Children's Locus Research Articles

Promoting a Positive Attitude in Pediatric Patients Undergoing Limb Lengthening

Pediatric patients undergoing external fixation for limb lengthening have to adjust to having the devices on their extremities for many months. This treatment requires a great deal of time and commitment from both the child and family in managing the device. Our hospital interdisciplinary limb lengthening (LLD) team discovered that having the patient and family involved is the key to getting children to resume their home routines. The team also discovered that since children's locus of control develops as they mature, the LLD process could give these patients a greater opportunity to develop an internal ("I'm in charge") rather than an external ("powerful others") locus of control. Therefore, it is essential to include the patient and family as part of the interdisciplinary team so that a positive psychologic outcome to limb lengthening can be attained.

Gifted Children's Health Locus of Control: Implications for School Health Curriculum and Instruction

Abstract An extensive review of the literature failed to provide any study that examined gifted children's health locus of control and its implications for school health curricula and instruction. Using the Parcel-Meyer Children's Health Locus of Control Scale, 178 gifted children from a rural Texas county were studied to determine differences in their health locus of control. Results proved significant (p. >0001), and provided evidence to support the postulate that gifted children, in general, may be less prone to adolescent health-risk behaviors than non-gifted children. Results of this study also provided a rationale for modifying both school health curricula and instructional practices for gifted children. Further, results of this study provided a rationale for continued health-related research with gifted populations worldwide.

Health Locus of Control, Self-Concept, and Anxiety in Pediatric Cancer Patients

In a study of 38 pediatric cancer patients, standardized measures of health locus of control achieved only modest to unsatisfactory reliability. Correlations between health locus of control and measures of self-concept and anxiety were low. Some of the items from the scales, however, were significantly related to the patients' feelings of well-being, positive self-concept, and reduced levels of anxiety. An examination of these item correlations and information from a qualitative interview suggest that hopefulness may be more salient for pediatric cancer patients than locus of control. Further research on children's health locus of control should distinguish between clinical and healthy populations.

Issues in the Measurement of Children's Locus of Control

Issues in the Measurement of Children's Locus of Control

Classroom Environment and Locus of Control in Identifying High and Low Self-Concept in Fourth- and Fifth-Graders

This study examined classroom environment and locus of control in identifying successfully children showing high and low self-concepts. In their respective intact classrooms, 107 fourth- and fifth-graders were administered the Piers-Harris Children's Self-concept Scale, the Classroom Environment Scale, and the Nowicki-Strickland Children's Locus of Control Scale. A stepwise discriminant analysis indicated that four variables in combination successfully classified 76% all cases, suggesting the importance of environmental factors associated with classrooms and locus of control in identifying self-concepts of children of elementary-school age.

Concurrent Validity between Children's Locus of Control and Attitudes Toward Home, School, and Peers

The present study examined concurrent validity between the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale and the Behavior Rating Profile: Home, School, and Peer Scales. In all, 268 children (131 males and 137 females) in grades five through eight participated. Results indicated significant negative correlations between locus of control and measures of home, school, and peers for both males and females. Implications are discussed.

Relationship between Fathers' and Mothers' Socialization Practices and Children's Locus of Control in Brazil, the Philippines, and the United States

Abstract This study examined the relationship between children's locus of control and their perceptions of their fathers' and mothers' socialization practices in intact, rural families in Brazil, the Philippines, and the United States. Results showed that Brazilian children scored significantly higher in locus of control, followed by Filipino and American children, respectively. Significant differences were found in locus of control scores between younger and older children in the three samples. Moreover, American and Filipino children's perceptions of their parents' socialization practices were significantly correlated with their locus of control scores. Only one significant relationship was found between Brazilian children's locus of control scores and their parents' socialization practices. The cultural implications of these findings are discussed.

Resilience in children at high risk for psychological disorder.

This longitudinal study examined factors related to healthy adjustment in young children who had experienced conditions and stresses known to carry a substantial risk of adverse outcome. Psychological adjustment of 109 children at age 6 to 7 years was examined for its relationship to infancy risk status, determined at age 1 month by means of a multifactor screen assessing perinatal stress, psychological problems and stresses in the family, maternal attitudes toward self and parenthood, and maternal perceptions of infant temperament. Several variables believed to mediate outcome for high-risk children were studied, including subsequent stressful life events, social support available to child and mother, and child's locus of control orientation. Interactions between predictor variables showed that life events magnify synergistically the adverse effects of infancy risk factors, and social support and internal control orientation potently buffer the effects of risk and stress. Considered jointly in conjunction with their interactions, the predictor variables were strongly predictive of outcome, explaining 56% of the variance observed in behavior problems and 64% of the variance in school problems.

Locus of control as predictor of compliance and outcome in treatment of encopresis

We examined the effectiveness of instruments that describe a child's locus of control and perceived self-competence as predictors of outcome in the treatment of encopresis. Fifty children 9 to 12 years of age completed such instruments prior to clinical interview. Clinicians were blind as to the results of these questionnaires and administered a standard encopresis protocol to all patients. Six to 17 months later, 45 (90%) of the patient's parents were interviewed to assess compliance and treatment outcome. Children who significantly improved had a more internal locus of control (P less than 0.05) and better compliance (P less than 0.05) as determined by two separate outcome variables. Locus of control and compliance were not, however, significantly correlated with each other; each appeared to have an independent association with outcome. There was no association between perceived self-competence and outcome. The positive association between locus of control and outcome was not mediated by socioeconomic status, age, duration of encopresis, severity of encopresis, gender, or time between initiation of treatment and follow-up. Measurement of locus of control in children with encopresis appears to be helpful in identifing a group at high risk for resistance of treatment.

Differential effects of counselling and operant conditioning intervention upon children's locus of reinforcement control beliefs.

The differential effects were examined of counselling and operant conditioning interventions upon locus of control beliefs of 173 pupils in Grade 6, as measured by the abbreviated Children's Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale both before and after an 11-wk. intervention. Whilst both interventions effected significant increases in pupils' internal locus of control beliefs, stronger effects followed counselling.

Loco parentis and locus of control.

The Children's Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Locus of Control Scale was administered to two groups of 45 pregnant adolescents each in a residential maternity home. One group of 45 adolescents had experienced the removal of custody from their biological parents and had been living in foster care. The second group had become pregnant while living with their biological parents. The former group showed a significantly higher mean score on the locus of control scale which reflected a more external locus-of-control orientation. The results are discussed in the light of other studies on locus of control and parental loss.

Changes in stuttering in relation to children's locus of control.

The locus of control of stuttering children before, during, and after treatment for dysfluency was investigated. Subjects participated in a one-week program combining delayed auditory feedback and training of parents to negotiate and implement contracts for their child's practice of stutter-free speech skills. The Children's Nowicki-Strickland Scale was used to measure locus of control before, immediately after, two months after, and six months after the training. Measures of speech dysfluency were available at each of these times and documented the effectiveness of treatment in reducing stuttering. The locus of control scores for stuttering children prior to treatment were comparable to normative groups. Internality on the locus of control measure prior to treatment was directly related to degree of change in dysfluency immediately following the one-week clinic, but not to dysfluency levels at the 2-month or 6-month follow-up sessions. Concomitant with improved speech, the children became progressively more internal following treatment. The results suggest that participation in a behavioral program for the treatment of stuttering increases internality.

The Structure and Competance of Family Units

The relative associations of family structure (intact, vs. one-parent, vs. step-parent family) and of family-system functioning with children's self-esteem and locus of control were examined, using mutivariate analysis. Children in two-parent families had significantly higher self-esteem than children from one-parent families, even when family income was controlled. However, family-system functioning was much more important in predicting self-esteem than was family structure. Implications for clinical and preventive social work practice are discussed.

Children??s Locus of Control Beliefs as Predictors of Preoperative Coping Behavior

This study examined the relationship between children's locus of control beliefs (as measured by the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale) and their preoperative coping behavior. Subjects were 51 children between the ages of 8 and 12 who were scheduled for minor elective surgery. They were interviewed and each child's mode of coping was classified along a dimension termed avoidant-active. The relationships between sex, socioeconomic status, other demographic variables, and the type of preoperative information given to the child by the parent and surgeon were also evaluated. Results showed that children rated as active copers had more internal locus of control scores than children rated as avoidant or as using a combination of avoidant-active coping modes. Children rated as active were given more detailed information about their medical problem and surgery than children rated as using avoidant or a combination of avoidant-active coping modes. Internal locus of control was significantly related to higher socioeconomic status but not to sex or other demographic variables. Regression analysis showed that parent-doctor information and locus of control were independently predictive of coping.

Effects of self-care instruction on asthmatic children.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a nursing instructional program designed to promote self-care in asthmatic children. A pretest-posttest control group design was used with a sample composed of 28 second, third, and fourth grade asthmatic children drawn from 12 schools in a southwestern United States school district. Half of the children (n = 13) were instructed in the self-administration of breathing exercises, self-medication, and basic knowledge of asthma and served as the experimental group. The other half (n = 15) were instructed only in the basic knowledge of asthma and served as the control group. Both instructional programs were conducted in groups, included both parents and children, and were held weekly over a 3- to 4-week period. The child's health locus of control and level of responsibility in self-care activities were measured before the initiation of the instruction and following its completion. Change scores of each of the measures were computed. Performance of th...

Locus of control and depth of processing in children.

A children's locus of control (LOC) measure was administered to 153 sixth-grade students who were subsequently assigned to one of four processing conditions. Groups were instructed to encode a word list semantically, acoustically, orthographically, or any way the S wished and to retain them for a later recognition test. Criterion variables included total number of words correctly recognized as well as four varieties of distractor choices. Support was provided for the contention that externals tend to encode stimuli in more superficial ways than do internals, although the amount of variance in recognition memory accounted for by the LOC measure was small. Encoding conditions had a marked effect on retention, and false distractor choices appeared to reflect the level at which stimulus words were encoded.

Locus of control in juvenile diabetic campers: changes during camp, and relationship to camp staff assessments

Locus of control was measured at the beginning and end of a three-week camp experience in 156 children with juvenile diabetes. The results were compared with those of 30 diabetic children who did not attend camp. Both the Nowicki Strickland Children's Locus of Control and the Parcel Health Locus of Control scales were used. In addition, subjective assessments of diabetes management skills were made in all campers by several staff members. Significant changes toward internal locus of control on the NSLC but not the CHLC were found. The changes in NSLC seem to have persisted for at least one year in a small subsample of 23 children who were retested. Initial scores on both scales correlated moderately with the diabetes management skills ratings made at the end of camp. In view of the apparent importance of the locus of control construct in the self-care expected of most children with juvenile diabetes, the results should stimulate further efforts to examine the usefulness of this measure in relationship to achievement of good control of diabetes.

Mexican- and Anglo American Children's Locus of Control and Achievement in Relation to Teachers' Attitudes

Abstract The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between Anglo- and Mexican American children's locus of control orientations and their reading and math achievement. The relationship between teachers' attitudes and these children's locus of control scores was also examined. Ss were 118 Anglo- and Mexican American fourth- and fifth-grade boys and girls from similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Results showed no significant differences between the two cultural groups for locus of control, teachers' attitudes, and achievement. However, there were significant variations in the intercorrelations of these dependent measures between Anglo- and Mexican American children. Explanations for the findings are suggested and their educational implications discussed.

Teacher-Child Interactions and Children's Locus of Control Tendencies

Teacher-Child Interactions and Children's Locus of Control Tendencies

The Relation of Anglo- and Mexican-American Children's Locus of Control Beliefs to Parents' and Teachers' Socialization Practices

BURIEL, RAYMOND. The Relation of Angloand Mexican-American Children's Locus of Control Beliefs to Parents' and Teachers' Socialization Practices. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1981, 52, 104113. Studies in the area of locus of control have tended to neglect the familial antecedents of this variable, particularly among ethnic minorities. Research with minorities has also tended to overlook the role of teachers in the development of children's locus of control beliefs. The present investigation examined how the locus of control orientations of Mexicanand AngloAmerican children are related to their descriptions of their mothers', fathers', and teachers' socialization practices. Results showed no significant ethnic differences in locus of control or perceptions of parents' and teachers' socialization practices. There were, however, significant variations in the relation of parents' and teachers' socialization behaviors to children's locus of control scores as a function of both children's and adults' sex and ethnicity, as well as the nature (I+ or I-) of the locus of control dimension being considered. In addition, teachers' socialization behavior showed a more pervasive relation to children's locus of control scores than did parental behavior. Results are discussed in terms of the sexually and culturally relevant nature of the findings.