bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Gjakova
Authors: Pulleyblank-Coffey Ellen , Griffith James , Ulaj Jusuf
Published: April 2010

This chapter describes the first community mental health center opened in Gjakova, Kosovo in 2001, following 10 years of conflict in the region from 1989 to 1999. The design and training for the services at the Gjakova Center for Mental Health grew out of an ongoing collaboration between U.S. and Kosovar mental health professionals, known as the Kosovar Family Professional Education Collaboration (KFPEC). Since 1999, the work of the KFPEC has supported the development of a family-focused community mental health system in Kosova, the center in Gjakova being the first of seven planned community mental health centers.
Critical Incident Debriefings and Community-Based Clinical Care
Authors: Miller Joshua
Published: April 2010

Critical Incident Stress De-briefing (CISD) has emerged as an intervention in response to disasters. It is a structured group process for survivors and victims of disasters and other trauma-inducing events. De-briefings are usually considered part of a larger system of crisis responses to “critical incidents” known as Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM), which include more immediate responses known as “defusings,” briefings for management, and individual crisis intervention. CISD and CISM are community-based interventions and often rely on a peer or volunteer model of responders and facilitators. This chapter focuses on debriefings, the most widely used crisis intervention service in response to disasters. It describes what de-briefings are, summarizes research about their effectiveness, and considers how they are an essential component of a community-based system of clinical care.
Child Protection in America
Authors: Myers John E. B.
Published: April 2010

Child abuse and neglect are serious social problems. Preventing maltreatment from occurring and, when prevention fails, intervening to protect children, are vital concerns for policy makers, the public, and professionals in social work, mental health, medicine, nursing, law enforcement, and law. Millions of dollars are spent on the child protection system. Yet, maltreatment continues. To appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of today's child protection system, it is important to understand the historical development of child protection. Part I traces the history of child protection in America from colonial times to the present. With the history in place, Part II begins with an analysis of the numerous causes of child abuse and neglect. Once the causes of maltreatment are revealed, the discussion shifts to roadblocks to reducing maltreatment. Despite roadblocks, progress is possible, and Part II outlines broad strategies for reducing the amount of maltreatment. The book ends with specific recommendations to improve the child protection system, including proposals to strengthen foster care and reform the juvenile court.
Child Protection From 1900 To 1962
Authors: Myers John E. B.
Published: April 2010

Child protection in the 20th century can be divided into two periods, one before 1962 and one following. This chapter chronicles developments prior to 1962, including the emergence of social work as a profession, the settlement movement on behalf of the poor, the child guidance movement, the pivotal 1909 White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children, and the birth in 1912 of the U.S. Children's Bureau. It describes the continuing debate over orphanage care versus foster care for children, and the gradual resolution of the issue in favor of foster care. The juvenile court plays a key role in child protection, and the chapter provides detailed analysis of the emergence of the juvenile court. Finally, the gradual transfer of child protection from non-governmental child protection societies to government-funded and -operated child protection agencies is described. The roots of today's child protection system are clearly traceable to the period prior to 1962.
Child Protection From 1962 to the Present
Authors: Myers John E. B.
Published: April 2010

This chapter describes the formation of the modern child protection system. The most critical date in the process was 1962, when pediatrician Henry Kempe and his colleagues published their seminal article describing “The Battered Child Syndrome.” Kempe agitated for a more robust response to child abuse, and became an effective spokesperson for the renaissance of interest in child abuse and neglect in the 1960s and 1970s. The law of every state requires professionals to report suspicions of child abuse to authorities, and this chapter describes the creation of reporting laws in the 1960s. Prior to the 1970s, the federal government played a useful but minor role in child welfare and protection. In 1974, Congress assumed a leadership role with passage of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA). CAPTA was followed by additional federal laws, especially the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994, and the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. By the 1980s, the government-funded and -operated child protection familiar to us today was in place.
Child Sexual Abuse
Authors: Myers John E. B.
Published: April 2010

Sexual abuse of children is a common problem. This chapter describes the prevalence and harmful effects of sexual abuse. It traces the long tradition of skepticism about women and children who alleged sexual assault. Despite skepticism in pre-1970 professional writing, efforts were made to protect children from sexual abuse, and these early efforts are described. In the late 1970s, sexual abuse emerged as a major social issue, spurred by groundbreaking research by David Finkelhor, Vincent DeFrancis, and Diana Russell. This chapter ends with discussion of two late 20th century phenomena that baffled experts and captivated the public: sexual abuse in preschools and allegations of widespread ritual abuse of children.
Reducing Abuse And Neglect
Authors: Myers John E. B.
Published: April 2010

There is no magic wand to wave over child abuse; no quick fix to this tragic reality. Yet, progress is possible, and this chapter describes broad structural changes that will reduce child abuse and neglect. Little progress is possible so long as poverty remains common, and the chapter grapples with this issue. A development that holds promise for reducing maltreatment is home health-visiting for babies and young children, and research on home visiting programs is described. The chapter discusses the importance of rebuilding a sense of community, and proposes the outlawing of corporal punishment. It is argued that a great deal of serious and fatal child abuse results from corporal punishment that gets out of control. Corporal punishment is unnecessary to raise healthy, obedient children, and banning corporal punishment will substantially reduce physical abuse. Thirteen nations have banned corporal punishment, and it is time for America to adopt this enlightened approach.
Improving The Child Protection System
Authors: Myers John E. B.
Published: April 2010

Chapter 7 describes broad societal changes to reduce child maltreatment. Even if such changes are implemented, some abuse and neglect will occur, and this chapter makes specific recommendations to improve the existing child protection system. It critiques reform proposals by leading scholars on child protection including Duncan Lindsey, Leroy Pelton, and Elizabeth Bartholet. It addresses the lingering effects of racism on decision making in child protection. It argues that one of the primary weaknesses of today's child protection is that no single profession is clearly in charge of child protection. Claims to leadership are made by physicians, mental health professionals, lawyers, and social workers. The chapter asserts that social work must be at the helm, but that social work — particularly social work education — has abdicated its leadership role. It argues for a less adversarial child protection system. In a similar vein, it advocates changes to laws requiring professionals to report suspected maltreatment. It offers recommendations to strengthen foster care, including the new type of foster care called Temporary Permanent Attachment Care (TEPAC). The chapter ends with a controversial proposal to reinvigorate America's juvenile courts.
The Roots of Verbs in Prelinguistic Action Knowledge
Authors: Buresh Jennifer Sootsman , Woodward Amanda , Brune Camille W.
Published: April 2010

This chapter considers infants' prelinguistic action knowledge and how this knowledge might be recruited for verb learning. There are at least two ways in which action knowledge could contribute to verb learning. First, understanding the actions of others is critical for discerning their communicative intentions, and thus provides a foundation for all aspects of language learning not just verb learning. Second, infants' action knowledge must provide some of the initial elements of meaning which come to be conveyed in verbs. The chapter focuses on the second of these issues, since it is unique to verb learning.
Word, Intention, and Action: A Two-Tiered Model of Action Word Learning
Authors: Poulin-Dubois Diane , Forbes James N.
Published: April 2010

This chapter examines how children's cognitive, social, and linguistic abilities interact to enable them to analyze action in events and learn novel verbs. It argues that “infants not only are competent in discriminating human actions and object motion but also understand that many different agents are capable of performing the same actions by the beginning of the second year.” However, these achievements are insufficient for verb learning and extension because toddlers must become aware of the intentions of the actor. Verb learning and extension first occur based on a superficial perceptual analysis of how the action looks, followed by learning and extension based more on what the actor intends to do.
A Unified Theory of Word Learning: Putting Verb Acquisition in Context
Authors: Maguire Mandy J. , Hirsh-Pasek Kathy , Golinkoff Roberta Michnick
Published: April 2010

This chapter expands a broad-based developmental theory of word learning (the emergentist coalition model [ECM]) to illuminate how children acquire language with a specific focus on verb acquisition. In so doing, it demonstrates how the theory of word learning originally developed for the understanding of noun learning can encompass the study of verbs. It also explains a persistent paradox in verb learning — why some verbs appear early even though the class of verbs is generally hard to master.
Who's the Subject? Sentence Structure and Verb Meaning
Authors: Fisher Cynthia , Song Hyun-joo
Published: April 2010

This chapter argues that once children can identify the subject of a multiargument sentence as structurally prominent, they could assign a default interpretation to sentences containing a novel verb by assuming that the subject referent plays a semantically prominent role in the conceptual relation named by the verb. What counts as prominent will be determined by the situation and by the multidimensional attentional and representational biases of human perceivers.
Verb Learning as a Probe Into Children's Grammars
Authors: Lidz Jeffrey
Published: April 2010

One of the fundamental hypotheses of generative grammar is that the linguistic constraints which limit the hypotheses that learners consider in acquiring a language are exactly those constraints which limit cross-linguistic variation. On this view, then, hypotheses about the cognitive code underlying the limits of linguistic variation are also hypotheses about constraints on language acquisition. This chapter explores this possibility in the domain of verb learning. It first considers constraints on possible verbs which are deduced from linguistic description and analysis, and then examines whether their effects are present in the acquisition of verbs. It is shown that cross-linguistic constraints do parallel constraints on acquisition, thus allowing us to see those constraints in action both at the level of language description and in language development. This finding lends support, at least in the domain of verb learning, to the view that research on language acquisition profits and can be guided by research on mature linguistic systems.
Revisiting the Noun-Verb Debate: A Cross-Linguistic Comparison of Novel Noun and Verb Learning in English-, Japanese-, and Chinese-Speaking Children
Authors: Imai Mutsumi , Haryu Etsuko , Okada Hiroyuki , Lianjing Li , Shigematsu Jun
Published: April 2010

This chapter presents results from a series of cross-linguistic studies which examined how English-, Japanese-, and Chinese-speaking children generalize newly learned nouns and verbs. Based on the results, it evaluates the two competing positions in the noun-verb debate. It then explores universal and language-specific factors which affect the ease or difficulty of early noun and verb learning.
But Are They Really Verbs? Chinese Words for Action
Authors: Tardif Twila
Published: April 2010

This chapter focuses on what properties Chinese verbs may have to facilitate the process of verb learning in Chinese, much as properties of nouns may afford the learning of nouns. In Chinese, but not English, verbs are highly specified and there is little resorting to “general purpose” or “light” verbs as there is in English simply because these general-purpose verb terms do not exist. In contrast, Chinese speakers often resort to general-purpose types of nouns (e.g. che1, vehicle) even though they have more specific labels which would correspond to the myriad of specific object nouns which young children acquire early in English (e.g. car, truck, motorcycle, bicycle, bus). Previous theories on the nature of word learning and particularly those focused on explaining the noun bias have discussed various features of nouns and verbs which may work together with innate perceptual and conceptual constraints to facilitate the learning of nouns and hinder the learning of verbs. However, it is argued that some of these features may not be true across all languages. Specifically, whereas these prior theories have allowed for cross-linguistic differences in specific features such as syntactic markings and inflections, word order, and differences in the extent to which manner and path are lexicalized within the verb itself, there is a need to also consider the nature of the words themselves and how they are organized into a coherent noun or verb lexicon in a particular language.
Why Verbs Are Hard to Learn
Authors: Gentner Dedre
Published: April 2010

This chapter argues that words connect to the world in very different ways, that (concrete) nouns do so more transparently than verbs, and that verb meanings are more linguistically shaped than (concrete) noun meanings. Although many factors at all levels contribute to determining what is learned early by children, these semantic-conceptual factors are certainly among the core influences on how words connect to the world.
Older Adults With Cancer
Authors: Maramaldi Peter , Lee Jonghyun
Published: April 2010

Following heart disease, cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. The annual cancer projections published by the American Cancer Society indicated that more than 560,000 people would die of cancer in 2004; that is, approximately 1,500 people in the United States were expected to die from some form of cancer every day. During the same year, more than 1.4 million people were projected to be newly diagnosed with cancer. For many people, especially older people, cancer has taken on dimensions of a chronic disease. This chapter focuses on cancer and aging, and emphasizes that trends in prevalence and treatment are changing the perception of cancer from an inevitable terminal condition to a chronic disease that is largely age-related.
HIV-Infected and HIV-Affected Older Adults
Authors: Poindexter Cynthia , Emlet Charles
Published: April 2010

This chapter presents an overview of social work practice implications that can arise when the experience of HIV and aging intersect. It is important to consider HIV and aging together for two reasons. First, medical and/or social service practitioners still frequently fail to identify and serve HIV-infected midlife and older adults; thus, HIV-infected persons over the age of 50 often remain hidden and their needs unaddressed. Second, the caregivers of HIV-infected younger adults or children with HIV are often mid-life and older persons, who may be grieving, unprepared, unsupported, hidden, and frail. While there is no certainty regarding the number of HIV-positive adults being cared for by older adults, it has been estimated that half of the persons with AIDS are being cared for by older relatives.
Older Adults With Neurological Problems Without Significant Dementia
Authors: GonzáLez-Ramos Gladys
Published: April 2010

This chapter covers two of the most prevalent neurological disorders, Parkinson's disease (PD) and multiple sclerosis (MS). Although both diseases typically can be quite debilitating and impact a person's entire life, social workers have been largely absent from involvement in the care of persons and families living with these diseases. The chapter aims to provide readers with a beginner's understanding of both PD and MS as they impact individuals and families, so that informed care and referrals can be provided. Social workers have an opportunity to make a true contribution to practice with and research about persons and caregivers affected by neurological disorders such as PD and MS.
Older Adults With Mental and Emotional Problems
Authors: Gellis Zvi D.
Published: April 2010

The changing demographics of American society have received a great deal of attention in recent years. As the population ages, the overall number of elderly persons with mental disorders, particularly anxiety and mood disorders, will increase. Older adults with mental health problems are likely to have relatively longer life spans in the future due to expected advances in treatments and healthier aging lifestyles. Mental health problems will demand more attention from providers in order to minimize their effects on disability, the use of health care services, and the quality of life for older adults and caregivers. This chapter presents the current state of knowledge on mental disorders of late life (mental disorders, anxiety disorders, psychotic disorders), focusing on prevalence, consequences, and effective evidence-based treatments.
Aging Prisoners
Authors: Aday Ronald H.
Published: April 2010

This chapter provides a greater understanding of the mental, physical, and social concerns facing aging inmates and those who must provide for their care. It also addresses end-of-life issues resulting from mandatory sentencing practices that have produced policies to accommodate an increasing number of frail and dying inmates. Finally, a section on social work practice with this special population identifies useful approaches for practitioners as they develop specific case management strategies.
Older Adults in Other Minority Groups
Authors: Browne Colette , Richardson Virginia
Published: April 2010

Members of minority groups share a common identity and collectively experience subordination relative to the dominant culture. We typically define minority groups according to such criteria as race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and national origin in the United States. This chapter focuses on older adults from “other minority groups;” specifically, those from marginal religions and regions. The aim is to raise social workers' awareness and understanding of these other older minority persons, highlight salient issues that social workers must address with these older adults, and introduce innovative interventions. The chapter begins by discussing older adults from Jewish and Muslim religions, and then considers older Appalachians and Pacific Islanders.
Roles of Social Workers in Palliative and End-of-Life Care
Authors: Howe Judith L. , Daratsos Louisa
Published: April 2010

As the World War II and baby boomer generations age, social work practice in the area of palliative and end-of-life care is becoming increasingly complex. Social workers are involved in palliative care no matter what setting or what population they find themselves in, because death and dying are universal experiences. This chapter addresses the settings of care for social work practice in palliative care, the role of the social worker in delivering palliative care, the social worker's role in assessment and service provision, psychosocial and financial resources, cultural and spiritual issues, and bereavement support services.
Caregiving at a Distance
Authors: Parker Michael , Church Wesley , Toseland Ronald
Published: April 2010

This chapter examines caregiving at a distance. It aims to equip social workers and other human service providers with information that can be used to prepare and empower families who are geographically separated from their care recipients. First, it examines research on distant caregiving to provide an evidence-based context for interventions and an overview of key issues faced by distant caregivers. Second, it identifies general guidelines, resources, and related issues and questions inherent in the practice literature. It describes an intervention program designed for distant caregivers, which has shown promising results in a clinical trial with military families and in a feasibility study with two faith-based communities. The chapter supplies important techniques and non Web-based and Web-based resources from this program that can be used by practitioners in their work with this population, and concludes with a focus on how professionals can help caregivers assess the merits of the growing number of Web-based resources.
Generalized and Specialized Hospitals
Authors: Volland Patricia J. , Keepnews David M.
Published: April 2010

This chapter aims to inform readers about the health care delivery landscape, with a specific focus on inpatient hospital settings. It briefly describes older adults' use of acute care settings and the types of hospitals providing acute care, examines the payment mechanisms that older adults use to pay for this care, and outlines what special concerns older adults and their families have about acute hospital care. The chapter also includes an overview of the organization and delivery of social worker services in these hospitals.
Departments of Public Welfare or Social Services
Authors: Brownell Patricia
Published: April 2010

This chapter addresses the practice of social work in public welfare and social services; settings from which the profession has retreated. A survey by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) indicated less than 1% of membership worked in these public sector settings. The chapter describes historic and contemporary roles of professional social workers in public welfare and social services, including work in income maintenance, adult protective services, special housing programs, HIV/AIDS services, kinship care, and domestic violence programs. It describes the dilemmas and tensions inherent in these roles.
Hospices
Authors: Waldrop Deborah P.
Published: April 2010

This chapter discusses social work practice in hospice settings with older people and their families. It begins by providing both historical and current perspectives on hospice care, including a differentiation between end-of-life, palliative, and hospice care, and it integrates current utilization and length-of-stay information from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO). The chapter's three main sections discuss (1) regulations and policies that guide hospice social work; (2) hospice care environments; and (3) hospice social work with older adults and their families. Although people of all ages enroll in hospices, the chapter focuses on older patients and their families.
Health Maintenance Organizations and Managed Care Companies
Authors: Simmons W. June , Enguidanos Susan
Published: April 2010

This chapter examines social work practice in managed care settings. It offers an overview of managed care in the U.S., before presenting major debates about the impact of this care model on clients and professionals. It outlines important ethical dilemmas that confront social workers in managed care, with a focus on retaining the core values of the profession while developing “the business acumen” necessary to communicate their effectiveness in this industry.
The Workplace
Authors: Akabas Sheila H. , Gates Lauren B.
Published: April 2010

This chapter reviews the demographics and trends that are making the role of caregiver to the aged central to the lives of many, with consequences for the well-being of workers and their families, and for the effectiveness of their employing organizations. It explores what workplaces and society have done in response and suggests additional possibilities for both prevention and intervention, and the role social workers can play in achieving their implementation.
Case Management Services
Authors: Naleppa Matthias J.
Published: April 2010

Case management, also referred to as care coordination or service management, is a process commonly characterized by a series of activities undertaken to address a client's lack of resources and required services. This chapter provides a detailed look at case management as a venue for social work practice. It discusses the national demonstration projects that have served as the proving grounds for case managers, and highlights the tension over who “owns” case management. It then turns to a description of this practice modality and the services typically accessed by a professional care manager.
Counseling Services and Support Groups
Authors: Ruffin Leah , Kaye Lenard W.
Published: April 2010

This chapter examines the role of counseling services and support groups in helping the elderly maintain active and engaged lives. It offers a careful description of both treatment groups and support groups, highlighting the positive philosophy that is reflected in these interventions.
Housing, Health, and Quality of Life
Authors: Gonyea Judith G.
Published: April 2010

This chapter describes housing services available for older adults, noting that shelter is a basic need and describing the programs designed to meet that need. It identifies the role of income disparities in determining the housing options available to seniors and uses the concept of “environmental press” to argue that “goodness of fit” is an appropriate yardstick for determining the quality of a housing setting for adults with disabilities. The chapter places the profession of social work squarely in the middle of housing decisions, arguing that our assessment skills and commitment to serving vulnerable populations leave us well positioned to improve the way the nation's seniors are housed.
Long-Term Residential Settings for Older Persons With Severe and Persistent Mental Illness
Authors: Semke Jeanette
Published: April 2010

This chapter describes residential settings for older people with severe and persistent mental disease (SPMD). Topics covered include community-based group care, access to mental health treatment, and social work roles.
Culture Change in Long-Term Care
Authors: Lustbader Wendy , Carter Catlett Williams
Published: April 2010

This chapter discusses how social workers continue to play a key role in changing the nursing home culture, from one in which dignity has been forfeited for the sake of care, into one in which dignity is affirmed and meaning can be restored.
Dementia Special Care Units in Residential Care
Authors: Gwyther Lisa P. , Kane Rosalie A.
Published: April 2010

This chapter focuses on dementia special care units (SCUs), largely as they have emerged in nursing homes, but also in some programs licensed as assisted living. SCUs in nursing facilities developed in response to concerns expressed by families, advocates, and providers about the quality and adequacy of dementia long-term care. Although innovations in SCUs originated in the non-profit sector, the majority of SCUs are part of for-profit chains. Studies of SCUs, models for SCUs, history of special care initiatives, current status of SCUs, and social work in nursing home SCUs, are discussed.
Adult Foster Care and Adult Family Care
Authors: Prosper Vera
Published: April 2010

This chapter discusses adult foster care (AFC) programs. AFC homes, as a community-integrated, small, family-based housing and care option, can satisfy the goals of several confluent happenings: (a) The U.S. federal court decision in Olmstead v. L.C. requires that people of all ages with disabilities be housed in the most appropriate integrated (into the community) setting possible; (b) the preference of most people is to live in non-institutionalized, home-like living environments; and (c) public agencies are promoting the expansion of community-based housing and care options as a means of containing the growth in long-term care costs. Among the strengths of AFC are its informality, sociability, spontaneity, and familism; the meaningful role AFC provides for the provider; and the greater level of integration of this option into the surrounding community, because the provider's private home is less obtrusive than multi-unit housing or institutions. Weaknesses include the difficulty of monitoring these small homes, which are dispersed throughout the community; the widely varying staff-to-resident ratios among homes; and the inconsistent level of professionalism of the providers.
Residential-Based Care: New York's NORC-Supportive Services Program Model
Authors: Vladeck Fredda
Published: April 2010

This chapter argues for the need to build coherent services within the communities where older people live, to have a different policy discussion from the one we have been having for the last 25 years. It begins with a brief description of the prevailing paradigm that governs community-based services for older people and the role of social work within it, quickly cataloging some of the major deficiencies with the current approach. It then suggests a new paradigm that reflects today's understanding of aging and moves quickly to illustrating how this new paradigm is applied in practice in the 27 naturally occurring retirement community (NORC) Supportive Service Programs (NORC-SSPs) in New York City. The chapter concludes by identifying some lessons and implications from this experience, and its replicability to other kinds of communities.
Federal Income Maintenance Policies and Programs
Authors: Choi Namkee
Published: April 2010

This chapter discusses three important federal income maintenance programs for older persons: the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Program, or Social Security; the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Program; and the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP). For each program, beneficiaries/participants, eligibility criteria, financing mechanisms and issues, and reform proposals or need for improvement, are described and critically evaluated, with special attention to the Program's effect on and implications for people of color, women, and/or low-income older persons.
Older Adults in Australia
Authors: Ozanne Elizabeth
Published: April 2010

This chapter provides an extensive overview of some of the policies that have evolved as Australia has oscillated between conservative and liberal governments. It discusses the demographics of population aging in Australia, policy responses to population aging in Australia, the place of aging in the social work curriculum, work with underserved at-risk populations, and an agenda for future action.
Older Adults in China
Authors: Chi Iris
Published: April 2010

This chapter provides an overview of social work in China, presenting both a historical and a political context for the tremendous aging of the world's most populous nation that is simultaneously experiencing rapid economic development. Gerontological social work is urgently needed in China and other Chinese societies, and social workers should practice in a variety of settings along the aging wellness and long-term care continuum in order to make an impact on these rapidly aging societies. The role of social worker in these settings is often unique because social work's primary focus is the psychosocial well-being of elders and their families, which are directly related among older Chinese adults. Social workers should review their own attitudes toward social norms, including family and filial piety, sharpen their skills in family work, and increase their knowledge of indigenous evidence-based interventions.
Older Adults in Developing Nations
Authors: Darkwa Osei
Published: April 2010

This chapter focuses on developing nations, with a special look at Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa has been hard hit with major health crises that have devastated large segments of its population. This crisis is discussed and the ramifications for social work practice with older adults in such countries are considered.
Issues in Conducting Social Work Research in Aging
Authors: Horowitz Amy
Published: April 2010

This chapter addresses issues in social work research in aging. The intent is to introduce the reader to the major issues that need to be considered in designing and/or evaluating research in aging. Obviously, all aspects of the scientific method that are relevant to any age-group are also relevant to research on older adults. However, there are special considerations that apply to research in aging in general, and social work research in aging in particular, that are the focus of this chapter. These include issues relevant to design, informed consent and ethical considerations, sample recruitment and retention (especially in terms of ethnic elders), and data collection and measurement, including the use of proxy data. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the current and future role of the social work profession in contributing to the knowledge base in gerontology.
Educating Social Workers for an Aging Society: Needs and Approaches
Authors: Wilson Nancy L.
Published: April 2010

This chapter has three primary aims: (1) to review the need for a knowledgeable cadre of social workers prepared to fulfill many roles in a rapidly aging society; (2) to present alternative models and approaches to the education of “aging-savvy” social workers; and (3) to highlight best practices and resources to support educational innovation focused on improving the quality of life for aging individuals, families, and communities.
Introduction
Authors: Gopni Alison , Schulz Laura
Published: April 2010

This chapter provides a simple, clear, and (hopefully) amusing introduction to causal model and Bayes nets theories in computer science, the interventionist account of causation in philosophy, and the psychology of causal learning in both adults and children. It takes the form of a fictional e-mail exchange between a developmental psychologist and a philosopher/computer scientist in which each partner explains the background of their field to the other. In two attachments, the fictional authors review the literature on causal Bayes nets and on the psychology of causal inference.
Interventionist Theories of Causation in Psychological Perspective
Authors: Woodward Jim
Published: April 2010

The guiding idea of interventionist accounts of causation is that causal claims (e.g. C causes E) have to do with what would happen to E if an intervention (an idealized experimental manipulation) were to be performed on C. Although originally proposed as a normative, philosophical account of causation, one may also ask how interventionism fares as an account of the empirical psychology of causal learning and judgment in humans and other animals. This chapter explores this question, focusing more specifically on the following: the connection between causal learning and operant conditioning, the connection between counterfactual claims involving interventions and causal judgment, and the role of interventions in facilitating causal learning. Causal understanding in non-human primates is also discussed from an interventionist perspective.
An Interventionist Approach to Causation in Psychology
Authors: Campbell John
Published: April 2010

Interventionist analyses make explicit the conception of causation used in experimental science, but have not been applied to the case of mental causation. This chapter addresses some of the basic problems of mental causation in interventionist terms. It proposes a way of finding the “right level” of variables to use in characterizing the causal workings of a system, whether we should be describing causal relations in psychological rather than biological terms. It argues that a notion of “soft” intervention is needed when discussing causation by reasons. Finally, we can make sense of the idea of causation without mechanisms, and we may have to do that when we are considering the outcomes of combinations of psychological and biological variables.
Learning From Doing
Authors: Schulz Laura , Kushnir Tamar , Gopnik Alison
Published: April 2010

This chapter starts from the premise that much of children's knowledge takes the form of abstract, coherent, causal claims that are learned from, and defeasible by, evidence. This view is consistent with an interventionist view of causal knowledge, formalized in computational models using causal Bayes net representations. The chapter reviews empirical studies suggesting that, consistent with this account, preschoolers use patterns of evidence to: a) create novel, effective interventions; b) infer the structure of causal relationships, including relationships involving unobserved causes; c) accurately predict distinct outcomes from observed evidence and evidence generated by interventions; d) integrate novel evidence with prior beliefs; and e) distinguish informative interventions from confounded ones.
Interactions Between Causal and Statistical Learning
Authors: Sobel David M. , Kirkham Natasha Z.
Published: April 2010

Infants and young children appear to have powerful statistical learning mechanisms that allow them to acquire predictive information about the environment. Children also appear to possess powerful mechanisms for causal learning, which allow them not only to predict their environment, but to explain, interpret, and intervene. This chapter examines the relation between children's causal learning and inferential abilities, and their ability to recognize statistical regularity. It proposes that while there is more to causal learning than just statistical mechanisms, statistical learning abilities — particularly abilities that infants appear to possess — might help to lay the foundation for a mechanism for causal learning. It describes how the literature on infants' statistical learning has informed what we know about children's causal learning abilities.
Theory Unification and Graphical Models in Human Categorization
Authors: Danks David
Published: April 2010

Many different, seemingly mutually exclusive, theories of categorization have been proposed in recent years. The most notable theories have been those based on prototypes, exemplars, and causal models. This chapter provides “representation theorems” for each of these theories in the framework of probabilistic graphical models. More specifically, it shows for each of these psychological theories that the categorization judgments predicted and explained by the theory can be wholly captured using probabilistic graphical models. In other words, probabilistic graphical models provide a lingua franca for these disparate categorization theories, and so we can quite directly compare the different types of theories. These formal results are used to explain a variety of surprising empirical results, and to propose several novel theories of categorization.
Data-Mining Probabilists or Experimental Determinists?
Authors: Richardson Thomas , Schulz Laura , Gopnik Alison
Published: April 2010

This chapter presents a dialogue that is a distillation of a real series of conversations which took place at that most platonic of academies — the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences — between the first and third authors. The second author had determinist leanings to begin with and acted as an intermediary.
Learning the Structure of Deterministic Systems
Authors: Glymour Clark
Published: April 2010

Consider a system represented by a directed acyclic graph with variables as vertices in which represented variable is a deterministic function of its parents. Most engineered systems without feedback instantiate such structures, and so, at least to appearances, do many macroscopic, natural inanimate systems. Learning the graphical representation of causal structure without experimental controls is especially difficult for such systems, because while the Markov condition holds, faithfulness does not. This chapter illustrates the problem and describes a heuristic (and not very satisfactory) learning procedure.
Dynamic Interpretations of Covariation Data
Authors: kyoung Ahn Woo , Marsh Jessecae K. , Luhmann Christian C.
Published: April 2010

Many models of causal induction are based on covariation information, which depicts whether the presence or absence of an event co-occurs with the presence or absence of another event. In all covariation-based models of causal induction, events that are classified as the same type play an identical role throughout learning. This chapter reviews three sets of studies demonstrating that people treat the same type of evidence differently depending on at what point during learning the evidence is presented. The major thesis is that people develop a hypothesis about causal relations based on a few pieces of initial evidence and interpret the subsequent data in light of this hypothesis. Thus, depending on what the initial hypothesis is and when the data are presented, the identical data can play different roles. Such dynamic interpretations of data result in the primacy effect, varying inferences about unobserved, alternative causes, and the context-dependent interpretations of ambiguous stimuli.
Intuitive Theories as Grammars for Causal Inference
Authors: Tenenbaum Joshua B. , Griffiths Thomas L. , Niyogi Sourabh
Published: April 2010

This chapter presents a framework for understanding the structure, function, and acquisition of causal theories from a rational computational perspective. Using a “reverse engineering” approach, it considers the computational problems that intuitive theories help to solve, focusing on their role in learning and reasoning about causal systems, and then using Bayesian statistics to describe the ideal solutions to these problems. The resulting framework highlights an analogy between causal theories and linguistic grammars: just as grammars generate sentences and guide inferences about their interpretation, causal theories specify a generative process for events, and guide causal inference.
Two Proposals for Causal Grammars
Authors: Griffiths Thomas L. , Tenenbaum Joshua B.
Published: April 2010

A causal theory can be thought of as a grammar that generates events, and that can be used to parse events to identify underlying causal structure. This chapter considers what the components of such a grammar might be — the analogues of syntactic categories and the rules that relate them in a linguistic grammar. It presents two proposals for causal grammars. The first asserts that the variables which describe events can be organized into causal categories, and allows relationships between those categories to be expressed. The second uses a probabilistic variant of first-order logic in order to describe the ontology and causal laws expressed in an intuitive theory. This chapter illustrates how both kinds of grammar can guide causal learning.
Paths to Filipino Youth Involvement in Violent Conflict
Authors: Maria Madelene A. Sta.
Published: April 2010

The involvement of Filipino youth in violent situations is primarily found in their participation in the armed conflict between rebel movements — primarily the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), and New People's Army (NPA) — and the government. Their involvement is likewise evident in the commission of crimes against property (e.g. theft and robbery) and against the person (e.g. homicide and rape), and in their participation in gang and fraternity wars. This chapter describes the situation of young people who are involved in conflict (specifically, armed conflict) through a review of selected literature and data collected from published and unpublished documents, and from initial interviews and correspondence with various representatives from relevant government and non-government agencies. These sources were used to identify the reasons and conditions that shape the participation of young people in violent activities. Likewise, an attempt is made to explore the possible implications for developmental theory.
Youth Participation in Violence in Nigeria Since the 1980s
Authors: Akinwumi Olayemi
Published: April 2010

Since the 1980s, Nigeria has continued to witness an unprecedented surge of ethnoreligious violence. The involvement of youth in these civil disturbances or conflicts is very disturbing. They are the foot soldiers, and in some cases “generals,” of the various ethnic militia groups that were formed in this period in order to defend the narrow interests of the various ethnic groups or individuals who established them. This chapter considers the factors responsible for youth violence in the country. It also focuses on the state reaction and measures to curb youth involvement in violence. It argues that until the state resolves the fundamental problems with the economy, especially in the area of employment, Nigerian youth will continue to be involved in ethno-religious conflicts. Second, it is posited that the youth should be involved in creating policies that directly affect them instead of being treated as mere objects of knowledge and policy. Third, fundamental survival techniques in the country must be dissociated from violence.
Social Transformation and Values Conflicts Among Youth in Contemporary China
Authors: Cen Guozhen , Li Dan
Published: April 2010

This chapter describes the challenges faced by Chinese youth with respect to their moral and social values that emerged as a result of China's shift from a command economy to a free market system. It presents studies indicating that Chinese youth have shifted from traditional collectivist values to ones consistent with pursing personal development. Material wealth and personal happiness have become salient values among Chinese youth. Positive virtues of patriotism, concern for others, and fundamental fairness are also evident in the values of contemporary Chinese youth. However, research has demonstrated that there are also some values/moral problems among Chinese youth today. These include less trust of social institutions, expectations that bribery and social influence are associated with success, and a reduced belief that one can resist such forces. These shifts in social values appear to be accompanied by a rise in the national crime rate of robbery and theft. The chapter provides an analysis of the cultural and contextual causes related to the rise of what we term moral and social values confusion. Finally, it offers a set of recommendations for educational research and practice that would ameliorate these problems.
Becoming Visible Through the Lens of Violence
Authors: Milnitsky Clary
Published: April 2010

This chapter provides an account of the major factors that lead a large percentage of Brazilian youth to take up life on the streets, a place where they become highly vulnerable to violence and associated problems. It also describes some of the lessons learned from studies conducted as part of an ongoing action-research program designed to improve the conditions of street children.