and private speech were videotaped. Tapes were transcribed and coded according to activity level and the types and amounts of private speech used during play. Children used more Fantasy/Role-Playing speech than Regulatory or Affective speech. The speech of 10 of the children who had been diagnosed hyperactive was generally similar to that of the nonhyperactive children, although high activity level during play was accompanied by more private speech. Reflective children used Fantasy/Role-Playing speech more than did impulsive children. The premise that highly active or impulsive LD children show differences in their use of private speech as compared to less active and more reflective children, and that they thus could profit from techniques that try to modify self-directed speech, was supported.