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Few juvenile justice group experimental and quasi-experimental literacy-focused studies document fidelity of implementation (FOI). Even fewer of those studies consider the psychometric properties of the FOI instrumentation used. The aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of a brief FOI instrument used with English language arts classes in a juvenile justice school as part of an Institute of Education Science research project. Six teachers were observed a total of 209 occasions across three instructional conditions (Business-as-Usual, REACH, REACH + Strategic Instruction Model) within one long-term juvenile justice facility with approximately 300 male youth aged 12 to 18. Findings indicated the instrument has high internal consistency at 0.98. Rasch modeling suggested the instrument measured two separate constructs (e.g., instruction and behavior management). Developmental pathway analyses indicated items are arranged on an ability continuum with some items being easier or harder for teachers. Findings suggest the FOI instrument has the potential to be used in English language arts classes within a juvenile justice facility. Future directions include developing additional easier and harder items to account for the abilities of less and more skilled teachers. Moreover, research is needed to examine the FOI instrumentation usability and feasibility across similar and different types of juvenile justice facilities.

The purpose of this article was to examine the relationships between: (1) youth and facility characteristics; and (2) youth risk and resilience factors (i.e., mental health, self-determination [SD]) in juvenile justice facilities. Extant self-report data from 205 nationally representative correctional facilities and 7,073 youth, collected as part of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Survey of Residential Placement, were analyzed. Youth characteristics included sex, race, disability classification, mental health status, traumatic events/abuse encountered, offense committed, and SD. Facility factors included facility climate and counseling services. Results indicated that both prior abuse and victimization in the facility were positively correlated with mental health symptoms and SD. Positive perceptions of facility climate were associated with lower mental health symptoms. Youth who were female, younger, with a learning disability, and had committed a violent offense, reported more mental health symptoms. Positive perceptions of facility climate and receipt of counseling in the facility were associated with higher SD. Contrary to expectations, prior abuse and victimization in the facility were associated with higher SD. Recommendations include creating positive facility climates, developing targeted SD instruction, and providing tailored counseling services to facilitate successful transitions out of juvenile justice.

This paper describes how a partnership between a large, urban school district and researchers resulted in a process to measure school climate and support schools and the district in school safety efforts. The partnership utilized a comprehensive framework of safe and supportive schools, where constructs such as physical safety and security were included along with connectedness of staff and students, emotional safety, physical environment, engagement, and norms and policies. Researchers then developed a process for measuring these constructs using existing, school-level data collected by the state and the district and communicating the results to district and school staff. This paper aims to describe the method of identifying and utilizing school-level data, our development of a standardized measurement model, and our processes to communicate and consult with the district and schools on using a data-driven process to improve school safety.

Purpose: This study examined normative change in children's levels of social competence and parent-child interactions (PCIs) from kindergarten through second grade as well as relations between levels of PCI and children's social development. Methods: Multiple waves of data were collected from parents and teachers of 379 children ranging in age from 4 to 6.5 years. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to estimate change over time in social competence controlling for children's exposure to early learning programs such as home visiting and preschool programs. Next, frequency of PCI was entered as a time-varying predictor of children's social competence levels. Results: Results indicated discrepancies between parent and teacher reports of children's social development. Parents reported normative growth in children's social competence, whereas teachers reported declines in this area. Parents also reported decreases in PCIs over time. Parent-reported social competence scores were positively associated with levels of PCIs, whereas no significant association was found between teacher-rated social competence scores and levels of PCI. Discussion: These results highlight the importance of viewing children's social competence as a dynamic variable related to a multitude of individual, familial, and social factors. Findings also emphasize PCIs as a potential target for interventions aimed at enhancing such competence.

The current study investigates the longitudinal association, across a 1-year period, between self-esteem and narcissism with bullying and peer victimization. The sample consisted of 1,416 (50.1% girls) Greek Cypriot early adolescents ("M" age = 12.89) who completed a battery of self-report measures. The small correlation found between self-esteem and narcissism suggests that the two constructs are distinct from one another. Results from the Hierarchical Linear Regression analyses suggested that the combination of low self-esteem (i.e., fragile self-concept) with high narcissism (i.e., grandiose self-view) may contribute to the continuation of both bullying and victimization. Person-centered analyses clarified narcissism predicted membership into "bully" and "bully-victim" groups, although "bullies" were distinguished by low self-esteem when compared with uninvolved children. Current findings can help provide an explanation of the inconsistency reported in the literature in terms of the association between self-esteem and bullying behavior, in that low self-esteem is more strongly associated with bullying for narcissistic youth.

Cognitive functioning has historically been used to predict adaptive outcomes of people with autism spectrum disorders; however, research shows that it is not a complete predictor. The current study explored whether emotion perception was a predictor of adaptive outcomes, and more specifically, hypothesized that emotion perception (Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy-2 error scores) would mediate adaptive functioning of people with autism spectrum disorder (Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Second Edition). People with autism spectrum disorders demonstrated significantly lower adaptive functioning and emotion perception skills compared to typically developing individuals. Emotion perception acted as a significant mediator for socialization, but not communication or daily living skills, highlighting that in people with autism spectrum disorders, lower socialization abilities is the result, in part, of emotion perception deficits. It was unexpected that emotion perception was not a mediator for communication skills. This may be related to sample restrictions, or the narrow focus on emotion perception. Future research should involve a larger, more inclusive autism spectrum disorder sample, broaden approaches to exploring relationships between social perception and adaptive outcomes, and relate findings to brain mechanisms underlying emotion perception.

This report investigated the potential role of gender in moderating the effects of terror attack exposure on depression symptoms in middle school students from Dimona, Israel (N = 90). Specifically, the effects of three aspects of terror attacks were investigated: physical exposure, relational exposure, and media exposure. Ninety early adolescents were assessed for terror exposure and depression before and after a suicide bombing in a town market. Results indicate that the effects of relational exposure to the suicide bombing--knowing others directly affected by a suicide bombing--on depression symptoms differed by gender. Adolescent girls who knew people affected by the suicide bombing reacted with higher levels of depressive symptoms while similarly exposed adolescent boys did not. It may be that girls, as compared to boys, express greater sympathy for victims, and are hence more vulnerable to disruptions of their social network, resulting in a heightened depressive vulnerability. (Contains 3 tables, 1 note and 1 figure.)

Peer victimization is a documented antecedent of poor mental health outcomes for children and adolescents. This article explored the role of coping effectiveness in the association between victimization and perceived school safety. A sample of urban middle school students (N = 509) in the southeastern United States were surveyed regarding victimization, coping behaviors, and school climate. Data analysis were conducted in Mplus (Version 6.1) with a Bayesian analytic approach that allowed for incorporation of findings from a previous study using comparable measures (Varjas, Henrich, & Meyers, 2009). The findings supported a hypothesized buffering effect of coping effectiveness on the association between victimization and school safety. Unexpectedly, there was a suppressing indirect effect of coping effectiveness on the association between victimization and safety. These findings are discussed in terms of the importance of participatory action models of research and understanding developmental trends in children's coping behavior. (Contains 4 tables.)

This study investigates how social support may protect Israeli early adolescents who have witnessed community violence from engaging in violent behavior when they have also witnessed terror violence. The study examines how support from parents, school, and friends could serve as protective, despite the interactive risk effects of witnessing community and terror violence. In general, results indicate that support from parents operated as a protective factor, whereas support from friends acted as a risk by increasing the likelihood of violent behavior. Support from school has both a protective and risk effect, depending on the type of violence exposure witnessed. The extent to which these facets of social support operated as risk or protective factors is conditional on whether youth had also witnessed terror violence, and terror violence appear to moderate each of the three facets of support differently. The implications of these findings and intervention initiatives for Israeli youth are discussed. (Contains 2 notes, 3 tables, and 2 figures.)

How and why do internalizing and externalizing problems, psychopathological problems from different diagnostic classes representing separate forms of psychopathology, co-occur in children? We investigated the development of pure and co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems from ages 2 to 12 with the use of latent class growth analysis. Furthermore, we examined how early childhood factors (temperament, cognitive functioning, maternal depression, and home environment) and early adolescent social and behavioral adjustment variables were related to differential trajectories of pure and co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems. The sample (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care) consisted of 1,232 children (52% male). Mother reports on the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991, 1992) were used to construct the trajectories of externalizing and internalizing problems. Analyses identified groups of children exhibiting pure and co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems. Children exhibiting continuous externalizing or continuous co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems across the 10-year period under investigation were more likely to (a) engage in risky behaviors, (b) be associated with deviant peers, (c) be rejected by peers, and (d) be asocial with peers at early adolescence. However, children exhibiting pure internalizing problems over time were only at higher risk for being asocial with peers as early adolescents. Moreover, the additive effects of individual and environmental early childhood risk factors influenced the development of chronic externalizing problems, although pure internalizing problems were uniquely influenced by maternal depression. Results also provided evidence for the concepts of equifinality and multifinality. (Contains 6 tables and 2 figures.)

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the authors aimed to describe the pathways of risk within sexual risk taking, alcohol use, and delinquency, and then identify how the trajectory of sexual risk is linked to alcohol use and delinquency. Risk trajectories were measured with adolescents aged 15-24 years (N = 1,778). Using Latent Class Growth Analyses (LCGA), models indicated that the majority of adolescents engaged in sexual risk and alcohol use. In joint trajectory analyses, LCGA revealed six risk taking classes: sex and alcohol, moderate risk taking, joint risk taking, moderate alcohol, alcohol risk, and alcohol and delinquency experimentation. Editors' Strategic Implications: School administrators and curriculum designers should pay attention to the study's findings with respect to the need for prevention programs to target early adolescents and integrate prevention messages about alcohol use and sexual risk taking.

This study examined 427 urban middle school students' perceptions of bullying, cyberbullying, and school safety utilizing the Student Survey of Bullying Behavior-Revised 2 (Varjas, Meyers, & Hunt, 2006). A unique finding is that cyberbullying may represent a unique modality of victimization and bullying compared with other school-based modalities. Cyberbullying and relational bullying were not associated with perceived school safety. Males reported more physical victimization, verbal victimization, and verbal bullying, and less relational victimization. Males and older students reported feeling safer at school. Older students reported less physical, verbal, and relational victimization, and less physical and verbal bullying. Importantly, physical, verbal, and relational bullying and victimization may represent more general underlying constructs of bullying and victimization, calling into question the distinctiveness of individual forms. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

The current study investigates linear and curvilinear associations between overt aggressive behavior and the adolescents' reports of the quality of their friendships over time. Moderation by gender was also investigated. The sample consisted of 246 boys and 253 girls from the sixth and seventh grades of a large public middle school. Findings suggested a curvilinear association between aggression and friendship quality for boys such that nonaggressive and highly aggressive boys tended to perceive their relationships with friends more positively than did boys who exhibited moderate levels of overt aggression. In contrast, a negative linear association was found between aggression and friendship quality for girls. These findings provide evidence that the association between friendship quality and overt aggression is a complex phenomenon and point to the importance of examining gender differences and the curvilinear association between aggression and friendship quality. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

A prospective study of 29 Israeli middle school students experiencing rocket attacks in Sderot, Israel, examined if higher levels of baseline social support acted as a buffer against the adverse psychological effects of terrorism on adolescent depression. Results demonstrate the importance of community mental health efforts to promote family, school, and peers as protective resources during traumatic stress.

The present study includes externalizing problems, internalizing problems, mother-adolescent relationship quality, and father-adolescent relationship quality in the same structural equation model and tests the longitudinal reciprocal association among all four variables over a 1-year period. A transactional model in which adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems are negatively related to the quality of adolescents' relationships with their parents and relationship quality is related to internalizing and externalizing problems is hypothesized. Moderation by gender, ethnicity, and parental marital status is also investigated. The sample consists of 246 boys and 253 girls from the sixth and seventh grades of a large public middle school. The study's final model suggests a longitudinal, reciprocal association between the quality of adolescents' relationships with their mothers and internalizing problems. Results suggest longitudinal unidirectional effects from externalizing problems to the quality of adolescents' relationships with their fathers and from the quality of adolescents' relationships with their mothers to externalizing problems. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)

Understanding the mechanisms underlying the development of violence exposure sequelae is essential to providing effective treatments for traumatized youth. This longitudinal study examined the mediating role of posttraumatic stress in the relationship between violence exposure and psychopathology, and compared the mediated models by gender. Urban adolescents (n=1,358) were surveyed using the Social and Health Assessment. The proposed relationships were examined using Structural Equation Modeling. Posttraumatic stress fully mediated the relationships between victimization and depression and anxiety in girls, and partially so in boys. In addition, posttraumatic stress partially mediated the relationships between violence exposure and commission of violence in boys. Current findings support the longitudinal effects of violence exposure on adolescent mental health. Posttraumatic stress represents a unique mechanism for the development of psychopathology in girls and is also related to negative outcomes in boys. These findings have direct implications for prevention and rehabilitation efforts among violence exposed youth.

An ecological developmental model of adolescent suicidality was used to inform a hierarchical logistic regression analysis of longitudinal interactions between parent, peer, and school relations and suicide attempts. Reanalyzing data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, it was found that parent relations were the most consistent protective factor, and among boys with prior suicide attempts, school relations augmented the effects of parent relations when peer relations were low. Results indicated the need to understand suicidal behavior as a component of interactive social processes in the design of clinical interventions.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), this study utilized an ecological approach to investigate the joint contribution of parents and schools on changes in violent behavior over time among a sample of 6,397 students (54% female) from 125 schools. This study examined the main and interactive effects of parent and school connectedness as buffers of violent behavior within a hierarchical linear model, focusing on both students and schools as the unit of analysis. Results show that students who feel more connected to their schools demonstrate reductions in violent behavior over time. On the school level, our findings suggest that school climate serves as a protective factor for student violent behavior. Finally, parent and school connectedness appear to work together to buffer adolescents from the effects of violence exposure on subsequent violent behavior.

Background: Teacher reports of disobedient behaviours in children with intellectual disability noted in previous investigations represent a mismatch with the typical personality profile associated with intellectual disability. We hypothesise that this contradiction arises from the frustration experienced by children with intellectual disability when faced with tasks inappropriate for their mental age. Method: Children with mild to moderate intellectual disability attempted two tasks, one level-appropriate and the other level-inappropriate for their mental age. Results were scored on a Disobedient Behaviour Checklist. Results: Compared to both the mental age and chronological age comparison groups, children with intellectual disability showed increased disobedient behaviours when faced with the level-inappropriate task, but showed no significant differences on the level-appropriate task. Conclusions: Children with intellectual disability may be no more likely to misbehave in classroom settings than children without disability, provided children with intellectual disability receive instruction that is sensitive and appropriate to their ability level.

The EZ-Yale Personality Motivation Questionnaire (EZPQ) was used to measure motivation as a facet of school readiness in a sample of 133 children during the spring of their final year of Head Start. Three motivational constructs assessed by the EZPQ, academic mastery motivation, negative reaction tendency, and outerdirectedness, were associated with criterion measures of cognitive and social-emotional school readiness in the expected directions. The EZPQ scales were also sensitive to amount of time spent in Head Start. Children completing their second year of Head Start evinced more adaptive motivational characteristics than children who had been in the program for just one year. Implications address the value of comprehensive definitions of school readiness not restricted to just emergent literacy, math, and language skills. (Contains 6 tables, 1 figure, and 1 footnote.)

This study investigated the long-term effects of exposure to community violence on academic achievement and feelings of safety in school among a large sample of urban middle-school students (N = 759). It also considered the role of depressive symptoms and aggression as mediators of the effects, and the role of parent support in buffering adolescents from these effects of violence exposure. Different patterns of effects were found for exposure to violence as witnesses or as victims. Witnessing was associated with lower levels of academic achievement over time, and these longitudinal effects were not mediated by depressive symptoms or aggression, nor were they buffered by parent support. Victimization was not related to lower levels of academic achievement and was associated with feeling less safe in school over time only for boys who reported low levels of parent support. Intervention and policy implications highlight the importance of an ecological approach in intervening to boost the academic performance of urban children placed at risk.

A theoretical model was examined linking early adolescent interpersonal relatedness and self-definition, autonomous and controlled regulation, and negative and positive life events. Findings indicated that self-criticism predicted less positive events, whereas efficacy predicted more positive events. Effects were fully mediated by absence and presence, respectively, of autonomous motivation. Controlled motivation, predicted by self-criticism and maladaptive neediness, did not predict negative events. Findings illustrate the centrality of protective, pleasure-related processes. (Author/KB)

How and why do internalizing and externalizing problems, psychopathological problems from different diagnostic classes representing separate forms of psychopathology, co-occur in children? We investigated the development of pure and co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems from ages 2 to 12 with the use of latent class growth analysis. Furthermore, we examined how early childhood factors (temperament, cognitive functioning, maternal depression, and home environment) and early adolescent social and behavioral adjustment variables were related to differential trajectories of pure and co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems. The sample (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care) consisted of 1,232 children (52% male). Mother reports on the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991, 1992) were used to construct the trajectories of externalizing and internalizing problems. Analyses identified groups of children exhibiting pure and co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems. Children exhibiting continuous externalizing or continuous co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems across the 10-year period under investigation were more likely to (a) engage in risky behaviors, (b) he associated with deviant peers, (c) be rejected by peers, and (d) be asocial with peers at early adolescence. However, children exhibiting pure internalizing problems over time were only at higher risk for being asocial with peers as early adolescents. Moreover, the additive effects of individual and environmental early childhood risk factors influenced the development of chronic externalizing problems, although pure internalizing problems were uniquely influenced by maternal depression. Results also provided evidence for the concepts of equifinality and multifinality. Keywords: internalizing, externalizing, co-occurrence, latent class growth analysis, developmental psychopathology DOI: 10.1037/a0020659