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In the present study parent and child concordance of peer victimization and associations with mental health (depression and anxiety), academic achievement, and family functioning was assessed using a multi-informant, multi-method approach. Parents and children completed assessments of peer victimization and mental health, parents completed a measure of family functioning, and grades were assessed by teachers. Children were classified into three peer victimization status groups and one non-victimization group on the basis of concordance of parent and child reports. Results indicate that children rated as victims by any informant (parent or self) scored higher on depression and anxiety and lower academic achievement than non-victims. Although differences in family functioning were not found between each of the victim and non-victim groups, family functioning moderated the association between peer victimization and mental health for boys. For boys who self-reported victimization but parents did not, a high functioning family environment was associated with lower depression and anxiety. Results highlight the need for greater home school communication about peer victimization and for schools to educate parents about ways to talk to children about bullying.

Indirect bullying is a form of peer victimization that is observed as frequently occurring in both males and females yet is often overlooked by teachers. Nine bullying situation characteristics were created, which contained 3 to 4 descriptive levels. These bullying situation characteristics were then used to create unique randomly generated questionnaires consisting of 17 unique choice tasks. One hundred and ninety four teachers participated. Using latent class analysis two segments with different influences on intervention were identified. The Group 1 segment teachers (28%) were found to be less influenced by specific information regarding bullies and victims while making intervention decisions and instead assimilated more elements of a bullying situation into consideration. Furthermore, these teachers were found to be more sensitive to covert acts of indirect bullying. The Group 2 segment teachers (72%) decisions were more influenced by the vulnerability of the child who is victimized as well as to physical components of bullying situations. These findings indicate that there is a need for greater focus on the vulnerability of children who bully as well as greater emphasis on indirect bullying within bullying prevention training for teachers.

Objectives. There are three major goals to the present study: (1) to study the nature of errors in recalling sentences; (2) to investigate how specific errors in recalling sentences relate to expressive grammatical deficits and reading impairment; and (3) to make suggestions for the design of a pilot screening test that could predict processing and reading deficits. Method. Subjects were 45 children of normal intelligence, ages 8 to 13 years. The children presented with psychiatric disorders, and had been admitted to a day treatment and school program. The most prevalent diagnosis was attention deficit with hyperactivity and aggressive behaviour. A smaller proportion had adjustment and anxiety disorder. Excluded from the sample were severe cases of autism, schizophrenia and physical handicaps. Most of the children exhibited academic impairment and language deficits. Assessments. The recalling sentences, formulated sentences, sentence assembly, and sentence structure subtests of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF-R) were administered, as were the reading decoding and reading comprehension subtests of the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement (K-TEA). To investigate relationships between errors in recalling sentences and grammatical deficits and reading impairment, the following statistical analyses were used: correlation, multiple regression, chi-square and kappa analyses. Results. In recalling sentences, errors involving content words occurred more frequently than errors involving grammatical words. Words with a large number of associatives, unfamiliar words, and less frequently occurring words were liable to omissions and substitutions. Content omissions affected mostly syntactically unsupported elements (e.g. adjuncts). Most content and grammatical omissions were words that do not assign thematic roles or have thematic roles assigned to them. Content substitutions affected mostly arguments (e.g., subjects or complements). Most of the substituted words were synonyms of the target word. Deficits in processing and timing, in particular, were identified as possible contributors to content omissions and substitutions. Grammatical errors occurred in syntactically complex sentences (mostly relative clauses) and affected functive words and expanded auxiliaries. Grammatical omissions were more often associated with processing errors, while grammatical substitutions were associated with syntactic deficits. Two types of errors were associated with reading deficits: content omissions and grammatical substitutions. They accounted for 44% of variance in reading comprehension and 31% of variance in reading decoding. Conclusion. The findings of the present study, together with an extensive literature review, indicated that sentence recall is a complex task involving both processing and verbal memory, and that it can be used to predict processing deficits and reading disability. Recommendations are made as to the type of sentences to include in a pilot screening test that could predict processing and reading deficits.

The purpose of this study was to compare the sociometric status and social behaviour of boys with different subtypes of learning disabilities in a self-contained special school in Zambia. Participants were 112 Zambian boys, who had previously been identified as having a learning disability. Sociometric status and social behaviour were determined by sociometric choice and sociometric behaviour assessments, respectively, whereas subtypes of LD and aggression and attention deficits were determined based on the scores obtained on the WRAT3 and the IOWA-CTRS, respectively. Results showed that there were no significant differences in sociometric status and social behaviour between boys with arithmetic disabilities (AD), reading disabilities (RD), and both arithmetic and reading disabilities (AD/RD). Many children with AD were actually indistinguishable from children with RD, on the basis of peer reports of social behaviour. The results also showed that children whose learning disabilities were accompanied by aggression and/or attention deficits received more negative nominations from their peers than boys without any of these problems. A number of possible explanations for the lack of AD-RD differences in sociometric status and social behaviour in this study are offered. The findings may have been attenuated because of the special school-setting in which all children displayed atypical patterns of development. It was, however, interesting to note that the behavioral correlates of sociometric status appeared to be the same in this setting as those found with normally-achieving children in Western cultures. Implications and limitations of the present study as well as suggestions for future research are discussed.