This paper on the coping actions of Australian adolescents reporls on research spanning a 5-year period. The central indicator of coping in this work is the Adolescent Coping Scale (ACS), an 80-item checklist that identifies 18 coping strategies commonly used by adolescents. There are clear indications that age, gender, and family of origin are concomitants of coping. Furthermore, coping varies according to adolescent perceptions of the self, perception of the adolescent's ability by others, family climate, and the experience of stress in the family. Positive family climate is generally associated with the use of functional styles of coping. Adolescents who are identified as highly able or gifted use a different coping repertoire in comparison to their nongifted peers. Young people in intact or separated households use similar strategies to manage their general concerns. Moreover, those dealing with separation of parents were generally as adaptive in their use of coping strategies.

Adaptive behaviour scales represent an alternative to standardised intelligence tests for assessing children with multiple disabilities. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the reliability of an adaptive behaviour scale used in Hungarian Conductive Education programs for children with neurological impairments. Forty-five children with multiple disabilities were assessed on two separate occasions by their teachers and physiotherapists. Scores were compared across raters (interobserver agreement) and across the two assessment occasions (test-retest reliability). Interobserver agreement averaged 55.5%, and the overall test-retest reliability was 75%. Suggestions for improving interobserver agreement and test-retest reliability are discussed.

Thirty four high school students were assigned to one of six focus groups according to their self-reported drug status (i.e., user, ex-user, nonuser). Allgroups viewed the same two video vignettes, and a drug user was identified as the target character in the second vignette. At the completion of each vignette they answered a series of questions about the target character in each video. Results indicated that adolescents assign reputations to persons according to the activities in which they engage, and that this assignment is influenced by their own similar or dissimilar activities. An analysis of vocabulary revealed that meaning was context specific to the subculture. In many instances nonusers were unaware of the meaning of the vocabulary used by their drug using peers.

This study examines the influence of demographic factors such as age, sex, and school setting on self-estimate ability. The subjects (N = 1814) in this study were administered an interest inventory (Vocational lnterest Survey) and a self-rating scale (Work Interest Survey). Similarity between self-estimate and measured interest profiles was assessed using the correlation between individual's profiles and the squared Euclidean distance (D2), and its components (elevation, scatter, and shape by scatter). There were significant differences between boys and girls on profile parameters of elevation, the overall distance between profiles, and self-estimate ability. Girls, on the whole, were better able to estimate the pattern of measured interests (0.62), compared to boys (0.55), but the magnitude of this difference between these coefficients (i.e., 0.07) was very small. Age differences between four age groups (14, 15, 16, and those over 16 years) were small. The mean correlation at 14 years was 0.64 compared with 0.57 at 16 years and 0.4 for those over 16 years. Differences between single-sex schools and co-educational schools were the third factor considered. Girls' schools had the highest correlation between the VIS and WIS profiles (0.63), followed by co-educational schools (0.58) and boys' schools had the lowest profile correlation (0.55).

Australian studies of teacher-rated levels of behaviour problems in schools are reviewed. Survey methodology and instrumentation affects incidence. The significance of these results is discussed in the light of two major considerations: the nature of “problem” and who defines it, and the need for a developmental perspective when interpreting data relating to childhood behaviour. The implications of teacher perceptions for system resource planning, referral and interagency networking, and intervention priority are considered,