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Biomedical subjects

A W Price

Publications and source records attributed to A W Price.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

Prevention and intervention strategies with children of alcoholics.

OBJECTIVE: This article was designed to give pediatricians a basic knowledge of the needs of children who live in families with alcoholism. It briefly presents issues involved in the identification and screening of such individuals and provides primary attention to a variety of preventive and treatment strategies that have been used with school children of alcoholics (COAs), along with evidence of their effectiveness. METHODOLOGY: A literature search including both published and unpublished descriptions and evaluations of interventions with COAs. RESULTS: The scope and nature of the problems of growing up in an alcoholic home are presented. The risk and protective factors associated with this population have been used as a foundation for preventive and treatment interventions. The most common modality of prevention and intervention programs is the short-term small group format. Programs for COAs should include the basic components of information, problem- and emotion-focused coping skills, and social and emotional support. Physicians are in a unique position to identify and provide basic services and referrals for COAs. School settings are the most common intervention sites, but family and broad-based community programs also have shown promise in alcohol and other drug prevention. CONCLUSIONS: Several COA interventions have demonstrated positive results with respect to a variety of measures including knowledge of program content, social support, coping skills, and emotional functioning. Rigorous studies are needed to understand better the complex ways children deal with parental alcoholism. A need remains for empirically sound evaluations and for the delineation of research findings.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Role of secondary stressors in the parental death-child distress relation.

This study examined the psychological consequences and secondary stressors associated with death of a parent. The sample (N = 116) consisted of 26 youths who had lost a parent to homicide, 45 youths who had lost a parent to natural death, and 45 nonbereaved youths. Youngsters completed face-to-face interviews, while their guardians completed measures assessing the children's functioning. Results based on both child and guardian reports indicated that parental death was associated with an increase in secondary stressors, regardless of the mode of death. Findings based on guardian reports also revealed that parental death was related to increased internalizing distress, and that parental death due to homicide was related to increased externalizing distress. Furthermore, secondary stressors mediated the parental death-child distress relation such that parental death led to an increase in stressors, which in turn led to increased child distress. Implications for secondary and tertiary preventive interventions are discussed.

Adolescent↗

Breaking the cycle of addiction: prevention and intervention with children of alcoholics.

Children of alcoholics (COA's) are at increased risk for behavioral and emotional problems, including alcoholism. Research has helped guide the design of prevention and intervention programs aimed at reducing this risk. Currently, most such programs for COA's use a short-term, small-group format, often conducted within schools. Broad-based community programs are another promising option, but have not been sufficiently studied. Generally, interventions include alcoholism education, training in coping skills and social competence, social support, and healthy alternative activities. Increased interaction between basic research and intervention may lead to improved services for COA's.

Alcoholism↗

Deficits in contralateral and ipsilateral forepaw motor control following unilateral motor cortical ablations in rats.

Two force transducers which were interfaced with a minicomputer were used as operant manipulanda to assess changes in peak force and rate of response produced by unilateral motor cortical lesions in rats. Spatial arrangement of the manipulanda permitted a subject to respond on Transducer I exclusively with his left forepaw and on Transducer II exclusively with his right. Permanent deficits as measured by both force and rate of response were observed for the limb contralateral to the lesion. In the forelimb ipsilateral to the lesion rate of response was severely depressed immediately following the lesion and, although there was marked recovery during the 10-12 days following surgery, post-lesion rates never attained pre-lesion levels.

Animals↗

Some effects of chlordiazepoxide and d-amphetamine on response force during punished responding in rats.

Rats were reinforced with water on a continuous reinforcement schedule and were also punished with electric shock for every fifth response applied to a silent, isometric, force-sensing manipulandum. Oral doses of chlordiazepoxide (3.0, 9.0, 27.0 mg/kg) increased both conventional rate and force of punished responding. In contrast, d-amphetamine (0.8, 1.6, 3.2 mg/kg, by gavage) further decreased conventional rate and force of response, but this latter drug increased the rate of recorded responses that were lower than the 15-g force criterion for response consequences. The results for chlordiazepoxide are viewed in terms of its anxiolytic properties, while the d-amphetamine data appear to support a theory of amphetamine effects based on the concept of stereotyped behaviors.

Animals↗