A conceptual framework for studying the prevention of human dysfunction is offered. On the basis of recent advances in research on the development of psychological disorders and methods of preventive intervention, generalizations about the relation of risk and protective factors to disorder are put forward, along with a set of principles for what may be identified as the science of prevention. Emerging themes from the study of human development, in general, need to be incorporated in the models for explaining and preventing serious problems of human adaptation. The article concludes with a set of recommendations for a national prevention research agenda.
Earlier project reports compared childhood social behavior of nonmigratory schizophrenics and normal classmates by analyzing teachers' comments in school records. This article expands the sample to include migratory schizophrenics and analyzes childhood intellectual functioning. Behavioral differences indicated emotional immaturity and social alienation in the preschizophrenics, with sharp sex differences. Preschizophrenic boys were abrasive and antisocial, whereas prcschizophrenic girls were introverted and socially insecure. No differences were associated with migration. The preschizophrenics had normal intelligence that remained stable throughout childhood, but overall scholastic performance was somewhat poorer than average. They achieved lower IQs than matched classmates, but differences from their own siblings were not significant. Childhood intelligence was not related to length of hospitalization. Implications for prediction of schizophrenia are discussed.One of the puzzlements about schizophrenic disorder is that when it occurs the afflicted person often changes quite dramatically. Recent advances in the study of the processreactive dimension (Garmezy, 1970;Kantor & Herron, 1966;Phillips, 1968) show that these changes are temporary in many cases but that in others indications of vulnerability that are reliably related to long-term psychi-
Childhood public school records of 30 nonmigratory, hospitalized schizophrenic adults were compared with those of 90 matched control children presumed to have become normal adults. It was concluded that a substantial proportion of children destined to be schizophrenic as adults can be identified by their behavior in public school before they break down.
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