Summary This article reviews the literature on the psychological impact of terrorism on children and families in the United States. It includes studies of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City and the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, as well as the September 11 attacks. These studies explore the impact of various forms and degrees of exposure to terrorism on children across the development spectrum and on the relationships between parental and child reactions. The article concludes with a framework for future research on children's adaptation following mass trauma.

This paper describes an evaluation study of two workshops for elementary school teachers aimed at improving their skills for coping with the behavior problems in children. The ability to hold these children helps to prevent them from dropping out of school and avoids their referral to special education programs. The workshops integrated two intervention strategies: (1) Behavior modification skills and (2) Experiential work on the feelings that the misbehaved child evokes in teachers. We hypothesized that the workshops would improve teachers’ skills for coping with the children who misbehave. We obtained evaluations of the first workshop from 17 elementary school teachers from one school who participated in the intervention. Evaluations of the second workshop were obtained from 57 teachers from different schools (25 took part in the intervention and 32 belonged to a control group). The hypothesis was fully supported by the results, both in terms of subjective and objective measures. Specifically, for the first workshop, the participants’ evaluation of the contribution of the workshop to their level of skills and their ability to cope with misbehaved children was higher in the follow-up than at the end of the workshop. In the second workshop, evaluations of the teachers’ skills and their ability to cope with children who misbehave were higher in the post stage, both relatively to the pre stage of the workshop, and to a control group. Evaluation of emotional variables during the second workshop, however, showed no significant change. The discussion of the results addresses the findings of evaluation studies as well as theories and findings regarding the antecedents and the consequences of children's misbehavior.

The purpose of this study was to examine client satisfaction, perceived helping components, and perceived frequency of condom use among men and women who participated in an HIV/STD relationship-based preventive intervention. Method: 107 participants completed evaluation forms at the end of the last of five weekly intervention sessions. Levels of overall satisfaction, what participants liked and learned, what they felt helped them in the intervention, and their report on the frequency of male and female condom use pre- and postintervention were evaluated. Results: The intervention was highly regarded by participants. The helpful components of the intervention were the couples' ability to communicate better with their main partner and the special strategies the facilitators used. Gender differences in immediate HIV risk reduction behavior changes were found. Conclusions: It is important to evaluate client perceptions of the helping components in combination with structured assessment of targeted outcomes in treatment and preventive interventions.

This article presents the results of a study aimed at describing African American youths' attitudes toward peers with HIV/AIDS and identifying correlates of these attitudes based on the contact theory. Baseline data from a sample of African American, urban mothers and their youth (n = 197) participating in a family-based HIV prevention program were analyzed. In support of contact theory, preadolescents' close relationship to persons infected with HIV/AIDS was highly related to their attitudes. However, no relationship was found between maternal attitudes or communication variables and youth attitudes. The implications of youths' experience with persons with HIV/AIDS as part of prevention programming are discussed.

The current study will examine behavioral difficulties among a sample of African American urban youth who were exposed to violence. Possible gender differences in disruptive behavioral difficulties, as well as possible associations between parental practices, family relationships, and youth disruptive behavioral difficulties are examined. A secondary data analysis from baseline data for 125 African American urban mothers and their children collected as part of a large-scale, urban, family-based, HIV prevention research study was analyzed. Findings reveal that externalizing behavioral problems in youth are associated with exposure to violence. Girls displayed significantly higher levels of externalizing behavioral difficulties than boys. Mothers' parenting practices and family relationships were associated with youths' externalizing behavior problems. Implications for interventions to reduce youths' exposure to violence and to develop gender sensitive interventions for youth and supportive interventions for their parents are discussed.

Guided by the cognitive theory of stress and coping and the comprehensive health?seeking and coping paradigm, this study examines associations among intimate partner abuse and psychological distress, posttraumatic stress disorder, childhood sexual abuse, and current drug use among a cohort of 416 women randomly recruited from New York City methadone treatment programs. Findings expand on past evidence of the high prevalence of psychological distress among adult victimized women and among those with a history of childhood sexual abuse. Women currently abused by their partners have more posttraumatic stress symptoms, depression, and psychological distress than women not abused by their partners.

This article deals with outcomes of self-help and support groups, based on the relationships between the groups? helping characteristics (i.e., instilling hope, caring and concern) and two variables: participants?subjective well-being and general satisfaction with the group. It was hypothesized that the contribution of the helping characteristics to the participants?subjective well-being would be mediated by the extent of their overall satisfaction with the group. The study also compared 12-step self-help groups to other support groups. The research sample consisted of 117 participants belonging to 11 groups meeting in Israel. The results supported the mediation hypothesis. Comparison of the 12-step groups and the other support groups revealed that 12-step group members were far more satisfied with the group and gave higher evaluations for most of the helping characteristics. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.

The study explored the process through which customers assess their satisfaction with service organizations. Our theoretical analysis suggests that when a general satisfaction question appears after questions about specific domains were asked (SG order), the earlier questions increase the accessibility of both positive and negative information. In contrast, when a general satisfaction question appears prior to any other question (GS order), negative information is more accessible than positive information. On the basis of these differences in accessibility we predicted (1) greater asymmetry in the impact of positive and negative information on the general satisfaction response in the GS order, (2) higher correspondence between domain-specific satisfaction and general satisfaction in the SG order, and (3) higher levels of general satisfaction in the SG order. These predictions were supported in analyses of customers' responses in a national survey of satisfaction with the Israel Telecommunication Corporation (Bezeq).