Chronic illness, such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, has a major impact on the sociol, emotional, and educational well-being of the young people affected by it. Many students are either absent from school for prolonged periods or able to attend for only a few classes each week. Students have identified the importance of educational strategies in the management of their illness. If the school or educational setting is functioning appropriately, then social, emotional, developmental, and academic issues associated with chronic illness gradually resolve. A program developed in conjunction with the Victorian Visiting Teacher Service is described. Strategies used to assist housebound students, their carers, teaching staff, and students who are gradually returning to school are outlined.

The initial interview is an important aspect of development of and intervention in tertiary student learning. Yet there are no published interview schedules available to psychologists working in the area of tertiary academic skills development This paper presents an interview schedule for use with individual tertiary students seeking assistance with learning and academic skills development. Some preliminary comments about the application of the schedule are also offered.

Body dissatisfaction and eating disorders in the preadolescent population have increased over the past 10 years. The Eating and Me (E&M) scale of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating for use with prepubescent males and females (Sands, Tricker, Sherman, Armatas, & Maschette, 1997) was refined and used to investigate relationships among disordered eating, body dissatisfaction, and self-worth. The sample comprised 59 females and 57 males, with ages ranging between 10-12 years (M = 11 years). From the 18 item E&M-II, 6 items were removed to produce the 12-item E&M-III scale. Physical self-worth, current and ideal images, and Children’s Eating Attitude Test scores predicted high scores on the E&M-III. These results support the inclusion of body image assessment in screening for preclinical eating disturbances in nonclinical populations.

This study identified selected perinatal and neonatal variables that place ELBW children at particularly high risk for cognitive delay. Forty children weighing less than 1000 grams (ELBW) at birth underwent developmentol assessment at 9 and 18 months on the Bayley II Mental Development lndex (MDI). Decline in MDI scores between these two ages was evident for infants under 26 weeks gestation at birth as well as for children categorised with an impairment (outcome categories I and II). At 9 months, MDI scores were significantly lower for children with chronic lung disease, for those who required formal developmental intervention, and for those hospitalised for respiratory problems. At 18 months, cognitive scores were significantly lower for children on four variables: gestational age less than 26 weeks; semi-skilled, unskilled, unemployed parents (levels 5 and 6); formal intervention; and admission to hospital for respiratory illness. Greater emphasis on intervention for these at-risk variables is recommended.

Drawing on Plumert’s (1995) findings that children exhibit an optimism bios in their gross motor performance expectations compored with adults, this study tested the hypothesis that younger children are more likely to overestimate their gross motor performance compared with older children. Participants were 6-year-old and 11-year-old children. The accuracy of children’s estimates of their motor performance was assessed using four tasks (horizontal reach, vertical reach, clearance, and stepping), which were adjusted to either well-within, just-within, just-beyond, or well-beyond each child’s individual abilities. Results confirmed that the 6-year-olds significantly overestimated their motor performance compared with 11-year-olds. The discussion focuses upon the ecological validity of these findings, as well as the implications for children’s motor confidence and motor development.

This exploratory study investigated factors influencing psychologists’ decisions to report child abuse. Sixty Victorian psychologists, most of whom had experience with alleged child abuse situations, completed a questionnaire that presented vignettes in which a father denied abusing his daughter. The father's level of denial was varied between angry denial with no acknowledgment of any problems and denial combined with acknowledging problems existed. After each vignette, the psychologists answered questions relating to the incident and general questions dealing with reporting of child abuse. Participants were more likely to report in the vignette when the father angrily denied the abuse as compared to denial with an acknowledgment that problems existed. In deciding whether abuse had occurred, psychologists gave most weight to their confidence that she was being abused. Psychologists who had reported an actual case of child abuse were more likely to report in the hypothetical situation. Generally, respondents supported the introduction of mandatory reporting of child abuse, although some expressed concerns about the quality of community services in this area.

The results of research into patterns of change and stability in water conservation are used to draw attention to some potentially important questions for prosocial teaching in schools. The patterns emerged from a main study measuring three rounds of responses from 2,600 urban, primary and secondary students and their parents and teachers in cross-sectional and longitudinal samples over seven years and from a similar, four-year, comparative study of 600 participants in a regional area. The results tracked water conservation knowledge, attitudes, intentions, and behaviour as well as sources of information and persuasion that participants considered to have been influential in bringing them to their current level of water conservation. Similar patterns of change and stability prevailed across all data sets in both studies. Changes in student behaviour were minimally related to knowledge. Changes were best explained in two ways: stable, age-related, developmental patterns and differences across time in general community influences rather than in school-specific effects on change. For prosocial education in general, these findings raise various questions about effective delivery and about the potential role of development. It is argued that these questions, by virtue of their significance in public policy decisions, need further investigation.

Professional development (PD) within the College is Section-specific. The Victorian Section organised a program of four workshops in 1999. The four topics shared a common emphasis on the work of educational and developmental psychologists as intervention agents. They comprised intervention management, conflict resolution, behavioural coaching, and conduct disorders.