The African American United Memory and Aging Project: AD Knowledge and Family History as It Relates to Cognition

This study explores the influence of Black adults’ Alzheimer’s disease (AD) knowledge and family history of AD on cognition. A sample of Black adults (n=66, age range=45-84) completed a computerized cognitive (CogState Brief) battery and surveys of AD knowledge, family history of AD diagnosis, and health. On the 14-item AD knowledge survey, participants correctly answered a mean of 10.80 (SD=1.50) items. Approximately, 56% reported a biological family member diagnosed with AD, of these 30% reported this being a mother or father. Linear regression models suggested no significant association between AD knowledge and cognitive performance. However, adults with a family member diagnosed with AD had worse visual learning accuracy even after adjusting for age, education, and income. Increased age was associated with worse processing speed, particularly in adults with a mother diagnosed with AD. These findings demonstrate the importance of examining the influence of family history on Black adults’ cognitive health.

Parents and school in the process of education of foster children – the division of responsibility from the perspective of parents. A research report

Introduction: Children in a foster family have a difficult life situation. This is a challenge for both foster parents and teachers. Cooperation based on shared commitment and understanding gives the child a chance to gain positive life experiences. The acquired knowledge and skills can be a resource that will allow the child to change the (often negative) pattern of life of the biological family they come from. Aim of the study: The aim of the study was understanding how foster parents perceive their cooperation with the school their children attend. Method: The authors applied the interpretive paradigm, the phenomenography method in the study. To collect the data, focus interviews were conducted in three groups of foster parents. In total, 21 parents took part in the study. Results: Foster parents notice the division of responsibility in the process of educating children brought up in their families. Their role is to select an institution, start cooperation, help the child learn and accompany rehabilitation, inform the school staff about the specificity of the child’s functioning, and be the advocate for the child. The role of the staff side, according to parents, is to implement the recommendations of specialists, cooperate with parents, set adequate requirements for the child, and present a friendly attitude towards the child and the foster family. Conclusions: Based on the research results, guidelines for the good cooperation of foster parents with the school were formulated. It is important for teachers to understand the specific situation of not only the child (their life experiences, developmental disorders), but also the foster parent, as well as appreciate their commitment to the child. It would be important to create a support system.

How Does Law Prescribe Circulation of Children? Understanding Different Kinds of Movement Within the Adoption Law in India

This article looks at how adoption law prescribes correct contexts for the legitimate movement of children. It is specifically an analysis of the Adoption Regulation of India, 2017, and the Juvenile Justice Act 2015, and the way in which they warrant three kinds of movement of children through adoption: ‘abandonment’/’surrender’, ‘return’ and ‘giving and taking’. By investigating the precise way in which law formulates definition of these terms, this article attempts to understand how legal terminology comes to affect the kind of sites that the biological family, the state and the adoptive family end up becoming.

Características clínicas de anorexia nervosa extrema. Reporte de caso

Anorexia nervosa is currently considered a disease of great impact due to its association with malnutrition. It occurs mainly in women, adolescents and young adults. The severity is defined by BMI. It is a multifactorial disease, with great influence of the cultural environment, biological, family and personal aspects. No system in the body is spared from the adverse sequelae of these illnesses, especially as anorexia nervosa becomes more severe and chronic. We review the medical complications that are associated with extreme anorexia nervosa. It is also considered as a disease with a high morbidity and mortality rate, due to an increase of up to 6 times the risk of death and the multiple medical complications associated with the disease. Hence, it is essential to increase health resources, reinforce information in first-contact doctors to identify this condition, and increase factors of good prognosis such as early patient care. Keywords: Anorexia nervosa; medical complications; eating disorders

How Anxious are German Preschool Children?

The experience of fear is universal and is among the earliest of all forms of psychopathology, if excessively present. To prevent negative developmental outcomes due to early-onset excessive fears in children, it is important to systematically assess these experiences as early as possible. Using the preschool anxiety scale (PAS), we aimed to assess the frequency and structure of anxiety symptoms of 489 preschool-aged children raised in their biological family and 88 raised in foster care (as a high-risk sample) in Germany. While these young children displayed the same types of anxiety most commonly as young children in other countries, the overall occurrence seems to be reported less often by parents in Germany compared to parents from other countries. Anxiety symptoms clustered into five correlated factors (generalized anxiety, social anxiety, obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), physical injury fear and separation anxiety). Young children in foster care exhibited more OCD and significantly less social anxiety symptoms indicating early repetitive and social disturbances in children in foster care.

Conceptualizing “Family” and the Role of “Chosen Family” within the LGBTQ+ Refugee Community: A Text Network Graph Analysis

This study analyzed meaning attributions regarding “family” and “chosen family” by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Pansexual, Transgender, Gender Queer, Queer, Intersex, Agender, Asexual, and other Queer-identifying community (LGBTQ+) refugees. The meaning and significance of a chosen family in the newly established life of the refugees was also pin-pointed for its value of safekeeping the wellbeing and settlement process. We analyzed narrative statements given by 67 LGBTQ+ refugees from 82 YouTube videos. Using InfraNodus, a text graph analysis tool, we identified pathways for meaning circulation within the narrative data, and generated a contextualized meaning for family and chosen family. The conceptualization process produced a deduction within family relationships, exploring why people, other than in biological relationships, appear to be vital in their overall wellbeing and settlement, as well as the process through which this occurs. Biological family is sometimes associated with words that instigate fear, danger, and insecurity, while the concept of chosen family is associated with words like trusting, like-minded, understanding, welcoming, loving, committed, etc. The results of the study are intended to add knowledge to the gap by showing the types and characteristics of family relationships in LGBTQ+ refugee settings. It is also a call for the relevant research community to produce more evidence in such settings, as this is essential for obtaining a better understanding of these issues.

Family assistant in meanders of foster care – the perspective of working with the biological family of a child placed in foster care environment

The article deals with the issues of family assistance from the perspective of working with the biological family of a child placed in foster care. Family support, implemented by assistants, consists of helping to overcome difficulties in order to prevent children being taken away and placed in a foster care environment, and when this happens, focusing on seeking change and creating safe conditions for their return. Studies cited in the text indicate that biological parents face many problems, among which alcohol addiction is the most common. The assistant, working with the family, needs to perform many tasks, the effects of which depend on the involvement of parents, cooperation with other entities responsible for supporting families experiencing difficulties, and continue supporting parents after the child’s return. The article also attempts to outline the factors that increase the child’s chances of returning to the family, considering the most important aspect that is to say maintaining contact between parents and children in foster care, and cooperation between assistants and biological families, foster families, persons running family children’s homes or representatives of care and educational institutions, and all other entities within the assistance system.

Of Mothers and Sisters: Donatella Di Pietrantonio’s L’Arminuta

Set in Abruzzo, an Italian region seldom represented in the work of contemporary Italian women writers, Donatella Di Pietrantonio’s L’Arminuta (2017) is a compelling novel recounting the protagonist-narrator’s difficult journey toward self-realization following a double-abandonment by both her biological and adoptive mothers. An empowering bond with her long-lost younger sister Adriana, an extraordinarily resourceful and caring ten-year old, allows the protagonist to survive her new, hostile surroundings after her adoptive mother abruptly returns her to her biological family at age thirteen. Despite having gained popular acclaim and several literary prizes, L’Arminuta has not yet received the critical attention it deserves. To date, no scholarly studies of this work have been produced. This article intends to bring long-overdue attention to this neglected novel. In the first part of the article, after analyzing how language and communication signify the development of the protagonist’s identity and her evolving relationships with her two mothers, I engage with philosopher Adriana Cavarero’s analysis of motherhood in her rereading of the Demeter’s myth. Here, I argue that the failed mother-daughter relationships portrayed in L’Arminuta are the result of patriarchal constructions of motherhood that, albeit in different ways, deprive both mothers of the choice not to reproduce, and preclude the formation of validating bonds with their daughter. In the second part of the article, through the lens of Cavarero’s notion of “inclination,” I show how Adriana’s crucial acts of care toward the protagonist counteract her lack of lasting, loving bonds with her mothers, and allow her to endure her double abandonment. L’Arminuta is a powerful and necessary novel that denaturalizes persisting constructions of motherhood as women’s natural fate, and proposes a non-traditional model of care and nurturing that escapes patriarchal definitions of the family.

Safe for Whom? And Whose Families? Narrative, Urban Neoliberalism, and Queer Oral History on San Francisco’s Polk Street

In this essay I reflect on my experience as director of Polk Street: Lives in Transition, a project that drew on oral histories to intervene in debates about gentrification, homelessness, sex work, queer politics, and public safety in the highly polarized setting of gentrifying San Francisco. From 2008–10, I recorded more than seventy oral histories from people experiencing the transformation of the city’s Polk Street from a working-class queer commercial district to a gentrified entertainment destination serving the city’s growing elite. Oral histories enabled me to document a local past rich in non-biological family structures, which I interpreted through public “listening parties,” professionally mediated neighborhood dialogues, a traveling multimedia exhibit, and radio documentaries. The project challenged gentrifiers’ claims to be promoting “safety” and “family” by positing alternative understandings of both concepts drawn from oral histories with transgender women, queer homeless youth, sex workers, and working-class gay men who had made Polk Street their home.

AN EXTRAORDINARY EFFECTIVENESS OF THE NORWEGIAN LAW IN ENFORCING THE CHILDREN`S RIGHTS

Reading the article about the effectively law in Norway you should pay attention to law in your country. Especially in comparison with the norwegian law. One should ask themselves whether he / she would like to live. Whether in the country where the children`s rights are just respected or in the country where the children and their best interests are in the first plan. What is more important to his / her - worth of biological family or immediacy in enforcing children`s rights.