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This article reports data collected from a national survey of all accredited social work programs conducted between December 1995 and February 1996. The purpose was to assess current usage of distance learning in social work education. The findings suggest that the use of distance learning has increased, and that the most prevalent issues reported by educators involve adapting instructional material for course presentation and faculty preparation. Implications of the study findings for social work education are also discussed.

Normalization is the use of culturally valued means to enable people with disabilities to live culturally valued lives. In this article, the authors describe an effort to bring normalization practices to acute psychiatric care. They describe a day hospital/crisis respite diversion program that serves as an alternative to acute inpatient hospitalization and sketch the research project that fostered it. The authors argue that a day hospital/crisis respite provides effective clinical care comparable to inpatient hospitalization but achieves greater potential for recovery through a normalizing philosophy and practice. An implication of this finding is that such programs based on the principle of normalization may be both cost effective as well as more empowering for patients.

It is important that the delivery of health and mental health prevention and treatment services within Latino communities be culturally sensitive. This article outlines several ways in which agencies can develop programs that can meet the needs of Latino communities. The most important aspect of the provision of health prevention and treatment services is that the organization integrates itself into the community through outreach, recruitment, and inclusion in decision-making. In addition, the organization needs to be structured so communication and participation from the community and health professionals are open and mixed. Otherwise, the likelihood of success of the provision of services in the community will be diminished. © 1996 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

The numbers of children at risk who are referred to child treatment programs are on the rise. This article explores the therapeutic relationship as it develops with such a child, and questions the impact managed care will have on that treatment. Concepts of a holding environment, personalization (the development of self-love, a necessary precursor to object love), the good-enough mother and Else of the therapist as a real person. who furthers development, are highlighted via case material.

The authors hypothesized that schizophrenic communication disturbances reflect specific cognitive deficits in the areas of working memory and attention. They examined the cognitive correlates of communication disturbances, as measured by linguistic reference performance, in schizophrenic (n = 48), bipolar (n = 24), and nonpsychiatric control (n = 23) individuals. Reference performance ratings in the schizophrenic patients were associated with scores on tests of working memory and attention and were not related to performance on concept formation or verbal fluency tests. In contrast, in the bipolar and nonpsychiatric individuals, reference performance was associated with concept formation and verbal fluency test scores but was not related to performance on tests of working memory. Implications with respect to the processes underlying schizophrenic communication disturbances are discussed.

Most community college graduates do not continue on for study in 4-year colleges and universities. Fewer than 20% do so within the first few years after receiving their associate's degrees. Concerns have been expressed about the extent to which older students (e.g., students who received their degrees at age 25 and above) persist (go on) to 4-year colleges and universities and about the correlates of persistence for this group. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between a selected number of academic, social, and personal variables in the context of predicting persistence to a 4-year public university among older graduates of a New England state’s public 2-year institutions. Data were collected in 1988 and 1989 from a random sample of 3,762 older associate's degree students from the 12 community colleges in Connecticut. These data were then subjected to a two-group, single-function discriminant function analysis to determine the predictive power of the dependent measures used in the study. The results indicated that the higher the perceptions of social and institutional support in community colleges and the higher the age of the graduates, the more apt they were to persist to a 4-year institution. Further analysis, however, revealed that the average persister was 38 years old, whereas the average attritor was 34 years old, suggesting the need for further research among 2-year college populations among the over-30 age group as well as replication of the study in states with both similar and dissimilar demographic shifts in college populations. © 1996 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Homophobia and heterosexism are complementary social processes that shaped the social construction and the public health response to AIDS. Both concepts view gay and lesbian oppression from different vantage points. Homophobia is a weapon of sexism and is manifested in fear and hatred. Heterosexism is an ideological system that denigrates non-heterosexual behavior. Both processes are well served by the social institutions of family, religion, law, and the ideologies of sexuality and gender. The consequences have been societal and personal: inadequate HIV medical and social services; lack of a national AIDS policy; widespread discrimination and prejudice against gay men, lesbians, and persons living with AIDS; stress, violence, and suicide; substance abuse; and HIV risk behavior and relapse. Mental health and social services, social supports, education and prevention programs, community development, and social action to broaden civil rights and to challenge institutional oppression are required to counter the ravages of hate and discrimination. © 1995 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

An escalating elderly population has necessitated a corresponding need for social workers trained in gerontology and who can practice in nursing homes. In order to enhance professional knowledge and skills, the authors present a teaching model that uses an apprenticeship framework to help students develop social work skills in working with elderly residents in long term care facilities. Responses to student reaction worksheets were analyzed in order to assess student experiences, the progress of skill development and the amelioration of bias as a relationship develops develops between client and social worker. The authors propose the use of a "reflective practicum" enhanced by group processes as a way to enhance training. © 1995 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Homelessness is one of the most pressing social problems today. Society has responded to the problem with the creation of homeless shelters. Yet, the nature of the operation of the shelter is not defined. This study explored the operations of two single adult homeless shelters to understand how they operate in addressing the problem of homelessness. The study identified two different types of services, one called `'house” and the other `'home”. House services provided basic food, shelter, and linkage to social services, which fulfilled the basic definition of the problem of homelessness as defined by the Institute of Medicine. Home services provided the basic services of house but also went one step beyond by providing these services within the context of a supportive environment, thus creating informal social supports. The study discusses the implications of each of these modalities in addressing the problems associated with people who are homeless as well as the differences in policies and structures which contribute to one shelter providing house and the other home services.

Spelling is one of several important operations involved in the act of writing but until recently has received attention primarily in the applied domain. Orthographic abilities, because of their strong association with reading (e.g. Perfetti, 1985), are now of increasing interest to those who study the cognitive bases of literacy development. It is generally acknowledged that phonological processes underlie essential aspects of word recognition (Adams, 1990; Dreyer, 1989; Liberman, Shankweiler & Liberman, 1989; Stanovich, 1986; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987; Williams, 1986). An expanding body of research suggests that orthographic factors can account for a significant amount of variance in word recognition over and above phonological abilities (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1990; 1993; Dreyer, 1994; Stanovich & West, 1989; Stanovich, West & Cunningham, 1991).

A comprehensive cognitive appraisal of elementary school children with learning disabilities showed that within the language sphere, deficits associated with reading disability are selective: Phonological deficits consistently accompany reading problems whether they occur in relatively pure form or in the presence of coexisting attention deficit or arithmetic disability. Although reading-disabled children were also deficient in production of morphologically related forms, this difficulty stemmed in large part from the same weakness in the phonological component that underlies reading disability. In contrast, tests of syntactic knowledge did not distinguish reading-disabled children from those with other cognitive disabilities, nor from normal children after covarying for intelligence.