Relationship processes and resilience in children with incarcerated parents.

Children with incarcerated parents are at risk for a variety of problematic outcomes, yet research has rarely examined protective factors or resilience processes that might mitigate such risk in this population. In this volume, we present findings from five new studies that focus on child- or family-level resilience processes in children with parents currently or recently incarcerated in jail or prison. In the first study, empathic responding is examined as a protective factor against aggressive peer relations for 210 elementary school age children of incarcerated parents.

How many doctors does it take to make an autism spectrum diagnosis?

Parents of children with pervasive developmental disorders (n = 494) were surveyed to determine their level of satisfaction with the process of getting an autism spectrum diagnosis. Participants in this web-based study (mean age = 37.8 years) came from five countries and reported on children with an average age of 8.

Hope, social support, and behavioral problems in at-risk children.

This study investigated the effects of hope, social support, and stress on behavioral problems in a high-risk group of 65 children of incarcerated mothers. Children with low levels of hope had more externalizing and internalizing problems. Children who perceived less social support had more externalizing problems, and children who had experienced more life stressors reported more internalizing problems.