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Individuation As An Adolescent Developmental Task: Associations With Adoptee Adjustment, Danila Musante

Doctoral Dissertations

This study evaluated the associations between adolescent individuation and concurrent and long term adjustment in adoptive families. Individuation was assessed using an observational measure examining behaviors and communications demonstrative of individuality and connectedness between each parent and the adolescent. Findings did not support the hypothesized connection between adolescent individuation and concurrent and long term adjustment in adoptive families. However, further analyses revealed particular importance of connectedness between adolescent and parent for adolescent adjustment, which was found to vary by adolescent gender. Specifically, analyses revealed that gender interacts with both adolescent-father connectedness and mother-adolescent connectedness in predicting adolescent internalizing symptoms; for …