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This study examined the relative contributions of exposure to violence, parental monitoring, and television viewing habits to children's self-reported symptoms of psychological trauma. Children in grades 3-8 in 11 public schools completed an anonymous self-report questionnaire administered during usual school hours. The final sample was comprised of 2245 children who represented 80% of the students in attendance at the participating schools. Students ranged in age from 7 to 15 years; 49% were female, 57% were white, 33% black, and 5% were Hispanic. A model using hierarchical multiple regression explained approximately 39% of the variance in students' overall trauma symptom scores. A combination of demographic variables, daily hours of television viewing, and recent and past exposure to violence were significant contributors to this explained variance. Bivariate analyses of high violence-exposed students (top quartile) revealed approximately 39% of both girls and boys with clinically elevated scores in at least one trauma symptom category. The findings support the need to identify and to provide services for children exposed to violence. (Contains 3 tables.)

An engaged lifestyle is seen as an important component of successful ageing. Many older adults with high participation in social and leisure activities report positive wellbeing, a fact that fuelled the original activity theory and that continues to influence researchers, theorists and practitioners. This study's purpose is to review the conceptualisation and measurement of activity among older adults and the associations reported in the gerontological literature between specific dimensions of activity and wellbeing. We searched published studies that focused on social and leisure activity and wellbeing, and found 42 studies in 44 articles published between 1995 and 2009. They reported from one to 13 activity domains, the majority reporting two or three, such as informal, formal and solitary, or productive versus leisure. Domains associated with subjective wellbeing, health or survival included social, leisure, productive, physical, intellectual, service and solitary activities. Informal social activity has accumulated the most evidence of an influence on wellbeing. Individual descriptors such as gender or physical functioning sometimes moderate these associations, while contextual variables such as choice, meaning or perceived quality play intervening roles. Differences in definitions and measurement make it difficult to draw inferences about this body of evidence on the associations between activity and wellbeing. Activity theory serves as shorthand for these associations, but gerontology must better integrate developmental and psychological constructs into a refined, comprehensive activity theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]