Paidéia (Ribeirão Preto)

285-292

Authors: Cristian Zanon, Micheline Roat Bastianelloc, Juliana Cerentini Pacico, Claudio Simon Hutz

Strong associations of Neuroticism and Extraversion with positive affects (PA) and negative affects (NA) have been reported in the international literature. This study aimed to evaluate the occurrence of such relationships in a Brazilian sample,and also to investigate the role of Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and Openness in the prediction of PA and NA through the useof a hybrid structural model. Participants were 319 university students, between 17 and 37 years of age (mean = 21.5, SD = 4.9). Approximately 64% of the students were female and 36% male. Results showed that Neuroticism was the most important predictor of PA and NA, followed by Conscientiousness, but not Extraversion. Surprisingly, Agreeableness was shown to be a weak prediction for NA, but had no relationship with PA. As expected, Openness showed no relationship with PA or NA. These results are partially in agreement with the international literature but some important differences were detected.

301-309.

Authors: Makilim Nunes Baptista, Juliana Oliveira Gomes, Adriana Munhoz Carneiro

This study’s objective was to analyze the diagnostic capabilities of a depression screening scale. For that, this scale was administered along with two diagnostic instruments, namely, the structured clinical interview from the DSM-IV (SCID-CV) and the Hamilton Depression Scale (HAM-D), which are considered to be the gold standard for diagnosing depressive disorders. Participants were 22 subjects diagnosed by psychiatrists with Major Depressive Disorder. The EBADEP-A correctly identified cases of depression, showing a high correlation with the HAM-D, which indicates the scale correctly captures most depressive symptoms, even though it was initially used as a depression-screening tool.

321-328

Authors: Dandara de Oliveira Ramos, Maria Lucia Seidl-de-Moura, Luciana Fontes Pessôa

In this study, we compared the Future Goals of 160 youngsters (16-30 years-old; 71 female and 89 male). University students and slum-dwelling youth were compared. Participants completed a sociodemographic questionnaire, information about their families and two open questions: “What do you expect to do in your life that you consider very important?” and “Do you believe you’ll achieve that? Why?” Predicted differences in the participants’ answers between the two groups were observed. Favela youth showed higher levels of uncertainty while describing their goals and also presented lower scores of objectives. From an Evolutionary perspective of Psychology, through the Life Story Strategies Theory, we concluded that, for young people from different social contexts, the ways of planning the future tend to vary depending on the adaptability of achievement due to the present constraints in the youth’s realities.

339-347

Authors: Danila Secolim Coser, Cláudia Maria Simões Martinez, Renata Christian de Oliveira Pamplin

This study’s objective was to verify potential relationships among personal well-being, parental practices, and interactions between parents and preschool children reported by working fathers and mothers (n = 120, 60 couples) from a city in the interior of São Paulo, Brazil. Data were collected using the Questionnaire on family and professional lives. Three scales were selected for data analysis: well-being; interaction between parents and children; and family life. Statistical tests (One-Way ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation coefficient) showed negative correlations between childrearing practices and health problems reported by parents. Positive correlations were also found between reported parental interactions and child-rearing practices. Parental practices and interactions between parents and children varied according to the number of children (one or two).

359-367

Authors: Lara Lages Gava, Débora Dalbosco Dell’Aglio

Currently, there is no standardized protocol for the evaluation of situations of sexual abuse. Thus, this study investigated the techniques used by psychologists in forensic examinations in cases of suspected child and adolescent sexual abuse in the context of the criminal investigation. Semi-structured interviews, which were qualitatively analyzed using the WebQDA software, were applied with twelve psychologists who work as expert witnesses in the Medical-Legal Institute of six Brazilian capitals. The results showed a diversity of actions taken in the forensic examination practice, as well as consensus and controversy regarding the use of psychological testing and the credibility assessment of the report. Flexibility in conducting the forensic examinations by the teams was also observed, with the techniques used adapted according to the needs. The importance of the diversity of techniques was highlighted, as these aim to assist the expert witness to come to reliable conclusions, as well as maintain the rigor and technical quality of the evaluation.

379-387

Authors: Miriam Bratfisch Villa, Zilda Aparecida Pereira Del Prette

Among the multiple determinants of marital satisfaction, evidence points to the social skills of married couples. This study investigates the correlations between these constructs, cross-correlating data from husband and wives. A total of 406 married individuals, 188 men and 218 women, completed the Marital Satisfaction Scale, Social Skills Inventory (SSI-Del-Prette) and Marital Social Skills Inventory (MSSI-Villa&Del-Prette). The results revealed a significant correlation among the scores of the three instruments, confirming the relationship between marital satisfaction and the social skills of married couples. In the cross-correlations, three classes of marital social skills (proactive self-control, reactive self-control and expressiveness/empathy) were more strongly correlated to husbands’ marital satisfaction, and husbands’ three social skills (assertive conversation, selfassertiveness and expressiveness/empathy) were correlated with wives’ marital satisfaction. Gender differences concerning the importance of one spouse’s social skills leading to the other spouse’s satisfaction are stressed as an item to be used in detailed diagnostics and effective interventions with couples. Some issues for future research are also discussed.

397-406

Authors: Raquel Eloísa Eisenkraemer, Antônio Jaeger, Lilian Milnitsky Stein

The retrieval of a given piece of information from memory increases the long-term retention of that information, a phenomenon often called “testing effect”. The current study aimed to select and review articles on the testing effect to verify the extent and importance of this phenomenon, bringing the main results of recent research. To accomplish this, a systematic review of articles on this subject published between 2006 and 2012 was conducted, a period in which there was an acute increase in the amount of publications on this subject. The articles were searched in the databases Web of Science, PubMed and PsycINFO. The results, which were organized according to test format (recall and recognition tests), demonstrated that tests can be remarkably beneficial to the retention of long-term memories. A theoretical explanation regarding the cognitive processes involved in this phenomenon still needs to be developed and tested. Such explanation would have important implications for the development of efficient educational practices.

151 - 160

Authors: William W. Dressler, H. J. Francois Dengah II, Mauro Campos Balieiro, José Ernesto dos Santos

Cultural consonance is the degree to which individuals approximate prototypes encoded in cultural models. Low cultural consonance is associated with higher psychological distress. Religion may moderate the association between cultural consonance and psychological distress. Brazil, with substantial variation in religion, is an important society for the examination of this hypothesis. Research was conducted in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, using a mixed-methods design. Measures of cultural consonance were derived using ethnographic methods and then applied in a survey of 271 individuals drawn from four distinct social strata. Low cultural consonance was associated with higher psychological distress in multiple regression analysis (B = -.430, p < .001). Members of Pentecostal Protestant churches reported lower psychological distress independently of the effect of cultural consonance (B = -.409, p < .05). There was no buffering effect of religion. Implications of these results for the study of religion and health are discussed.

171-178

Authors: Lorena Maria Laskoski, Jean Carlos Natividade, Claudio Simon Hutz

Shame and guilt are terms easily mixed in everyday life and often used as synonyms. Although they are words of similar use, they represent theoretically different moral emotions. The aims of this study were to develop and validate instruments to assess shame and guilt and to test the empirical independence of the constructs. Five hundred and eighty high school students from three Brazilian states participated in this study, 55% of them female, with an average age of 16.0 years. The participants answered a questionnaire containing socio demographic questions and scales designed for this study in order to assess shame and guilt. The scales developed gave appropriate evidence of validity and reliability. A single factor was extracted to assess shame and two factors to assess guilt (recognition of mistake and regret). The constructs revealed to be correlated, but independent. It is considered that there is suffi cient evidence to affi rm that shame and guilt are emotions with distinctive peculiarities and can be measured using the instruments developed in this research.

187-196

Authors: Paulo Rogério Meira Menandro, Emmanuel Zagury Tourinho, Antônio Virgílio Bittencourt Bastos, Oswaldo Hajime Yamamoto

This article presents two sets of information of historical interest for Psychology: regarding the context in which the profession of psychologist was regulated, and the graduate level formation. These sets of information are used to discuss the diffi culty in promoting de facto articulation between undergraduate and graduate level programs. This is an especially curious diffi culty, as, since the initial phase of the organization of the Brazilian Graduate Program, the need to consider its integration with the undergraduate formation has always been highlighted. Nevertheless, some diffi culties still persist with respect to this integration. Some proposals of activities that could provide articulation between the different levels of formation are presented for debate, both in the sphere of teaching and supervision, as well as in the context of research, with related activities that can serve the same purpose also being mentioned.

207-215

Authors: Milena da Rosa Silva, Luiz Carlos Prado, Cesar Augusto Piccinini

Given the specifi cities of postpartum maternal depression, the literature recommends that fathers become involved in psychological interventions within this context. This study presents an investigation of the participation of fathers in parentinfant psychotherapy in the context of maternal postpartum depression. Two families participated in this study, both with a child aged between 7 and 8 months old, whose mothers showed depressive symptoms. These families participated in parentinfant psychotherapy lasting approximately 12 sessions. Analysis of the fathers’ participation in psychotherapy showed that their presence during sessions enables the therapy to address aspects of parenthood, and also reduce the feeling of mothers as being the only ones responsible for the family’s process of change. In regard to the technique, the presence of fathers during sessions allows the therapist to see and address the issues concerning mother-father-infant during sessions.

225-233

Authors: Sandra Regina Kirchner Guimarães

Starting with the alphabetic stage of writing acquisition, the learner struggles with issues related to spelling, including the segmentation of writing in graphic words. This study examined the conventional segmentation of words and its relation to morphosyntactic awareness in a sample of students in the 4th and 5th years of elementary education in public schools. Results reveal a discrepancy between the oral identifi cation of words and performance in the segmentation of writing, with three criteria being used by students to defi ne “word”: (1st) full meaning; (2nd) sequence of letters, not only one or two; (3rd) frequency of word use. Statistical analyses revealed signifi cant positive correlations between conventional segmentation and morphosyntactic awareness. It is inferred that morphosyntactic skills support the establishment of the conventional notion of the word, and it is suggested that teachers promote the development of these skills, in order to ensure a greater command of the written language

243-251

Authors: Rosimeri de Oliveira Dias, Virgínia Kastrup

This study analyzes the formation of teachers and its relationships with the skills society. According to Sennett the skills society appears in the capitalism mutations and brings within it the notion of portable potential ability, stimulating the workers, so they can cope with acceleration and the short-term of information. The investigation distinguishes two cognition policies in the formation of teachers: (in)formation and (trans)formation, which co-exist. The fi rst is based on information and connects knowing with the transmission and processing of symbolic representations. The second is grounded in experience and highlights the inseparable relationship between knowledge and invention. The study suggests that the processes which reduce formation to training and information, aiming for the development of abilities and competences, consider formation as the acquisition of knowledge ready to be consumed. In another direction, training is an inventive process, which is based on problematization and the knowledge construction experience.

263-271

Authors: Lélio Moura Lourenço, Makilim Nunes Baptista, Luciana Xavier Senra, Adriana A. Almeida, Caroline Basílio, Fernanda Monteiro de Castro Bhona

The aim of this study was to carry out a systematic review of the literature on the consequences of exposure to domestic violence – DV for children. The period 2005-2011 was searched in Medline, Lilacs, Scielo, Web of Science, Dialnet, Redalyc, Google Scholar and PsycInfo, using the following descriptors: intimate partner violence, domestic violence, violence descriptors (physical, sexual, psychological), and child, exposure or witness. The author, country, methodology, journal and the consequences of exposure to DV were considered. 122 articles were selected. The United States and Brazil accounted for 78.7% of the publications, with children being the main victims (51.6%). The major impacts upon children´s health were posttraumatic stress and insecurity (75.8%).

9-20

Authors: Marisa Matias, Anne Marie Fontaine

To have a child is considered to be a decision infl uenced by several factors. This paper describes the process of development and validation of an instrument in Portuguese language to analyze the motives underlying this decision. The Motives toward Parenthood Scale was developed using a revision of previous studies and instruments. Exploratory and confi rmatory factor analyses were performed using different samples. The fi nal scale is composed of 30 items and 4 factors: Emotional Enrichment, Social Recognition, Lifestyle Interference and Anticipation of Problems in the development of the child. All subscales showed good internal consistency and good factorial stability. This instrument is expected to allow for a more comprehensive analysis of the decision to have a child

31-41

Authors: Sandra Coelho, Cristina Petrucci Albuquerque, Mário Rodrigues Simões

This study’s objective was to characterize the neuropsychological functioning of children with Specifi c Language Impairment (SLI), in the areas of visual and verbal memory, attention/executive functions, and visual-perceptual functions. The sample consisted of 28 children with SLI and 28 children without SLI. Both groups were comparable in terms of age, gender, school grade and socioeconomic level. The assessment instruments used are part of Coimbra’s Neuropsychological Assessment Battery and data were analyzed through parametric and nonparametric statistical tests. In general, the results differentiate the performances of children with SLI from those observed in children without SLI. In comparison to the control group, the group of children with SLI obtained poorer results in visual memory and verbal memory, selective and sustained attention, executive functions, semantic verbal fl uency, visual-perceptual functions and processing speed

53-61

Authors: Marina Rezende Bazon, Juliana Martins Faleiros

This study sought to identify: (a) what educational professionals think about reporting child maltreatment; (b) how they deal with cases; and (c) their reasons for not reporting. The participants included 22 principals/coordinators and 139 teachers in public schools in two towns in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. A questionnaire was applied to identify socio-demographic characteristics and knowledge on the subject, and an open question addressed the act of reporting. The quantitative and interpretative analysis of data indicates that most teachers had had contact with suspected cases of abuse and reported such cases to the school administration. The school administration, however, often decided not to report cases but tried to resolve the situation by talking and/or referring those involved to treatment. The main reasons for not reporting cases included fear and lack of trust in the child protection system. As a consequence, these professionals are not playing their due role in the child protection system.

73-82

Authors: Bruno Figueiredo Damásio, Rômulo Lustosa Pimenteira de Melo, Joilson Pereira da Silva

The aim of this study was to evaluate the levels of meaning in life (MIL), psychological well-being (PWB) and quality of life (QOL) in a large sample of school teachers, and to observe to what extent the MIL could act as a moderator variable in the relation between PWB and general QOL. The study included 517 teachers from 57 public and private schools in the city of Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brazil, 174 men and 343 women (averaging 36.5 years old, SD = 10.34). The results showed that a signifi cant portion of professionals had negative indexes of MIL, PWB and QOL. Inferential analyses showed MIL as a predictor variable of both PWB and QOL. Moderation analysis demonstrated that the PWB and QOL showed distinct correlations for individuals with high and low levels of MIL. Refl ections for future research and occupational health interventions are suggested.

93-101

Authors: Carolina Piazzarollo Loureiro, Debora de Hollanda Souza

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between theory of mind and moral judgment (based on intention and based on motive) in a sample of Brazilian preschool children. Twenty-four 4- and 5-year olds were assessed in theory of mind and moral reasoning tasks. Although the correlation between performances in the two types of task was not signifi cant, some important effects were found: participants were better at judging intentional behaviors than accidental ones and 5-year-olds performed better than 4-year-olds in the moral reasoning task based on motive. These results suggest that more sophisticated moral reasoning is associated with the capacity to differentiate intentional and non-intentional actions as well as to identify the underlying motives of human action.

113-120

Authors: Tatiane Mitleton Borges Ramos, Luiz Jorge Pedrão

User embracement and bonding are technical and political devices that aim to guarantee qualifi ed health care. This study aimed to assess user embracement and bonding among professionals and users at a multidisciplinary care service for people diagnosed with eating disorders. Through fourth-generation evaluation, 16 users and seven professionals were interviewed. Results were grouped in three thematic units: posture, technique and access. Data analysis, based on the dimensions mentioned, disclosed some elements that are necessary to establish user embracement and bonding: service comprehensiveness, intersectoriality, interdisciplinarity, professional training and humanization of care. It was concluded that, from the perspective of users and professionals, the service aims to offer user-centered care through procedures that prioritize the human dimension of the people who receive care, with considerable effectiveness in its actions, despite some limitations and shortages.

129-139

Authors: Ana Paula Porto Noronha, Nelimar Ribeiro de Castro, Fernanda Ottati, Mariana Varandas de Camargo Barros, Priscilla Rodrigues Santana

The aim in this study was to verify the contents taught and teaching methods used by undergraduate Psychology teachers, specifi cally in the subjects related to psychological assessment. A two-part questionnaire was used: the fi rst part served to characterize the participants, and the second the subjects taught. Twenty-two teachers participated. Among the respondents, 72.7% were female, 77.3% were psychological assessment teachers and 45.5% had graduated from public universities. For the open question, about the subjects taught, analysis and expert analysis categories were established. About the subjects taught, most respondents teach the techniques and theoretical foundations of tests. In contrast, the history of assessment and the elaboration principles of psychological documents were the topics taught least.

305-314

Authors: Eva Diniz, Silvia Helena Koller

This study aimed to assess factors associated with teen pregnancy among low-income Brazilian adolescents (N = 452) with pregnancy experience (n = 226) and without this experience (n = 226). The mean of age of the sample was 16.86 years old (SD = 1.35) and 64% were girls. A multivariate analysis demonstrated that teen pregnancy was associated with: living with the partner; use of oral contraception; lower age of the fi rst sexual intercourse; use of alcoholic drink; and less home chores division. It was observed that teen pregnancy tends to appear when a conjugation of developmental risk variables exists. These results could be helpful to those who work with adolescents as well as to teen pregnancy prevention campaigns.

325-333

Authors: Diogo Araújo DeSousa, Elder Cerqueira-Santos

The literature is consensual regarding the importance of friendships throughout the lifespan; most of the time for improvements in the quality of life. The aim of this study was to investigate and describe intimate friendship relationships among young adults. Participants were 98 young adults aged between 18 and 30. Sampling procedures were based on the Respondent Driven Sampling technique. The instrument was composed of three self-report questionnaires and data were analyzed quantitatively. Results showed homogeneity of characteristics among intimate friends, especially concerning the gender. Companionship emerged as the most distinctive aspect of friendships. All friendship functions showed positive correlations with each other. There seems to be a fi lter of similarities in the friendships of young adults. Also, friendships that show good quality in one specifi c function tend to be good quality friendships as a whole.

347-353

Authors: Gabriela Pavarini, Débora de Hollanda Souza

Preschool-aged children already show interest in other people’s mental states. The goal of the present research was to investigate if this interest is refl ected on four to six year-old children’s preferences for either emotional or behavioral descriptions of events, and whether there is a correlation between those preferences and their emotion understanding. Thirty seven children (21 girls and 16 boys) were asked to describe four different movie scenes and their understanding of emotions was assessed. The results revealed an effect of age on the frequency of emotional descriptions, F(2, 34) = 6.7, p < 0.01, as well as a correlation between the frequency of emotional descriptions and participants’ level of emotion understanding (r = 0.55, p < 0.001). These results are consistent with evidence suggesting an increase in the spontaneous production of emotion terms in the preschool years.

365-374

Authors: Ana Lúcia Galinkin, Angela Maria de Oliveira Almeida, Vânia Cristine Cavalcante Anchieta

This article aims to identify the social representations that teachers and police offi cers construct about violence, particularly that practiced by young people. The study participants were 15 high school teachers from two private schools and 16 police offi cers from four police stations, including both males and females. For the data collection, the focus groups technique was used with subsequent content analysis of the discourse corpus related to violence and its causes. The teachers and police offi cers indicated the modern family as a reason for the violence committed by young people because their role in the socialization of the children is being abandoned. They understand that the responsibility for the education of the young people is being transferred to them by the family.

383-392

Authors: Lara Mundim Moreira, Roberta Albuquerque Ferreira, Áderson Luiz Costa Junior

The present study evaluated global well-being and distress behavior among caregivers and the diffi culties faced by physicians, as subsidy to the proposition of a new service protocol for an ambulatory of palliative care. In the fi rst phase, the global well-being and distress behavior indicators of ten patients’ caregivers were evaluated using the General Comfort Questionnaire (GCQ) and the Impact of Event Scale - Revised (IES-R), respectively. In the second phase, physicians were interviewed about their opinions concerning palliative care and the diffi culties of referring patients to the ambulatory. The negative Spearman correlation between the results of both instruments applied to caregivers, suggests that higher levels of distress are associated with lower global well-being scores. By physicians the demand for greater integration between curative and palliative ambulatories was verifi ed, what would increase fl uidity amongst the teams and the maintenance of bonds between patients, families and professionals.

403-412

Authors: Sheila Giardini Murta, Andréia Crispim Rodrigues, Isabela de Oliveira Rosa, Silvia Guimarães de Paulo

This paper describes an assessment of needs and a process evaluation of a longitudinal support program to fi rsttime parents. A couple participated in a longitudinal intervention, with nine home visits, focused on the development of parental skills and couple empowerment. The baby-parents interaction and the couple reactions to the intervention were video recorded and after registered into the Process Evaluation Protocol. The data analysis has shown that the couple felt satisfi ed with the program and used the information and strategies received, with a positive impact on the dimensions of conjugality, with better communication and interpersonal problem solving and parenthood, with the development of knowledge on the infant’s development, change in beliefs related to violent parental educational practices, responsiveness in the relationship between the baby and the parents alongside lower parental stress. Replications of this study in bigger samples with follow-up evaluations are recommended.

423-432

Authors: Juliane Callegaro Borsa, Bruno Figueiredo Damásio, Denise Ruschel Bandeira

The adaptation of psychological instruments is a complex process that requires a high methodological rigor. Because there is no consensus in the literature about its steps, this article discuss some essential aspects regarding the crosscultural adaptation of psychological instruments and proposes guidelines to the researchers about the different steps of this process. Some considerations regarding the validation of the adapted instrument are also presented. In this stage, we discuss some aspects regarding the factorial structure of the instrument, which might be evaluated through statistical procedures, such as exploratory and confi rmatory factor analysis. More than that, the authors provide some guidelines to the validation of psychological instruments in different cultures

91-99

Authors: Keila Hellen Barbato Marcondes, Silvia Regina Ricco Lucato Sigolo

Family and school are considered essential environments for human development and it is desirable that a close bond be established between them. Based on this premise, this study analyzes the relationships established between school and the families of children with low school performance in a context in which the school adopts the Continuous Progression system – an educational system that avoids holding students in the same grade at the end of the school year. Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological perspective is the theoretical framework used in this study. Six children, their parents or caretakers, and teachers participated in the study. Semi-structured interviews and observation were used for collecting data, which were then evaluated regarding two categories: involvement and communication. Even though the results highlight communication as the main means of exchange between both contexts, communication still needs to be improved. Families and schools understand they must collaborate with each other, but such a relationship needs to be re-constructed because it is currently asymmetrical and loaded with prejudice.

165-175

Authors: Cilio Ziviani, Terezinha Féres-Carneiro, Andrea Seixas Magalhães

Based on the theory of the indissoluble link, this study aims to validate the scale Father and Mother as a Couple scale (FMC), addressed to marital relations between parents as perceived by their sons and daughters, referring to various components of this construct. The PMC, consisting of eleven pairs of items, and distinguishing father and mother in the same variable, is part of a broader instrument, the Questionnaire on Parents as a Couple (QPC), comprising 60 items overall. The non-probability sample consists of 1,612 youth, 678 men and 934 women, between 18 and 29 years. The analyses presented empirical evidence favoring the validation of this scale as consisting of a single dimension which has, however, been considered as comprising the fi rst principal component interpreted as explicit, and the second one as implicit, both in the father and mother subscales with Cronbach’s alphas, respectively, .85 and .86. The Möbius strip is proposed for modeling the explicit-implicit dimensionality

187-196

Authors: Elaine Cristina Gardinal-Pizato, Edna Maria Marturano, Anne Marie Germaine Victorine Fontaine

The conception that early childhood education (ECE) positively affects academic progress is well established. The purpose of this study was to verify the impact of time of exposure to ECE on the academic performance of children and evaluate their academic progress from the 3rd to the 5th grade when there is exposure to early childhood education. Participants were 294 public school students (both genders) divided into three groups: no ECE, one year of ECE, and two years of ECE. Academic achievement was assessed in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades through the judgment of teachers and collective written evaluations of the Portuguese language and mathematics. An Academic Achievement test was administered to 3rd and 5th year students. A multivariate analysis with repeated measures, controlled for socioeconomic level, showed ECE was consistently associated with greater achievement, though one extra year in ECE did not show any additional effect on academic performance. Further research is required due to the implications of this last result for public policies.

207-216

Authors: Filipa Daniela Marques, Liliana Sousa

Constructing family integrity is a normal developmental challenge for older people, which is infl uenced by the family and social systems. This study examined the life trajectories of older people who lived in poverty throughout their lives and how they evolve towards family integrity or family disconnection. A semi-structured interview on family integrity was administered to 12 participants aged over 64 years old (six of each sex), three in each group were considered as living family integrity situation or disconnection. The main fi ndings suggested that some common circumstances of poverty in people’s lives namely: family confl ict and/or distance, domestic violence, (e)migration, multiple severe chronic diseases, informal work, low income, may prevent family integrity and promote family disconnection/alienation. However, participants who were able to reframe negative events as positive tended to achieve family integrity.

229-239

Authors: Lúcia Gouvêa Buratto, Maria Amelia de Almeida, Maria da Piedade Resende da Costa

The present study aimed to determine whether the use of the Picture Exchange Communication System - PECS favored the communication of an adolescent from the Kaingang indigenous population with intellectual disabilities and language disorders. To verify the effects of the independent variable a single subject design was performed, which involved two phases: baseline and intervention. The system was readapted considering the social, cultural, moral and religious values as well as the habits and customs of that ethnic group. The results showed that the use of the readapted alternative communication system helped to improve the non-verbal communication of the indigenous adolescent and increased her vocabulary, previously considered very restricted and unintelligible.

251-260

Authors: Robson Santos de Oliveira, Maria da Conceição Diniz Pereira de Lyra

This study discuss Yakubinsky’s contribution for the study of language and his infl uence on Bakhtin Circle. We describe facets of his academic background and environment in which he worked. We analyze his contributions relating them with the intellectuals belonging to Bakhtin Circle. We particularly analyze the text “On dialogical speech”, highlighting characteristics of Yakubinsky’s work such as the natural character of dialogue and its requirement for a social context, the conception of dialogue and monologue and the automatism of language in the interaction with the other. We fi nish by emphasizing the role and actuality of Yakubinsky for the comprehension of dialogism

271-279

Authors: Seille Cristine Garcia-Santos, Leandro da Silva Almeida, Blanca Susana Guevara Werlang

This paper presents an analysis from the perspective of Positive Psychology of explanations from researchers concerning human excellence and what promotes and maintains it in the most varied domains. Personal and contextual factors are mentioned in the literature, while cognitive skills and intentional practice to achieve excellence stand out; personality variables are also critical to the development and demonstration of excellence. Based on the literature, this study suggests the importance of persistence, emotional control, and openness to experience.