Communicating the Significance of Home: Stroke Survivors and Caregivers Share their Stories

The goal of this qualitative study was to examine how stroke survivors and caregivers communicated the significance of home in the short-term transition from hospital discharge to home care. Narratives from 12 stroke survivors and their caregivers produced five themes: marker events as motivation, comfort of home and family, emotional privacy of home, excited anticipation of going home, and nervous preparation for home. While much of the communication focused on the positive and hopeful recovery of stroke survivors upon going home, caregiver preparedness and the modifications to home impacted physical and emotional recovery. Results have implications for the transactive model of person-environment relationships, narrative theory, gendered care, health care practitioners, and the continued need for stroke research

From the Classroom to the Community: Best Practices in Service-Learning

As a pedagogy, service-learning connects students with the community while focusing on course outcomes. The community becomes a live text for reflection and enriches students’ experiences they otherwise would not have in the classroom. This article provides tips and strategies for implementing service-learning in the classroom. These tips and strategies include developing the structure of the course, linking service-learning to outcomes, creating partnerships, working through logistics with partners, communicating with community partners, setting logistics, preparing students, creating reflections, handling challenging issues, giving credit for the learning, and assessing service-learning

Dialectical tensions in marital couples\u27 accounts of their relationships

Dialectical tensions, defined as opposing forces that people experience in their relationships, are important for relational development. Predictability-novelty, for instance, is an example of a tension manifested by partners simultaneously desiring predictability and spontaneity in their relationships. Past dialectical studies are problematic as they neglect to include both couples\u27 accounts of the relationship, and they fail to distinguish between the frequency and importance of the tensions. The present study identifies contradictions in married couples accounts\u27 of their relationships and assesses couples\u27 perceptions of the importance of tensions. Three research questions are specifically addressed: (1) Do married couples identify the six tensions proposed by Baxter--autonomy-connection, predictability-novelty, openness-closedness, inclusion-seclusion, conventionality-uniqueness, and revelation-concealment?; (2) Do married couples identify different tensions at the different relational points?; and (3) Which of the six tensions do couples perceive as most important at different relational points? To address these questions, fifteen couples were interviewed about their relationships. Couples also completed an instrument identifying the importance of tensions at three relational points. Transcripted data were coded in terms of the six dialectical tensions. One key finding was that the tension of autonomy-connection was the most frequently experienced contradiction; this result suggested that individuals often struggle with the need to be with their partner and the need to be by themselves. Couples perceived openness-closedness as the most important tension; however, this tension was not frequently mentioned in the couples\u27 accounts. This finding indicated that the competing forces to self-disclose and remain discrete may not be a topic of frequent discussion, but is perceived as being vitally important. Results also showed that inclusion-seclusion and revealment-concealment were more important for wives than husbands. Thus, wives were more concerned with establishing external networks than were husbands. Overall, the findings suggested that dialectical tensions were prevalent in relationships and may be an important component in understanding the maintenance and changes in marital relationships

The Message is in the Metaphor: Assessing the Comprehension of Metaphors in Advertisements

Although metaphors are used by advertising creators to convey brand meaning and enhance brand information processing, little is understood with regard to consumers' comprehension of intended meaning. This research contributes to this body of knowledge by examining the effect of metaphor type (abstract / concrete) and hemispheric processing on respondents' comprehension of metaphors in ads. Overall, the findings suggest that concrete metaphors are more easily understood than abstract metaphors. This effect is moderated by hemispheric processing such that individuals high in right or integrative processing are more likely to provide valid interpretations of both types of metaphors. These findings are discussed and implications for advertising practitioners are offered

SPARK: A US Cohort of 50,000 Families to Accelerate Autism Research

The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) has launched SPARKForAutism. org, a dynamic platform that is engaging thousands of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and connecting them to researchers. By making all data accessible, SPARK seeks to increase our understanding of ASD and accelerate new supports and treatments for ASD