Traditional classrooms in which children are expected to sit down quietly and listen to the teacher are not attractive to students in the era of technology. Therefore, researchers have started to study the possibilities of applying modern approaches to educational contexts. The interactive nature and the attractive virtual environment of computer games have made them a high-potential context for learning purposes. Sitting in a classroom is challenging for students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)because of their inattentiveness, impulsivity, and hyperactivity, so that they distract easily.However, researchers have discovered that children with ADHD are not distracted when playing computer games. Therefore, computer games can be beneficial learning contexts that can attract ADHD children’s attention in order to teach them. So far, a large number of studies have been conducted to help ADHD children. Some researchers have worked on cognitive-training approaches to improve skills such as eye gaze, emotion recognition, and working memory enhancement of ADHD children. In addition to the core deficits associated with ADHD, children with ADHDalso face difficulties in social situations, because they are not equipped with the required social skills. Therefore, they face many problems in society that they cannot solve. Consequently, they face peer rejection or social isolation and other mental health problems. Social problem solving is a step-by-step process. For ADHD children, learning the different steps of social problem solving is difficult because they are inattentive. Moreover, acting upon the steps is also hard for ADHD children because they are impulsive. We developed a simulation game, named TARLAN, wherein different steps of solving a social problemare taught to ADHD children. We designed and developed real life scenarios in which children can practise, in order to enable them to apply what they have learnt from the game to real-life situations.TARLAN was designed in three phases, from the elementary level to more advanced levels in order to help the ADHD child gradually become an independent problem solver in society. That happens by building strong scaffolding around the child’s learning on the elementary level and remove it in the more advanced levels. This scaffolding/levelling within games has positive learning outcomes. Forty children with ADHD aged 8-12 were randomly allocated to two interventions, a computer-based intervention in which children worked with TARLAN and another intervention which was a standard psychological intervention. We also had a control group in which 20 children without ADHD also worked with TARLAN. The effectiveness of our game in improving social skills as well as problem behaviour of ADHD children was evaluated using the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS), which is a standard psychologicalmeasure. The results of the SSIS showed that TARLANimproves children’s social acquisition and problem behaviour significantly more than a more expensive standard intervention led by a psychologist (role playing).Moreover, after analysingdata collected during the study,we found out that TARLANimproved children’s performance: the ADHD children reached the same performance level as children without ADHD after working with the game. These results open up the possibility of using games as helpful tools in teaching important life-changing subjects that are hard for ADHD children to learn from traditional approaches. Therefore, the educational life of ADHD children can be changedfrom a challenging experience into a rewarding and attractive experience and time and money can be saved.

The study analyzed the impact of a social skills intervention pogram with adolescent students with learning disabilities attending a school for dyslexia in central Texas. Participants of the study were 8 students aged 11 through 13. Participants were equally assigned to the intervention and control groups based on their schedules. A six-session social skills intervention program was provided to students in the intervention condition during their enrichment hours, while the control students continued to attend their regular classroom activities during this period. Non-parametric test statistics (Wilcoxon signed-rank Test and Mann Whitney U) were utilized to assess within group differences from pre- to post-test and between group differences, respectively. The results of the study suggested that even though no statistically significant differences between control and intervention groups were observed at the pre-test, scores on the Social Problem Solving Inventory-Adolescent, at post-test indicated that the intervention group significantly outperformed the control group. Neither the control nor the intervention group demonstrated any significant improvement from pre- to post-test. / text

No description available.

Honour culture is a constructed social problem and can be defined on the basis of several different ideas. The phenomenon of honour culture is complex and multidimensional and from a constructivist perspective, the concept of honour culture leads up to unwarranted fears and stigmatization of people living with honour norms. This qualitative study shows how several young boys and girls live with a culture of honour without feeling oppressed or limited. The purpose was to use the survey to shed light on how young people think about their opportunities in life in a context of honour. Although they expressed several rules that entailed limits and prohibitions, they meant that it was not something they perceived as problematic. There are extensive studies about violence, oppression and murder that are linked to the honour context. It shows that the strong family bond that characterizes the honour culture is based on the fears that young people have of their parents. They fear the consequences of breaking the norms of honour but also for disappointing their parents. Based on this study, it appears that young people have good opportunities to shape their own lives, but the respondents accentuate that the parents and the relationship with them are both important and meaningful. The parents’ desire and will for how they should live their lives weighed just as heavily as their own will, and so they were willing to compromise in order to please the parents. The reason, according to the respondents, was the high level of trust they had in their parents.

Utilizing a social construction perspective, this study uses a mixed method approach to examine the opioid epidemic. The study begins by identifying the numerous claims-making groups along with conducting a content analysis of the rhetoric and symbols used to legitimize the claims about the opioid epidemic. The data for the content analysis was obtained through a search of the websites, newsrooms, and pressrooms of claims-making groups. Additionally, the study examines and assesses the volume of money that is generated and allocated towards opioid research and prevention in an effort to determine who has more power to influence the policy initiatives. Findings show that the frequency of rhetoric and the number of claims-making groups releasing information about the opioid epidemic increased from 2010-2016. Most of the rhetoric consists of groups proposing resolution strategies and formulating new policies. Only a few claims-makers are making financial contributions towards opioid prevention initiatives and in most cases, it is a very small amount of money.

No description available.

No description available.

Background: Patients with anorexia nervosa have been consistently reported to show impairments in set shifting ability. Such deficits may be associated with characteristics commonly observed in this patient group, such as obsessive thoughts and behaviours around eating, maladaptive problem solving and a rigid thinking style. Objective: Much of the preceding literature on set shifting ability has involved inpatient samples meeting strict diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa. However most eating disorder patients are outpatients and commonly do not meet full criteria for anorexia nervosa. This study thus aimed to investigate the relationship between set shifting ability and psychological characteristics in a community sample of outpatients with symptoms of anorexia nervosa. Methods: Performance on selected measures of set-shifting ability (Wisconsin Card Sort Test, WCST; Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System, Hayling & Brixton) were compared between an eating disorders group comprising 17 female outpatients with symptoms of anorexia nervosa and a control group comprising 27 students. Set shifting performance was then correlated with eating disorder severity (Eating Disorders Examination), obsessive-compulsive symptoms (Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale), and the Social Problem Solving Inventory. Results: The eating disorder group demonstrated significantly worse set shifting ability than the healthy control group on the primary outcome measure (WCST), with 47% of eating disorder participants showing impairment on this measure. Severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms and an impulsive and careless approach to problem solving were associated with poorer scores on the WCST in the eating disorder group. Although the eating disorder group were significantly more impaired in set shifting than controls, set shifting ability was not associated with eating disorder severity. Conclusions: The results indicate that set shifting impairments are present in outpatients with eating disorders with anorexic symptoms, and may be trait characteristics. Impaired set shifting was associated with obsessive-compulsive symptoms and maladaptive problem solving. These findings highlight a need for neuropsychological assessment of eating disorder outpatients in order to identify individuals who may benefit from psychological interventions to reduce the impact of these impairments.

Spurred by the work of the Battered Women's Movement, domestic violence has been responded to since it emerged as a problem in the 1970s. At first the response was providing places for victims to stay and recover from the violence while also providing opportunities for consciousness raising and empowerment work. As domestic violence became a more recognized problem, policies were created and enacted to end the problem. Through the 1980s and 1990s, changes in federal policies in regards to domestic violence were incorporated. The criminal justice system began incorporating such policies as mandatory arrest and no-drop prosecution policies as well as using batterer intervention programs (BIPs) to provide services to those accused of domestic violence charges.In Virginia, domestic violence advocates, batterer intervention program service providers and members of the criminal justice system worked together to create coordinated community responses with the stated goals of safety for domestic violence victims and accountability for perpetrators of domestic violence. The coordination, however, seemed to be fraught with difficulties, as domestic violence advocates, BIP providers, and the criminal justice system continued to struggle with the implementation of the standards. It seemed that although all three groups were able to agree upon the goals of accountability and safety, there were underlying issues of difference that were not being considered.The participants of this inquiry had congruent understandings of the term domestic violence; however their understandings of the social problem domestic violence were quite different. Because the way a social problem is understood influences policy as it is created, implemented, and experienced, it is important to strive for clarity concerning the social problem to which the policy is responding.This inquiry is an exploration of the multiple understandings of the social problem domestic violence as understood by those who participated in the inquiry. The tentative findings, or lessons learned, are not to be understood as generalizable findings, but as the unique, co-created understandings of the multiple meanings of the social problem domestic violence as understood by the participants and the inquirer.

Depuis plus de 40 ans, les mobilisations autour d’enjeux environnementaux interrogent les relations que l’homme entretient avec la nature. Mais toutes les questions d’environnement ne retiennent pas l’attention des pouvoirs publics et du public. Fondée sur une approche constructiviste de sociologie des problèmes publics et de sociologie cognitive, la thèse permet de comprendre, à partir de l’exemple de la conservation des bois morts, comment cette question a été instituée en problème public – sous l’impulsion de scientifiques et de responsables d’associations environnementales – et inscrite à l’agenda des politiques environnementales. Si la dimension sectorielle de ce type de problème a rendu difficile sa médiatisation, la thèse montre aussi qu’il a bénéficié de l’alignement du cadre interprétatif sur des catégories de problèmes publics déjà identifiés comme celui de la biodiversité. La thèse interroge également la production normative inhérente à la publicisation de cette question ainsi que les conditions d’élaboration de solutions. Si la production de normes censées résoudre ces problèmes est de plus en plus décentralisée et négociée, ce travail de normalisation montre ses limites en termes d’asymétrie de pouvoir, de légitimité sociale accordée aux différents acteurs de la négociation et de l’hétérogénéité des référentiels qui reposent parfois sur des compromis minimalistes et fonctionnels. Malgré cette absence de cadres interprétatifs et de référentiels normatifs stabilisés, les forestiers de terrain, enquêtés dans les Landes de Gascogne et la forêt de Rambouillet, se montrent de plus en plus réceptifs à la question de la biodiversité associée aux bois morts mais aussi à l’utilisation de cette biomasse comme source d’énergie renouvelable. Notre approche de sociologie cognitive, et en particulier de la pensée technique, montre que cette mise en concurrence et ce recadrage autour de problèmes publics environnementaux présentés comme d’égale importance interrogent à nouveau les forestiers sur leur façon de concilier éthique environnementale et économie dans le cadre de leur gestion forestière. / For more than 40 years, mobilizations around environmental issues try to engage the public and the public authorities about the relationship between human beings and nature. But all environmental issues do not become the focus of public attention or public authorities. Based on the sociology of social problems and knowledge sociology, the thesis shows how the question of dead wood conservation was instituted as a public problem by scientists and managers of environmental associations and how it was put on the agenda of environmental policies. If the professional dimension of this type of problem has complicated its media coverage, the thesis shows that this issue benefited from the alignment of its interpretative framework with some public debates which were already identified such as biodiversity issues. The thesis also queries the normative production inherent to the publicization of this issue and the conditions for the development of solutions. If the production of standards that ought to solve these problems is more and more decentralized and negotiated, this standardization shows its limits in terms of asymmetry of power, social legitimacy given to the different actors of the negotiation and the heterogeneity of the standards systems that are sometimes based on functional and minimalist compromises. Despite this absence of interpretative frameworks and stabilized normative references, foresters, in the Landes of Gascony and the forest of Rambouillet, were more and more receptive to the biodiversity issues associated with dead wood, but also to the use of this biomass as a renewable energy source. Our approach of cognitive sociology shows that this competition between these two public environmental problems is of equal importance for foresters who are dubious about the way to reconcile environmental ethics and economics in the framework of their forest management.