The mental health professional who works with children has to keep abreast of new research findings in child psychopathology. This is a difficult task because of the extraordinary complexity of even the infant’s social, motor, visual, linguistic, and other functioning. As our understanding of these factors expands, it becomes more and more evident that we must know their orderly normative development if we are to deal with their pathological deviations.

According to societal stereotypes, women with physical disabilities are asexual and therefore do not date. Another stereotype, and a fear of many women with disabilities, is that no one will want to date them because they have a disability. Consequently, little is known about their dating behaviors. Qualitative research methods were used to code and analyze 31 in-depth interviews of women with a variety of disabling conditions. Themes emerging from their stories indicated that the timing of onset of disability, and the response to disability of family, friends, and society in general, were critical in establishing patterns of dating behavior for women with physical disabilities.

Few ideas have been adhered to so axiomatically as the assumption that competence in interpersonal relations is instrumental in producing socially valued outcomes. Academic curricula at all levels of the educational hierarchy have at times been justified by their relationship to social competence. Psychiatric, clinical, and popular skills training programs are predicated on this assumption. Research across a diverse spectrum of social scientific disciplines continues to expand rapidly, motivated by a largely implicit presumption that interpersonal competence is in fact important to quality of life. As evidence of this scholarly interest, Garmezy, Masten, Nordstrom, and Ferrarese (1979) developed a computer-assisted bibliography of titles that use such terms as “social competence” and “interpersonal competence.” The number of citations was compared to the number of citations on other selected topics and to the number of entries as a whole. When compared over time, the authors found that the absolute number, as well as the relative percentage, of “competence-related articles appears to be increasing” (p. 38). The authors have accumulated approximately 1,600 references considered relevant to interpersonal competence. Clearly, interpersonal competence is presumed to be a socially and academically important phenomenon.

We used variations in disability descriptors to assess stability of attitudes toward persons with disabilities among participants with spinal cord injuries. Participants completed one of three versions of the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons (ATDP) Scale; these versions used either nondisabling, disabling, or the original wording of the ATDP. We found a significant difference between the three groups' attitudes toward individuals with disabilities, based on the wording of the ATDP, F(2, 33) = 12.69, p < .0001. Post hoc tests revealed that the original wording (“disabled persons”) yielded the least favored attitude toward individuals with disabilities. Participants viewed the nondisabling version (“persons with disabilities”) most favorably, although the difference between scores related to this wording and the disabling version (“the disabled”) was not significant. Participants also rated the “author” of the questionnaires on the liking and positive and negative adjectives endorsement variables, with no significant differences noted. The current results differed from those of previous studies, which failed to demonstrate a significant difference based on disabling descriptors, in persons with and without mild disabilities. Results of this study suggested that individuals with severe and likely permanent disabilities may be more sensitive to the wording used to refer to them than are persons with mild disabilities, and these terms may affect their perception of individuals with disabilities in general. These findings highlight the need to use nondisabling language.

In the literature on cotherapy, little attention has been focused on maximizing the effectiveness of two therapists working in tandem with families and couples. While cotherapists may at times share their ideas and feelings with their clients, and after the therapeutic session exchange views between themselves, generally little interaction occurs between them during the session. In this paper, a case is presented for more active interactions between cotherapists during the session, in order to expedite and facilitate change and growth in their clients. Anecdotal examples are provided to illustrate the approach.

Six motor tests and six nonverbal tests were administered four times to the same subjects. Subjective reports of the subjects are discussed, changes in mean scores and in variability and score correlations from trial to trial are surveyed, and factor analyses of results on the first and fourth trials are presented and compared. Implications of the findings with respect to correction for attenuation are pointed out.

Adolescence is a developmental period that presents special considerations in the study of socially supportive relationships within the family. Perhaps the most significant consideration concerns the growing influence of peers in the lives of adolescents (Petersen & Hamburg, 1986). Puberty, sexuality, and the emergence of romantic involvements add important dimensions to adolescent peer relationships (Brooks-Gunn, 1991; Steinberg, 1981). Also, some have asserted that adolescence, particularly late adolescence, is a time in which autonomy needs are more pronounced than needs for dependence on parents (see White, Speisman, & Costos, 1983). In some cases, adolescents might adopt strategies for the development of autonomy that include less reliance on the support of family members and greater self-reliance or reliance on peers. We might question, then, the role of supportive relationships with parents and other family members during this developmental period in which autonomy and the emergence of peer relationships appear to be so influential. Comparisons to peer relationships are potentially valuable perspectives for understanding the role of parents and families in providing social support and for understanding the impact of these provisions. While the focus of this chapter is on family support during adolescence, one of our special interests in conducting this review was to contrast the contributions of adolescents’ supportive relationships with peers and those of relationships with family members.