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Context-Specific Conceptualizations Of Death In Early Childhood, Spencer Hart Winter

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Despite cultural myths and social taboos, young children are capable of understanding death and death concepts. Previous research has demonstrated that children have a varied and complex understanding of death that is influenced by their age, family culture, and previous experience. This study aims to differentiate children’s death concept depending on context, including children’s magical thinking, namely the difference between the deaths of a human, an animal, and an electronic toy. Using a modified version of the Death Concept Questionnaire, preschool-aged (3 to 5 years old) children (n=7) were presented with short video clips of a human, a dog, and …

The Developmental Importance Of Napping In Preschool Children, Adam T. Newton

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Most children cease napping between 2- and 5-years-old. Little is known about the predictors or outcomes related to this cessation, or the interrelation of different components of nap behavior. Four empirical studies were conducted to investigate the developmental importance of napping among preschool children.

Studies 1 and 2 used a large, longitudinal sample of Canadian children to investigate the predictors (Study 1) and outcomes (Study 2) related to early nap cessation. Early nap cessation was defined as stopping daytime sleep before three years old. In Study 1, parents reported on their own, child, and family functioning at two timepoints (0-1 …

Moderating Factors In The Relationship Between Bully Victimization And Psychosomatic Symptoms, Tonya Paulson

Theses and Graduate Projects

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between bully victimization and psychosomatic symptoms, and to examine the protective influence of perceived parent and peer support across developmental age groups. Bully victimization frequency, somatic symptom severity, perceived parent support, and perceived peer support were assessed using archival data from 7,304 youth who participated in the 2009-2010 Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (HBSC) U.S. survey, excluding perpetrators of bullying. Bully victimization and somatic symptoms were significantly positively correlated. Older adolescents consistently reported more severe somatic symptoms, but age did not moderate the relationship between bullying and somatic symptoms. Higher …

Consistency Of Sleep Across Development And Relations To Executive Functions; Applications To Emerging Adults Transitioning To College And Adolescents With Spina Bifida, Laura Nicholson

Dissertations

College Students, Development, Executive Functioning, Inhibition, Sleep consistency, Spina Bifida

Examining The Relationships Between Socio-Cognitive Factors And Neural Synchrony During Movie Watching Across Development, Kathleen M. Lyons

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

While different cognitive abilities mature, the conscious experiences of children likely become richer and more elaborate. A challenge in investigating relationships between cognitive development and real-world experiences is having measures that assess naturalistic processing. Movie watching offers a solution, since following the plot of a film requires cognitive processes that are similar to real-world experiences. When different adults watch the same film, their brain activity begins to align (known as neural synchrony). The strength of this alignment has been shown to reflect the degree to which different individuals are having a similar experience of the movie. While this phenomenon has …

The Front Lines Of Student Success: A Phenomenography Exploring The Background And Knowledge Of Primary Role Academic Advisors In Higher Education, Alicia N. Abney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenographic study was to understand the experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives of new, primary role academic advisors at four-year public institutions in the United States. Research on advising has provided insight into advising best practices and the student perceptions of academic advising; however, there is little research illustrating current primary role academic advisors and their experience, or perhaps lack thereof.

To receive highly coveted federal and state funding, higher education institutions must show growth in student success. Academic advisors are on the front lines of student success because they are tasked with the responsibility of retaining …

Developmental Differences In The Learning And Consolidation Of Linguistic Regularities, Sarah Berger

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Relative to adults, children have a well-known advantage for learning linguistic regularities, which could be partially driven by their deeper sleep. To examine the relationship between consolidation and language learning across development, children and adults learned a novel article system with an implicit grammatical rule. Participants performed a judgment task on phrases containing the novel articles before and after a night of EEG-monitored sleep. We found that rule sensitivity emerged rapidly in children, whereas it did not emerge until the second session in adults. Children demonstrated better generalization of the rule than adults. Consolidation effects showed a developmental double dissociation, …

On The Roles Of Trait Anxiety And Toll Like Receptor 4 In Amphetamine Sensitization In Adolescent Male Rats, Corey A. Calhoun

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Mammalian adolescence can be a difficult transition from childhood to adulthood, where increases in impulsivity and novelty- and risk-seeking are combined with heightened affect and elevated sensitivity to stress. Indeed, during adolescence, first drug use patterns emerge and in the continental United States, increasing misuse of amphetamines has been observed in adolescent youth. Myriad neural mechanisms underlie this shift in adolescence, including the dynamic remodeling of the mesocorticolimbic (MCL) pathway. Repeated drug administration affects neuroimmune substrates within the MCL circuit including toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)Advances in addiction neuroscience indicate that drugs of abuse activate neural TLR4 and implicate glial TLR4 …

Sex And Age Differences In Approach Behavior Toward A Port That Delivers Nicotine Vapor, Veronika Evangelina Espinoza

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The goal of our laboratory is to study the mechanisms that promote nicotine use, particularly in vulnerable populations such as adolescents and females. Thus, the purpose of this thesis was to characterize age and sex differences in the motivational/rewarding effects of nicotine (Aim 1) and withdrawal behavior (Aim 2). To more closely model human use patterns, the present study employed nicotine vapor methods involving passive exposure for 14 days in adolescent and adult female and male rats. Age and sex differences in approach behavior (nosepokes) were assessed in a port that delivered nicotine plumes on Day 1 and 14. Controls …

Early Mathematical Abilities Of 48-Month-Old Children With Williams Syndrome., Jenna N. Tinnell

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic neurodevelopmental disorder associated with relative strengths in concrete vocabulary, nonverbal reasoning, and verbal short-term memory and considerable weaknesses in visuospatial construction and relational language. While the cognitive profile of WS has been studied extensively, there have been few studies of the early mathematical abilities of children with WS and the cognitive predictors of these abilities. The purpose of this study was to describe the early mathematical abilities of 48-month-olds with WS and determine the concurrent cognitive predictors of these abilities. The Differential Ability Scales–second edition (DAS-II) was used to determine cognitive and mathematical abilities …

The Effects Of Executive Function Between Anxiety And Math Achievement In Adolescents, Mckenzie Hall

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Anxiety in Children can develop into pervasive disorders in adulthood if not treated. Research shows dysfunctional Executive Function (EF) and anxiety are both shown to have a negative impact on math achievement in children and adolescents (Trezise & Reeve, 2018; Kalaycioglu, 2015; Owens, Stevenson, Hadwin & Norgate, 2012). Chung, Weyandt, and Swentosky (2014) found biological and neuropsychological support for EF as a unitary and multifaceted processor for regulating our emotional states as well as our daily procedures. Anderson’s (2002) model of Executive Control System (ECS) allows the factors of EF to be examined using a developmental approach towards EF processes. …

The Intended Heroic Behavior Scale: Creation And Validity Of A Scale Predicting Heroism To Advance Developmental Research On Heroes, Brian R. Riches

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Heroism – the phenomenon of individuals putting themselves at risk for the benefit of others – is a topic of increasing empirical interest (Franco et al., 2017). Applied heroism training programs have emerged with the goal of fostering heroism (Heiner, 2018). Psychologists have examined the characteristics of heroes (e.g., Midlarsky et al., 2005) and the power of the situation to drive ordinary people to heroic action (Franco et al., 2017). These studies have raised important questions, such as how can heroism be predicted? Does heroism training work? And how do heroes develop? Current methods of studying heroism, including exemplar studies, …

The Role Of Caregiver-Reported Emerging Social Attention In Predicting Duration Of Orienting And Social Communication, Casey E. Swick

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Early identification of atypical development could lead to opportunities for earlier intervention, ultimately improving developmental outcomes. Early signs of atypical attention, social attention, and social communication development emerge in infancy, yet age at diagnosis of neurodevelopmental difficulties does not typically occur until well after the first year of life. In order to achieve this goal of early identification, sensitive and accessible tools are needed to identify infants at risk for atypical development. This study examined whether caregivers could report on emerging social attention behaviors in the first days to weeks of life with a novel, experimental scale (PediaTrac SSIP). This …