Social Security Disability Benefits Reform Act of 1984: legislative history and summary of provisions

This article describes the legislative history of the Social Security Disability Benefits Reform Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-460), and contains a summary of the provisions in the new law. Major provisions include: standards for continuing disability reviews (CDR's) of disability insurance (DI) beneficiaries and supplemental security income (SSI) recipients who get payments based on disability or blindness; the right of a DI beneficiary or an SSI recipient to have payments continued during appeal of a CDR decision to an administrative law judge that disability or blindness has ceased; and suspension of CDR's of mentally impaired persons until the evaluation criteria for mental impairments are revised. The new law was enacted in response to problems that arose as a result of the implementation by the Social Security Administration (SSA) of a provision in the 1980 disability amendments that required periodic CDR's. In enacting the new law, Congress intended to assure more accurate, consistent, and uniform disability decisions at all levels and equitable and humane treatment not only to beneficiaries who must undergo CDR's but also to new applicants for DI benefits or SSI payments based on disability or blindness.     

Effect of youth culture music on high school students' academic performance

This study investigated the assumption that youth culture orientation adversely affects school performance, using rock music as the youth culture component. Adolescents in grades 9–12 were assigned to a subject matter topic in the area of literature, mathematics, physical science, or social science and requested to study this topic intensely for 30 min in a music condition consisting of rock, classical, or no music. The subjects then were tested on their retention of the factual content of the article either immediately after the study period, 1 day later, or 3 days later. Retention was significantly lower in the rock music condition. Students recalled more content in the literature topic and in the immediate test. The results are discussed with reference to a social learning theory interpretation of youth culture.Received his Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Major interests are in the area of social and personality development in children and adolescents.Received her M.A. in psychology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Major interests are in the area of child and family therapy and play behavior. At present she is working in a clinical setting.     

HIV vaccines: current challenges and future directions

Volume seven of the Review will mark the tenth anniversary of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network with a series of articles that describe past developments and future directions in several areas of policy and law related to HIV/AIDS. The following article is the first of these, discussing current challenges and future directions in the development of and access to HIV vaccines. It argues that governments are under public health, ethical, and legal obligations to develop and provide access to HIV vaccines. It further explains what is required for governments to fulfill their obligations: additional commitment and resources for HIV vaccine development in the context of increased global research and development regarding diseases of the poor; increased support and advocacy for partnerships to develop HIV vaccines; enhanced regulatory capacity in every country to review, approve, and monitor HIV vaccines; and assurance of global supply of, procurement of, delivery of, and access to vaccines in the context of efforts to increase global access to public health measures and technologies.     

Self-recognition of the face: A study of adolescent narcissism

Two adolescent groups and an adult group were given a self-recognition task involving the tachistoscopic presentation of inverted photographs of their faces. Measures of narcissism, certainty of response, and response strategy were recorded. The young adolescent group was found to be more successful than either the late adolescent or adult groups. The former were also the most narcissistic. No sex difference was found, nor was there any difference when the faces of known or unknown peers were used as distractors. Age and narcissism were found to be equally good predictors of both self-recognition and certainty of response. Young adolescents tended to use the complete gestalt of the face more often as a recognition strategy than older adolescents or adults, who seemed to use idiosyncratic facial features. The results are discussed in terms of integrated approach to the development of body image and how the internal representations of the body are gradually built and modified by perceptual, cognitive, and personality functioning.Received M.A. (Hons 1.) and Ph.D from University of Sydney. Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society. Principal research interest is psychology of adolescence.Received B.A. (Hons.) from Macquarie University; now a doctoral candidate at Macquarie University. Principal research interest is child and adolescent psychotherapy.     

Identification of a D8S1179 primer binding site mutation and the validation of a primer designed to recover null alleles

A population study of Chamorros and Filipinos using short tandem repeat (STR) loci amplified with the AmpFlSTR Profiler Plus PCR amplification kit demonstrated an excess of observed homozygosity at the D8S1179 locus. Use of a different set of D8S1179 primers to type the same samples did not demonstrate an excess of homozygosity and showed discordant genotypes at the D8S1179 locus. A single point mutation, G-to-A transition, 16 nucleotides from the 3' end of the reverse primer, was identified to cause allele dropout when using the AmpFlSTR Profiler Plus primer set. An additional D8S1179 reverse primer specific for the variant was constructed resulting in the recovery of the null allele. The primer was included in the newly developed AmpFlSTR Identifiler PCR amplification kit. No deleterious effects or non-specific peaks were observed in validation experiments evaluating primer concentration, Mg2+ concentration, annealing temperature and population samples.     

Local government and urban protest in Colombia

This article examines how urban conflict in Colombia is highlighting important features of local government in that country. Four interrelated questions are asked: (a) What is the role of local government in the provision of public goods and services in urban communities? (b) To what extent has local government been the target of urban community protest? (c) Has local government taken on a petitioner role by being a participant in urban community protest? (d) Does urban protest threaten the system of political domination of which local government is an integral part? The article points to certain key features of local government in Colombia that may be built upon in order to create a more progressive, democratic and community-based system of local government. There are, however, powerful political constraints on this occurring.     

Adolescent dating intimacy: Norms and peer expectations

Both dating behavior and peer expectations, in 317 adolescents, were examined during the first date, after several dates, when going steady, and when some commitment to marriage was undertaken. The results showed an initial tendency for the behavior of males to be more intimate than that of females. Female behavior approached that of males as the commitment in the affectional relationship increased. Generally, both males and females conformed to their peer expectations for less intimate behaviors but not for the deeper forms of sexual embrace, where they imagined their peers to be more experienced.Received his M.A. (Honours I) and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Sydney. Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society. Main area of interest is psychology of adolescence.     

A differential survey of the problems of privileged and underprivileged adolescents

The problems of adjustment during the midadolescent years were examined in 1298 privileged and underprivileged adolescents from the Sydney Metropolitan Area, Australia. Girls reported more problems than boys in all areas of adjustment and underprivileged adolescents more problems than the privileged group; however, a significant interaction effect was also found. Whether high-income or low-income group, the overwhelming number of problems were associated with educational adjustment and were interpreted as the reaction to pressures to achieve imposed on adolescents of this age.Received her M.A. (Hons.) and Ph.D. from Macquarie University. Member of Australian Psychological Society. Principal research interests are child psychopathology and psychology of adolescence.Received his M.A.(Hons.) and Ph.D. from Sydney University. Fellow of Australian Psychological Society. Principal research interest is psychology of adolescence.