Richard J. Morris

Disability and Juvenile Delinquency: Issues and Trends.

The US juvenile justice system has gone through many changes since its inception in the late 1890s. Even with these changes and more than 100 years of empirical research, there is a paucity of literature published on juvenile delinquents with disabilities. The present article focuses on juvenile delinquents with disabilities, addressing definitional issues, prevalence and incidence data, types of educational and mental health services available, and future directions for research.

Assessing Mental Retardation in Death Penalty Cases: Critical Issues for Psychology and Psychological Practice

In 2002, the United States Supreme Court decided the Atkins case, which held that mentally retarded defendants could not be executed. The opinion gave no guidance on the definition of mental retardation, preferring to leave to individual states the task of determining not only the definition of mental retardation but also the assessment procedures to be used in making the diagnosis. This lack of guidance has resulted in many issues, including varying definitions of what constitutes mental retardation across states, use of different assessment procedures to make the determination that a person has mental retardation, and numerous psychometric concerns regarding the provision of psychological assessment services to the courts in capital cases that involve a defendant who may have mental retardation. This article examines these latter issues in detail from both psychological and legal perspectives and makes recommendations for practicing psychologists.

Structural Equation Modeling in Clinical Assessment Research with Children.

The use of structural equation modeling has gained increased interest in recent years in the social and behavioral sciences. This article reviews the basic tenets of structural modeling in relation to issues in research and practice involving clinical assessment and compares this approach with more traditional psychometric approaches to the validation of assessment instruments with children. Arguments for and against the inclusion of nonexperimental variables in causal studies aimed at establishing construct validity are also discussed. An illustrative example of the application of structural equation modeling in clinical assessment research is provided, and a comparison is made between this approach and traditional psychometric procedures. Implications and suggestions for the use of structural modeling are discussed for both the practitioner and the clinical researcher.

A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Standardized Behavior Management Intervention for Students With Externalizing Behavior

This study reports the results from a Swedish randomized controlled trial of a standardized behavior management intervention. The intervention targeted students with externalizing behavior in a regular education setting. First- and second-grade students (N = 100) from 38 schools were randomly assigned to either the intervention or an active comparison group. Observer, teacher, and peer ratings were collected at pretest, posttest (6 months later), and follow-up (14 months after pretest). Significant intervention effects were found on student externalizing behavior and teacher behavior management at both posttest and follow-up. The intervention effect on student externalizing behavior was mediated by change in teacher behavior. Moderating effects of demographic and classroom variables were explored, as well as the social validity of the intervention. The results are discussed in relation to cost-effectiveness and feasibility of behavioral interventions in typical school settings.

Assessment of Attention Deficit Disorder and Hyperactivity

Of all the behavioral disturbances in children, perhaps none is so intriguing to clinicians, educators, and parents alike as is the disorder called attention deficit disorder (ADD), often referred to in the past as hyperactivity or hyperkinesis. This disorder represents one of the most common reasons for referral to school psychologists and/or child guidance and mental health clinics and has one of the longest histories of research and study in the area of childhood behavior disorders. ADD is typically viewed as a developmental disorder of social conduct and self-control that involves deficits in attention and academic achievement and that involves a long-term course that may begin as early as infancy or early childhood and continue through adolescence (e. g., Barkley, 1981a, 1983; Friman & Christophersen, 1983).

Fears and Phobias

Fear is an intense emotion that is associated with cognitive, behavioral, and/or physiological components of anxiety (Morris & Kratochwill, 1983). In the presence of danger, fear can lead an individual to take protective action, and cause the person to behave in a cautious manner (Jersild, 1968). In school-age children transitory fears are common. These fears, which do not typically interfere with the child’s daily functioning, are often viewed as integrally tied to normal child development (e.g., Jersild, 1968; Jersild & Holmes, 1935; Morris & Kratochwill, 1983; Smith, 1979).

Disability research and policy: Current perspectives

This study assessed the number of fears, intensity of fears, type of fears and anxieties, and most common feais in children having a disability. In addition, the correlation level between different raters in the assessment of student fears and related anxieties were examined. Data were collected from public schools and evaluated using Multivariate Analysis of Variance, Analysis of Variance, slice effect test, frequency analysis, and Pearson Product Moment Correlation. Findings from the present study indicated that students with learning disabilities (LD) reported significantly higher total fear score and higher levels of fear in the two factors of the Fear Survey Schedule for Children-Revised (FSSC-R); fear of failure and criticism and fear of danger and death. In addition, the LD group reported significantly higher overall anxiety level and higher levels of anxiety in all the three subscale scores of Revised Childrens Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS). Results showed that girls reported significantly higher scores than did boys in total fear score, intensity of fears, and two factors of FSSC-R—fear of unknown and fear of injury and small animals. Furthermore, girls in the LD group reported higher total fear score, intensity of fears, and higher levels of fear in all the five factors of FSSC-R than their male counterparts in the same group. On the other hand, girls in the mild mental retardation (MIMR) group reported lower scores in these measures than did their boy counterparts in the same group. Regarding age differences, older students reported significantly higher scores in the fear of failure and criticism. In addition, older students in the MIMR group reported higher levels of total fear score, intensity of fears, fear of theA solution to get the problem off, have you found it? Really? What kind of solution do you resolve the problem? From what sources? Well, there are so many questions that we utter every day. No matter how you will get the solution, it will mean better. You can take the reference from some books. And the disability research and policy current perspectives is one book that we really recommend you to read, to get more solutions in solving this problem.

Anxiety and Phobias

Virtually all theoretical models or approaches to human behavior have dealt with children’s fears, phobias, or anxieties. Independent of theoretical orientation, fear is generally regarded as a basic human emotion that leads individuals to take protective action and that results in cognitive, behavioral, or physiological responses. All children experience fears that do not interfere with their daily functioning. In fact, these fears are typically viewed as an intregal part of normal development across most major theories of child development (Jersild, 1968; Jersild & Holmes, 1935; Morris & Kratochwill, 1983; Smith, 1979).

Shaping relaxation in the unrelaxed client

Abstract A procedure called “relaxation programming” is described which has been found useful in helping unrelaxed clients achieve a more comfortable level of relaxation during relaxation training and systematic desensitization.

Effects of social demands on generalized imitation learning in retarded children

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of social-setting characteristics in the acquisition and maintenance of generalized imitative behavior. A total of 50 imitative moderately retarded children were each assigned to 1 of 5 treatment conditions. The groups were matched with respect to each Ss pretreatment imitative level. It was found that the degree of social demand to imitate differentially contributes to the occurrence of generalized imitative behavior. These findings are discussed in terms of recent explanations of the occurrence of generalized imitation learning and Ziglers position concerning the problem-solving style of retarded children.