Parental involvement as tutors or behaviour problem-solvers with regular school children is increasing. This paper sketches some reasons for this and outlines a set of principles for working with parents for use by practitioners.

Psychologists working with families experiencing serious parent adolescent conflict often find themselves being asked about community views regarding the ages at which adolescents ought be permitted to engage in a range of behaviours. Given the general lack of normative data in this regard, the current study has attempted to provide some. Data from two studies involving families of children attending a total of 17 Victorian schools are reported, and discussion is given to the use that might be made of such data by psychologists working with families experiencing parental adolescent conflict.

Growing interest in social skills training has resulted in the development of a wide range of programmes. Concurrently, a wealth of conceptual and empirical studies has appeared in the literature. This paper presents a model of social skills training, based on recent research, which can be applied in a wide variety of settings. Initial assessment, training format and outcome evaluation are all discussed. In addition, two alternative training strategies are considered which contrast cognitive and behavioural variables as factors for increasing the probability of generalization. Finally, the issue of maintenance is also considered.

While the role of non-ability intrapersonal variables including personality traits and motivational dynamic factors has been well documented in numerous studies, the relationship of transient states to cognitive performance has been relatively neglected. Boyle (1983b, 1986) demonstrated that emotional states powerfully influence cognitive learning outcomes under conditions of stressful activation. However, under neutral, non-emotive conditions, it remained unclear what role if any was played by mood states in cognitive learning. The failure to employ change measures in these studies may have obscured the likely influence of emotions on cognitive performance in the neutral situation. This study re-examines the relationship of moods with cognitive learning performance using state-change scores rather than single-occasion mood-state scores as the basis for predicting cognitive learning outcomes.