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The combination of social, cognitive and communicative deficits associated with autism has contributed to a unique and complex relationship between parents and professionals who serve these individuals. This relationship has changed over time from one in which parents were blamed for their children's autism to the present situation in which the emphasis is on a parent-professional partnership. This paper addresses some of the roots of non-productive parent-professional interactions related to individuals with autism and suggests some standards which might lead to more fruitful and positive relationships.

A study of six small, task-oriented groups was conducted to examine the superiority of humor as it applied to the formal and informal status structures of the focal groups. Three of the groups were units in business firms and three were units in health care organizations. Questions were raised regarding the conventional wisdom of joking be havior on the job. The relatively more professional and highly trained groups in health care displayed humor patterns different from those predicted by the superionty theory of humor. Specifically, high-status individuals were integral parts of the humor network and enjoyed no particular "joking monopoly."

ONE GOAL OF THE LONGMAN MONOGRAPH SERIES IS TO EXAMINE THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION AS A SOCIAL PROCESS AND COMMUNICATION POLICY. BRIAN WEINSTEIN, A POLITICAL SCIENTIST AT HOWARD UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D.C., ACHIEVE THIS GOAL BY ILLUSTRATING THE FACT THAT THE VERY OPERATION OF A POLITICAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM IS ITSELF A POLITICAL OUTCOME. WEINSTEIN HAS STUDIED THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE IN NUMEROUS SOCIETIES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, AND HAD DIRECT PERSONAL EXPERIENCE IN FRANCOPHONE AFRICA, INDIA, AND THE UNITED STATES. HE IS NEITHER A MARXIST NOR A REPRESENTATIVE OF ANY OTHER IDENTIFIABLE SCHOOL OF THOUGHT. HIS APPROACH IS BROADLY LIBERAL, AND IN IDENTIFYING LANGUAGE POLICY OPTIONS WHERE AMERICAN TRADITION HAS FAILED TO IDENTIFY THEM, OR HAS SILENTLY INSISTED UPON LINGUISTIC CONFORMITY, HE VENTURES VIEWPOINTS THAT OTHER AMERICAN SCHOLARS HAVE FAILED TO EXPRESS.

The private and professional lives of 240 out of a total of 838 Polish Olympians who participated in the Olympics from 1948 to 1972 were studied in detail. Different types of relationships between educational advancement and a career in sport are outlined. Three types of former Olympians are described with reference to the way in which they perceive their role as athletes and representatives of the Polish society. Former top athletes retain a high social status and engage in notable activities in social and cultural life. The tendency to compare the current social position with that attained as an Olympian permeates all spheres of life.

The sources of social stability & legitimacy in the East European Communist system are postulated, including mobility into elite & professional positions, industrialization & urbanization, & security. However, these are becoming more & more elusive & industrial unrest in the 1980s appears to be inevitable. The Wc promises to be a problem because of changed relationships in the world market. The role of the Ucs in hindering the system's efficiency, increasing SC & SS gaps, generation shifts within the industrial Wc, & the Wc's irrepressible nature are also noted. East European countries may be able to find workable solutions to these problems, as long as there are no effective domestic challenges to the legitimacy of state authority. J. Cannon.

Despite the indubitable cohesiveness of their community life, Nigerian psychiatric patients had social networks with deficiencies not dissimilar to those reported for patients in the industrialised societies. Interactions between these Nigerian patients as focal persons and other members of their network, were found to be intense, but seemed to lack a strong affectional core. As expected, the separated, and the divorced patients scored less than the married patients on intensity of social relationships, but the two groups were not significantly different on all other network parameters examined. These findings should constitute a substratum of a kinship community-based counselling service with the goal of providing individual-oriented support for the psychiatrically disabled persons. It is believed that this may be realised by the relevant training and utilisation of para-professionals; effective liaison with families and special attention to prevailing concepts and socio-cultural norms.

A GREAT DEAL OF EFFORT AND A LOT OF ANALYTICAL INGENUITY HAS GONE INTO THE MAKING OF ABRAHAMIAN'S BOOK. IT IS, HE TELLS US, "AN ANALYSIS OF THE SOCIAL BASES OF IRANIAN POLITICS, FOCUSING ON HOW SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT HAS GRADUALLY TRANSFORMED THE SHAPE OF IRANIAN POLITICS FROM THE EYE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY TO THE TRIUMPH OF THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION IN FEBRUARY 1979." IT CONCENTRATES ON THE CONDITIONS WITHIN IRANIAN SOCIETY THAT LED TO DIFFERENT MODES OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY, TRANSFORMATION OF FORMS OF SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS, AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE BURAUCRATIC/PROFESSIONAL MIDDLE CLASSES IN INDUSTRY, AGRICULTURE, AND BUSINESS. CLEARLY THIS IS AN AMBITIOUS UNDERTAKING AND FORTUNATELY WE ARE OFFERED A VERY SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED PRODUCT THAT MEETS THE HIGH STANDARD OF SCHOLARSHIP AND METICULOUS RESEARCH WE HAVE COME TO EXPECT FROM ABRAHAMIAN'S WORKS OVER THE YEARS.

The present research used a systems approach to assess the value of afour-year organization development program to an organization and its employee partic ipants. The study was conducted within an environmentally dependent research unit of a multinational Midwest-based corporation. Sales volume, climate/ structure, and perceptual data permitted exploration of relationships among (a) the organization's ability to meet environmental demands, (b) intraorganiza tional climate/structure changes, (c) effectiveness of the OD program for the organization, and (d) perceived value of OD experiences to the program's partic ipants. Subjects represented the total management population and a simple random sample of professional employees (i.e., researchers) within the unit. Results suggest that an OD program may be judged effective at the system level but not necessarily at the group or individual level of analysis. Further, system adaptation may be measured by observation of structural changes, but subjective evaluation of OD program effectiveness may be moderated by the amount and source of conflict experienced within the working environment.

Recent literature suggests that control of corporations has shifted from individual capitalists to financial institutions. The article, based on original research, examines the relationship between ownership and control in relation to one set of financial institutions, namely pension funds.Focusing particularly on the role of employee representatives on trustee boards of pension schemes, the authors first suggest that the notion of ownership is even less clearcut in the case of pension funds than it is for public corporations. Recognition of pensions as deferred pay implies that the funds should belong to the scheme members, but ownership rights are severely circumscribed. Turning to the control issue, the authors report first on the recent increase in employee representation; they look at the content of decision-making, focusing specifically on three areas: investment, information and the selection of professional staff; and then examine the structure of decision-making, looking both at institutional features (e.g. the relation between participation and collective bargaining) and financial practices. They conclude by stressing the diversity of types of influence exercised, suggesting the presence of complex and multiple relationships between ownership and control.

The paper first examines how U.S. immigration policies and economic adaptation of the Chinese affect and modify the Chinese family system in the U.S. and then proceeds to discuss the development of the various types of Chinese American families: the old immigrant families, new immigrant families, American born Chinese families, the families of Chinese professionals and non residential extended families. These families differ not only in size but also in intrafamilial relationships and cultural identities. Some of these families are more Old World oriented; others are U.S. oriented. Some straddle two cultures - Chinese and American. Some are characterized by dominance of the traditional father-son bond, others the mother-child bond, and still others the husband-wife bond. The immigration policies and the economic adaptation of the Chinese which affected the development of the Chinese American families are responsible also for the development of the current trends: 1) the weakening of patrilineal kinship, 2) the emergence of the non-residential extended family, 3) the increased occurrence of fictive kinship, 4) the popularity of the nuclear family and 5) the replacement of the traditional fatherson bond by husband-wife bond. Some of these developmental trends are contrasted with those in Chinese communities in Lima and Manila. Although the American environment has modified the Chinese families, some Old World traditions linger on among all the Chinese in New York. All seem to value personalism and familism. All want to incorporate friends into their kinship network. This tendency of enlarging one's personal/kinship network seems to be universal whether it is m Lima, Manila or New York City.