In the early modern world advice literature showed the family as a reflection of the state, a miniature kingdom in which the husband, as family head, acted much as a ruling monarch, with his wife, children and servants rendered his subjects. Although many seventeenth-century individuals chose to uphold traditional social conventions about proper behavior, not all family relationships fit the mold. Therefore, in an effort to uncover the experiences of seventeenth-century families, this thesis will focus on the relationships formed between spouses, parents and children, and siblings. It is on this small sampling of middling and upper class Scottish families, that we can see many common characteristics that were likely present in many early modern family relationships.

Autism has just recently become a widely researched field and due to the sudden pique of interest, there has been little research conducted in regards to the effect children with autism have on their families, in particular on the siblings. Through the limited research that has been conducted, evidence has surfaced for both positive and negative effects on the relationships between children with autism and their typically developing siblings. By taking a deeper look into the social, emotional and academic aspects that are affected in typically developing siblings of children with autism, I hypothesize that having a sibling with autism will lead to internal emotional damage and restrict the non-autistic siblings’ social capabilities. There will be no significant results in regards to the normal sibling’s academic behavior. This paper aims to review the literature in hopes of exploring possible ways to treat or prevent the negative effects children with autism have on their typically developing sibling, in hopes of creating a healthier environment for the family.

In the early modern world advice literature showed the family as a reflection of the state, a miniature kingdom in which the husband, as family head, acted much as a ruling monarch, with his wife, children and servants rendered his subjects. Although many seventeenth-century individuals chose to uphold traditional social conventions about proper behavior, not all family relationships fit the mold. Therefore, in an effort to uncover the experiences of seventeenth-century families, this thesis will focus on the relationships formed between spouses, parents and children, and siblings. It is on this small sampling of middling and upper class Scottish families, that we can see many common characteristics that were likely present in many early modern family relationships.

This study compared the effectiveness of a social story intervention with a social story plus behavior skills training intervention involving family members for a child with autism. A multiple baseline across siblings design was used to assess the impact of the intervention on social interaction of the child with autism, as well as the social interaction of the child's siblings. The siblings implemented both phases of the intervention. Social validity measures were taken from the siblings and parents, treatment integrity and generalization were assessed as well. The results indicated that the social interactions of the child with autism and the siblings increased initially, but did not continue to increase when the social story intervention was implemented by the siblings. The addition of BST did not result in any additional improvement. On the other hand, two of the siblings' social interactions increased over time when engaged in the behavior skills training intervention, which resulted in an increase in the social interactions of the child with autism during play with them. The results also indicated that the sibling mediated intervention failed to generalize to a non-trained free play condition in the pool.

When a child is diagnosed with a chronic life threatening illness there is a significant impact on the entire family. Siblings are at risk for psychological adaptation problems because of their unique relationship with the ill child and the effect of that illness on family functioning. Few studies have been reported which examine the impact of chronic life-threatening illnesses in children on healthy siblings.The purpose of this study was to investigate the predisposing risk and protective factors that affect the psychological adaptation of healthy siblings of a child with Cystic Fibrosis (CF). A descriptive study was conducted using a convenience sample from two CF centers. The relationship between several variables was explored using non- parametric correlations.In this sample, significant negative correlations were found between parental stress and their reported financial well being and emotional or behavioral problems in the well siblings prior to the diagnosis of CF was made in the sick sibling and perceived parental support.For adolescent siblings, The Behavioral Symptoms Index (BSI) was correlated to reported stress in their parents and negatively correlated to the parental perceived support. The Emotional Symptoms Index (ESI) was correlated to the BSI. A significant negative correlation was also noted between age and Internalizing Behaviors. These relationships were not significant for the child siblings in this sample.There were no significant relationships among gender, maternal education, and caretaker for the well sibling when the child with CF was hospitalized and their Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors. The health care teams in these clinics seldom discussed CF with the well sibling. However, for the children in this study, there was a significant negative correlation with this discussion and their Externalizing Behaviors.Findings from this study suggest that the family environment, especially parental stress and perceived social support, may affect the adaptation of the well sibling. Adolescent siblings were more at risk for this environmental influence than their younger counterparts.

<p>Fanny Hensel wrote much of Felix Mendelssohn's music. Or so goes the popular misconception. It is true that Felix did publish six of his sister's Lieder under his own name, in his Op. 8 and Op. 9, but there is no evidence that anything else he published was actually by Fanny. The perpetuation of this idea is by no means new to our century; even during her lifetime, Fanny received letters alluding to the possibility that some of her music was masquerading as Felix's. But how could this supposition even be possible?</p><p>Complicating our reception of Hensel's works and our knowledge of her influence over him, and perpetuating our misconception (and perhaps hopes) that some of Felix's music was by Fanny was the unavailability of her music to the general public. For most of the twentieth century, she was known mostly by her eleven published opera (five of which were released posthumously). Before she was able to plan and accomplish any sort of systematic publication of her works, she died suddenly, at the age of 41, leaving behind upwards of 450 unrevised, unpublished works.</p><p>Clearly, we need to reconsider the term "Mendelssohnian," and bring Hensel to the foreground as an equal partner in forming the Mendelssohns' common style. I examine the roots of the "Mendelssohnian" style in their parallel musical educations, their shared enthusiasm for the music of Bach, and their simultaneous collision with Beethoven's music (and the diverse ways each responded to his influence). I explore in detail the relationship between Fanny, Felix, and her fiancé Wilhelm Hensel through the methodology of kinship studies, to contextualize what some have viewed as a quasi-incestuous sibling relationship within the norms for sibling communication in the nineteenth century. Finally, I discuss how deeply their separation after 1829 affected both Fanny and Felix, and how Fanny negotiated her changing life roles and ambitions as a composer and performer.</p><p>One work that Fanny never released, and, indeed, one work that has remained a mystery, is the Ostersonate (Easter Sonata). Believed lost since it was first mentioned in correspondence in 1829, the sonata resurfaced in the twentieth century, when it was recorded and attributed to Felix, and then disappeared again without a trace. In the absence of any identifiable manuscript, it had been impossible to definitively challenge this attribution. My research represents a major breakthrough: I traced the manuscript to a private owner and positively identified it as the work of Fanny Mendelssohn.</p><p>Lurking behind the popular misconception is a broader truth: Fanny Hensel can be heard in much of Felix Mendelssohn's music. In other words, what audiences have recognized as Felix Mendelssohn's music for nearly two hundred years would not have existed as such without the influence of Fanny Hensel. This idea in itself is hardly new, but by revising this line of reasoning, we see that it is equally possible that much of Fanny Hensel can be heard in Felix Mendelssohn's music. In the end, neither composer could have existed as we know them today without the other, and their shared musical style stands as a lasting testament to their shared identity as Mendelssohns.</p> / Dissertation

The Sibling Niche Differentiation Model (Sulloway, 1996) suggests that an individual’s birth order acting as a proxy for within-family environmental factors like age, size and strength relative to ones siblings influences the strategies used to gain resources and minimize sibling conflict. Recent within-family birth order research (for example Paulhus, Trapnell and Chen, 1999; Healey & Ellis, 2007) has found a systematic effect of birth order on personality, with firstborn siblings found to be more conscientious and secondborn siblings more open to experience. However, an examination of birth-order effects by independent raters, has been lacking in the birth order literature. Furthermore no prior examination comparing the type of stimulus material used to elicit participant responses has been conducted. Study 1 (N = 203) sought to replicate previous birth order findings for the two Big-5 traits Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience, while also testing an alternative explanation (hypo-masculinization hypothesis) for observed birth-order differences (Beer & Horn, 2000). Study 2 compared the efficacy of four different types of stimulus material (rankings, ratings, independent ratings and real-world scenarios) in observing birth order effects (combined N = 544), while also testing novel predictions about the saliency and generalisability of birth-order effects on personality outside the context of the family. General support was found for the Sibling Niche Differentiation Model across studies and across stimulus materials, but limited support was found for the nature of within family personality differences between siblings extending to contexts outside the family environment.

The goal of the present study was to develop and compare two different methods for rating scaffolding between siblings: a thin slice approach and an interval coding approach. Fifty younger (age=3 years) and 50 older (age 3-7 years) siblings interacted for five minutes on a cooperation task and scaffolding during the task was coded for each child. Internal consistency was excellent for the thin slice measure and questionable for the interval measure. Inter-rater reliability was good for both. Thin-slicing was more strongly related to predicted variables (children’s theory of mind, language, age, cooperation, positive and negative behavior) than interval coding, and reduces demands on resources in terms of training and reliability. The development of a reliable and valid measurement for the assessment of child-to-child scaffolding, which involves limited training and is quick to code, will be a useful research and practice tool for developing children’s cooperation skills in applied settings.

The goal of the present study was to develop and compare two different methods for rating scaffolding between siblings: a thin slice approach and an interval coding approach. Fifty younger (age=3 years) and 50 older (age 3-7 years) siblings interacted for five minutes on a cooperation task and scaffolding during the task was coded for each child. Internal consistency was excellent for the thin slice measure and questionable for the interval measure. Inter-rater reliability was good for both. Thin-slicing was more strongly related to predicted variables (children’s theory of mind, language, age, cooperation, positive and negative behavior) than interval coding, and reduces demands on resources in terms of training and reliability. The development of a reliable and valid measurement for the assessment of child-to-child scaffolding, which involves limited training and is quick to code, will be a useful research and practice tool for developing children’s cooperation skills in applied settings.

This thesis examined the correlates of delinquency and substance use by focusing on the psychosocial environmental influences that lead to sibling similarities and differences in these areas. It was shaped by data from studies strongly suggesting that environmental influences played the most important role in development and adjustment, but that these influences were not shared by siblings in the same family. The evidence for the importance of nonshared environment has led to the conclusion that family variables, such as parenting style and family events, which are shared between siblings, are less important. Adopting this conclusion is highly relevant to the study of the environmental influences that place an adolescent at-risk for problem behaviours, because family variables are important in most sociological treatments of criminal and delinquent behaviour. Therefore, a key issue of this thesis was to investigate the extent of sibling similarity for delinquency and substance use, as well as the significance of a range of variables of theoretical interest in the study of adolescent problem behaviour. A second issue of interest was to determine whether there were associations between differences in sibling experiences and differences in their delinquency and substance use. These issues were examined in 361 primarily opposite-sex adolescent sibling pairs from Wave 1 of the “Sibling Study”, a longitudinal study designed to identify those factors that contribute to adolescent engagement in illegal behaviours and those that inhibit such engagement. The design of this study provided several advantages over previous investigations of within-family differences. First, the sample used in the study consisted of siblings at the extremes of the dimensions of problem behaviour rather than based solely on a sample of students, making it possible to investigate the relative influence of shared and nonshared environment at the extremes. Second, a broad set of factors across the domains of school, family, peer, and individual were assessed rather than solely focussing on parental treatment, which is where much research is concentrated. Third, the relationship between shared family context effects and differential experience was considered. Finally, the associations between the correlates of differences for delinquency and substance use were investigated, whereas the relatively small body of previous research on sibling differences has largely ignored substance use. The results indicated substantial within-family differences in experiences of the environment and problem behaviour. Although all siblings differed, sibling pairs where one sibling was identified as an offender or at-risk for offending were significantly more different from one another than siblings identified as normative. Sibling constellation variables were less important in accounting for differential experiences than were the shared family context characteristics. Almost 60% of the variance in sibling delinquency difference scores and 38% of the variance in sibling substance use difference scores could be accounted for by differences in sibling experiences. In general, extra-familial experiences, such as peer influence, school involvement, and stressful events, and individual characteristics, such as self-control, definitions, and attitudes to authority were more important sources of systematic nonshared environment than parental treatment and sibling interaction items. In addition, different patterns were found for low and high risk families, and for delinquency and substance use. These results support the importance of nonshared environmental factors although future research is needed to confirm that these sibling differential experiences are the most important for explaining problem behaviour. The empirical, theoretical, and practical implications of this thesis for the development of problem behaviour were discussed.