INCORPORATING ATTACHMENT ASSESSMENT INTO CUSTODY EVALUATIONS: THE CASE OF A 2‐YEAR‐OLD AND HER PARENTS

Attachment with parents is central to a child's development. It is well established that the quality of this attachment in early childhood is a strong predictor of developmental and psychological functioning throughout the life span. One of the primary issues in custody evaluations is assessing the quality of the child's attachment to each parent and the parents' capacity to foster security and to consider what this might mean for short‐ and medium‐term decisions about their care. The nature of attachment measures is summarized, and the combined use of three attachment‐caregiving instruments in a custody evaluation is illustrated through the case of a toddler whose parents were engaged in a high‐conflict divorce. The case study demonstrates how, in addition to standard clinical observations, including a set of attachment‐based instruments with a standardized psychological test battery provided information critical to a recommendation for custody and parent visitation.     

The Effect of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Psychosexual Functioning During Adulthood

The study examined whether and how characteristics of childhood sexual abuse and disclosure influenced three dimensions of psychosexual functioning—emotional, behavioral and evaluative—during adulthood. The sample included 165 adults who were sexually abused as children. The General Estimating Equation was used to test the relationship among the predictors, moderators and five binary outcomes: fear of sex and guilt during sex (emotional dimension), problems with touch and problems with sexual arousal (behavioral), and sexual satisfaction (evaluative). Respondents who were older when they were first abused, injured, had more than one abuser, said the abuse was incest, and told someone about the abuse were more likely to experience problems in at least one area of psychosexual functioning. Older children who told were more likely than younger children who told to fear sex and have problems with touch during adulthood. Researchers and practitioners should consider examining multiple dimensions of psychosexual functioning and potential moderators, such as response to disclosure.     

Clinical Challenges in Addressing Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) with Pregnant and Parenting Adolescents

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been identified as a significant issue for pregnant and parenting adolescents. This study thematically analyzed data from focus groups with service providers (n?=?43) who work with pregnant and parenting adolescents to learn about barriers and strategies for addressing IPV. Service providers described four primary barriers to addressing IPV with their adolescent clients: adolescent clients?? definitions of love, intergenerational relationship patterns, cultural norms about gender and violence, and developmental-contextual considerations. Service providers also indicated that they respond to adolescents?? IPV related concerns by taking steps to identify IPV, building working relationships, and taking appropriate follow-up action. Results suggest that providers can benefit from increased training and skill development in working with IPV, as well as working in interdisciplinary, collaborative teams to increase effectiveness with challenging cases. Programs should consider integrating IPV prevention initiatives that target broader social norms. Future research should pilot and test the effectiveness of targeted IPV training and programmatic interventions with service providers who work with this population.     

Liberalization and ethnic conflict in Latin America

Most contemporary analysts explain ethnic identity as a socially rooted phenomenon which can be catalyzed by changes in both economic and political conditions. Taking the 1982 debt crisis as a main triggering event, this article analyzes the relationship between economic adjustment and increasing levels of indigenous mobilization in Latin America. Through a comparison of the Bolivian, Peruvian, and Mexican cases,the analysis reveals wide variation in the types and levels of ethnic conflict in the region. Explanations for these differences center on the timing and content of economic adjustment policies, and on the institutional opportunities available for expressing and channeling economic and political demands. The article concludes that political and economic liberalization are likely to clash when shrinking the state also removes channels for popular participation; moreover, when those that bear most of the adjustment burden are also challengers to national identity, states ignore this challenge at their peril. Alison Brysk is assistant professor of politics at the University of California at Irvine. Her book,The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina, was published by Stanford University Press. Various aspects of her current research on Latin American indigenous rights movements have appeared inComparative Political Studies, Latin American Perspectives, andPolity. Carol Wise is assistant professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. She has published articles on Latin American political economy inInternational Organization, Latin American Research Review, and theJournal of Latin American Studies; she is the editor of a forthcoming collection entitledThe Post-NAFTA Political Economy: Mexico and the Western Hemisphere.     

Don't Vote for Them: The Effects of the Spanish Indignant Movement on Attitudes about Voting

This article investigates the recent so-called Spanish Revolution of 2011 with a view to understanding what it reveals about the current relationship between protest and electoral modes of participation. Theories of “disaffeccted radicalism” that grew up following the 1960s period of civil unrest strongly advocated the view that protest activity boosted electoral abstention. More recent work on protest, however, has pointed to its “normalization” and linkage to more conventional modes of participation. The Spanish case of 15M constitutes a useful new test of the two theories given that it mixed an explicit rejection of the choices voters faced with a criticism of political apathy. I examine the validity of each argument using a four-wave online panel survey and fixed-effects model to unravel how engagement in the 15M protest activity affected Spaniards' attitudes towards voting. The results provide fresh support for the normalization argument about a convergence of electoral and non-electoral types of activity. What is more, protest here seems to have a socialization effect that leads people to look at elections in a more positive manner.     

Addressing the National Academy of Sciences' challenge: a method for statistical pattern comparison of striated tool marks

In February 2009, the National Academy of Sciences published a report entitled "Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward." The report notes research studies must be performed to "…understand the reliability and repeatability…" of comparison methods commonly used in forensic science. Numerical classification methods have the ability to assign objective quantitative measures to these words. In this study, reproducible sets of ideal striation patterns were made with nine slotted screwdrivers, encoded into high-dimensional feature vectors, and subjected to multiple statistical pattern recognition methods. The specific methods employed were chosen because of their long peer-reviewed track records, widespread successful use for both industry and academic applications, rely on few assumptions on the data's underlying distribution, can be accompanied by standard confidence levels, and are falsifiable. For PLS-DA, correct classification rates of 97% or higher were achieved by retaining only eight dimensions (8D) of data. PCA-SVM required even fewer dimensions, 4D, for the same level of performance. Finally, for the first time in forensic science, it is shown how to use conformal prediction theory to compute identifications of striation patterns at a given level of confidence.     

FAMILIES IN TRANSITION

This article describes one of the first mandatory divorce orientations in the country. Beginning in 1976, this program has served as the model for other highly successful programs throughout North America. The program helps couples deal with the psychological and social divorces as well as the legal divorce. It also provides information for parents about how to tell their children and to monitor the effect of divorce on their children's lives.