Resilience as a chance of developmental success for a child with a chronic illness

Chronic physical illness considered as a negative event, a potential stressor or a life crisis can be the risk factor for difficulties in the development of a child. Negative consequences of transactional influence of the factors associated with illness parameters, a child's personality and his or her environment occur particularly in the emotional and social development. This situation can be also the chance for stimulating a development of a child's personality and his or her growing as a person. The theoretical construct that in right way explains the positive transformation in understanding of the context of chronic illness – is a resilience. The meaning of this construct is discussed from the perspective of model proposed by E. Groetberg and assumptions of positive psychology, while its application value is showed in the light of the empirical data. The conceptualization of a developmental success refers to psychological well-being and being a mature and optimally functioning person. Chronic physical illness considered as a negative event, a potential stressor or a life crisis can be the risk factor for difficulties in the development of a child. Negative consequences of transactional influence of the factors associated with illness parameters, a child's personality and his or her environment occur particularly in the emotional and social development. This situation can be also the chance for stimulating a development of a child's personality and his or her growing as a person. The theoretical construct that in right way explains the positive transformation in understanding of the context of chronic illness – is a resilience. The meaning of this construct is discussed from the perspective of model proposed by E. Groetberg and assumptions of positive psychology, while its application value is showed in the light of the empirical data. The conceptualization of a developmental success refers to psychological well-being and being a mature and optimally functioning person. Key words: child with a chronic illness, resilience, developmental success, psychological well-being, mature and optimally functioning perso

Tentative guidelines on a dictionary of intensifiers

The growing body of literature on intensifiers enables us to circumscribe the scope of the phenomenon more accurately and to identify rigorously its linguistic realizations. Yet, the latter are clearly underrepresented or inconsistently treated both in general dictionaries and in textbooks. That is why the need arises to work up a dictionary devoted to means of intensification so that it can serve as a tool to students of French. Rather than simply listing these means, it should be conceived of as a lexicongrammar enabling users both to vary particular forms and to respect syntactic and combinatory constraints. Additionally, it should account for when registers can be conveniently switched. The present paper aims at giving some hints on how such a disctionary should be prepared.The growing body of literature on intensifiers enables us to circumscribe the scope of the phenomenon more accurately and to identify rigorously its linguistic realizations. Yet, the latter are clearly underrepresented or inconsistently treated both in general dictionaries and in textbooks. That is why the need arises to work up a dictionary devoted to means of intensification so that it can serve as a tool to students of French. Rather than simply listing these means, it should be conceived of as a lexicongrammar enabling users both to vary particular forms and to respect syntactic and combinatory constraints. Additionally, it should account for when registers can be conveniently switched. The present paper aims at giving some hints on how such a disctionary should be prepared

The factorial structure and validity of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) in Polish adolescents

Aim. The present study aimed to explore the factorial structure, validity and stability of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) in chronically ill and healthy Polish adolescents. Methods. 146 chronically ill (girls: 57.6%) and 309 healthy (girls: 45.9%) adolescents aged between 12 and 16 years (M = 14.03; SD = 1.3) filled in an adapted version of HADS (HADS-Teen) in hospital or school settings. The one-week test-retest reliability and construct validity was analyzed in two sub-samples of healthy adolescents. Results. HADS-Teen showed a two-factor structure in the chronically ill sample and a three-factor structure in the healthy sample. The Anxiety scale had high internal reliability and stability and adequate correlation with another measure for generalized anxiety. Still, the Depression scale had good stability, but poor internal reliability in both samples. In the healthy sample, the Depression items split into two factors: depressed mood together with psychomotor retardation/agitation and anhedonia. Conclusions. The issues concerned with the factorial structure of HADS are replicated in Polish adolescents as well. HADS-Teen shows different structures in chronically ill versus healthy adolescents. Results indicate that a special attention must be paid when assessing depression symptoms in healthy adolescents using this instrument

Does asthma disturb executive functions and self-regulation in children?

Due to possible psychosocial and neurocognitive factors, asthma may present a risk to children’s executive functions and self-regulation, especially when it is poorly controlled. One hundred and one 8-11 year-old children (patients with asthma, ADHD and healthy peers) and their parents participated in the study. Four cognitive tasks measuring different executive functions and parent and child versions of behavior regulation inventory were used. Children with asthma had more diffi culties shifting their attention between tasks and exhibited more problems in self-regulation than their healthy peers, but their scores were better than children with ADHD. Patients with more intensive treatment, poor symptom control, a history of acute asthma attacks and non-compliance had slightly more diffi culties in executive functions and self-regulation

Consequences of learned helplessness and recognition of the state of cognitive exhaustion in persons with mild intellectual disability

Persons with intellectual disability are a group at risk of being exposed to overly demanding problem-solving situations, which may produce learned helplessness. The research was based on the informational model of learned helplessness. The consequences of exposure to an unsolvable task and the ability to recognize the symptoms of cognitive exhaustion were tested in 120 students with mild intellectual disability. After the exposure to the unsolvable task, persons in the experimental group obtained lower results than the control group in the escape/avoidance learning task, but a similar result was found in the divergent thinking fluency task. Also, participants in the experimental group had difficulties recognizing the symptoms of the cognitive exhaustion state. After a week’s time, the difference in escape/avoidance learning performance was still observed. The results indicate that exposure to unsolvable tasks may negatively influence the cognitive performance in persons with intellectual disability, although those persons may not identify the cognitive state related to lowered performance

Psychometric properties of Self-Perception Profile for Children in a Polish sample

The Self-Perception Profile for Children (SPPC) is a measure which allows one to assess children’s self-concept. Our article presents this instrument’s psychometric properties within a Polish sample. In our study we tested 432 elementary school students and 14 form teachers. As validity indicators we used the Teacher’s Rating Scale of Child’s Actual Behavior (TRS) and the average school grade for the previous semester. The Polish version of SPPC yielded good psychometric properties. The instrument’s factorial structure paralleled the structure of the original version. Reliability was high both in terms of internal consistency and test-retest results. Scale validity was confirmed in the correlational analysis. Boys scored higher than girls in the Physical Appearance and Global Self-Worth subscales but lower in the Behavioral Conduct subscale. Younger children scored higher than older children in the Scholastic Competence, Physical Appearance, and Global Self-Worth subscales. Judgments on children’s physical appearance were the best predictor of their global self-worth

Osoba z niepełnosprawnością ewolucja pojęcia

Over the centuries, the terms used to describe people with limitations, dysfunctions or chronic diseases that impede functioning have changed. Basic terms were defined differently, new terms were created or the meaning (expanded conceptual scope) of earlier words, descriptions or terms was modified. Terms directly defined the identity of individuals and whole groups. They directly determined the attitude to oneself and to other people, as well as others to a person. In the 21st century, it is still an open question which terms are less likely than others to influence marginalization, stigmatization or discrimination. The article defines terms such as cripple, invalid, disability, person with disabilities, types of disabilities. Determinants of change and directions of modification of the conceptual scope are indicate