Adolescent victims of child sexual abuse suffer through complex problems of vast proportions. Treatment of these victims is a challenging task facing mental health professionals. Few studies have assessed treatment success in child and adolescent sexual abuse cases. The present investigation used a pretest-posttest format with three measures from the Stanford Achievement Test and self-concept (Piers-Harris) scores to assess the effectiveness of 6 months of psychotherapy with sexually abused girls. Social workers led psychotherapeutic groups like those described by Blick and Porter. The groups offered the girls a supportive environment to gain insights into their difficulties. The study used a comparison group based on gender, age, IQ, and socioeconomic status. Results indicated that the early adolescent sexual abuse victims in treatment made significant gains on all measured areas whereas the comparison group's scores did not change significantly.

No abstract

The relationships between marital satisfaction, self-actualization, and empathy scores were tested for 30 intact couples. Analyses indicated that both satisfaction and empathy scores were independent predictors of marital satisfaction scores for men, but not for women. Implications were discussed.

No abstract

The roles and functions of 52 school psychologists from Iowa and Tennessee were examined. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to test differences between reported time spent on prereferral. assessment, intervention, consultation, and curriculum-based assessment. Significant differences were found for the time spent in all areas. A second one-way MANOVA was used to test the differences between the two groups in reported actual time spent and desired time spent. A significant difference was found for consultation. A third MANOVA was utilized to test the differences between the two groups' desired time spent on the five variables. A significant difference was found for curriculum-based assessment. The results suggest that school psychologists in Tennessee and Iowa occupy different roles. School psychologists in Tennessee reported spending the majority of their time on assessment activities, whereas the Iowa sample balances their time between the five functions. The Iowa role exemplifies alternative functions for school psychologists. The Tennessee role is oriented more toward the refer, test, place model.Historically, school psychology has focused on the testing and placement of children who seemingly could not succeed in the regular classroom. However, there has been a growing revolution in certain parts of the United States resulting in expanded roles for school psychologists. Some believe this is not only desired but essential to the continuance of school psychology as a profession (Bradley & Reschly, 1993; Reschly, 1988).In recent years there has been growing pressure on professional roles in school psychology. On the one hand, PL 94-142 legislation guaranteed the regression to traditional testing and placement roles (Pfeiffer & Dean, 1988). On the other hand, the regular education initiative (Will, 1988) has urged school psychologists to abandon assessment and become involved in consultation and intervention in the regular classroom.Several notable empirical studies have investigated the roles of school psychologists. Each study commented about the prominence of assessment and the lack of time spent in consultation. For example, Davis (1976) surveyed school psychologists in Tennessee and found them to be heavily involved in individual assessment, report writing, and parent-teacher conferences. The sample preferred to spend more time in consultation as well as in group and individual counseling. In 1978, Meacham and Peckham surveyed a national sample of school psychologists. They found that the school psychologists' roles emphasized assessment, with less emphasis on consulting, interpretation, remediation, and research. However, when preferred job functions were ranked, the rankings were: consulting, assessment, change agent, interpretation, remediation, and research.Smith ( 1984) found similar results with a national sample. While his respondents spent 54% of their time doing assessment, 23% of their time was spent on intervention activities including counseling with students, teachers, and p...