Digital Commons Network^™

Uprooted But Unbroken: Exploring The Experiences Of Yemeni Students At Yemeni Schools In Cairo, Sumood Abdulhadi

Theses and Dissertations

To contribute towards filling the research gap on the experiences of uprooted Yemeni children in Egypt, this phenomenological research was designed to explore the experiences of uprooted Yemeni students in Egypt. Twenty male and female Yemeni students from four Yemeni schools in Cairo participated in semi-structured interviews. The findings revealed that these uprooted children face various economic, social, and academic challenges within the Yemeni schools in Cairo, which seem to hinder their educational progress. Moreover, Yemeni children face difficulties not only within the Yemeni schools in Cairo but also in the streets and Egyptian schools of Cairo. Nevertheless, they appeared …

The Relationship Between Parental Trauma History And Perceptions Regarding Their Child’S Healthcare And Utilization Of Healthcare Services, Krishna Patel

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

TITLE: The Relationship Between Parental Trauma History and Perceptions Regarding Their Child’s Healthcare and Utilization of Healthcare Services

Adverse child events (ACEs) have been associated with a number of physical and mental health problems and have also been linked to increased health care utilization. While parents who have an ACE history may tend to seek healthcare services for themselves, limited studies have examined the impact of their trauma history on seeking healthcare services for their child. Healthcare utilization may also depend on the parents’ level of health anxiety, as well as their anxiety about their child’s health status. This …

Academic Impacts Of Intergenerational Trauma: Assessing The Relationship Between Ace Scores Of Parents And The Language And Literacy Development Of Their Elementary-Aged Children, Paige Lee Banaszak

Theses and Dissertations

This paper contributes to the current literature by investigating factors that may contribute to language and literacy difficulty among children, to support the future development of effective intervention techniques. The data analyzed in this paper was collected from children and families participating in Reach Every Reader, a research study currently being conducted to improve literacy outcomes in the U.S. by developing a computer-adaptive screening assessment tool to identify children at risk for language and literacy difficulties early in their educational development. Children enrolled in kindergarten through third grade completed tasks that target language and literacy skills, and their parent(s) completed …

Further Evaluation Of The Effects Of Music And Rird On Vocal Stereotypy, Keith Happel

Theses and Dissertations

Vocal stereotypy (VS), or vocalizations that are noncontexual or nonfunctional, is commonly exhibited in individuals on the autism spectrum. The nature of vocal stereotypy may pose an issue for some individuals, ranging from social ostracization to the inability to perform daily tasks. Previous research has shown that access to matched stimulation (e.g., music) and response interruption and redirection (RIRD), a form of punishment, are effective at decreasing vocal stereotypy (Gibbs et al., 2018). However, in the aforementioned study, researchers did not evaluate a less intrusive treatment in isolation prior to implementing punishment. The purpose of the current investigation is to …

The Effects Of Poly-Strengths On Psychological Wellbeing Amongst Young Adults With Childhood Poly-Victimization, Nakisa Asefnia

Theses and Dissertations

The field of trauma and victimization has undergone many evolutions in its efforts to conceptualize the impacts of victimization and more recently poly-victimization. Poly-victimization refers to the experiencing of multiple types of victimization over the lifespan. This has led to an ever-growing base of literature highlighting the many deleterious effects of these experiences on individuals’ wellbeing, and the factors which may make a person more vulnerable to victimization. However, a growing movement in the field aims to take a more strengths-based perspective that highlights the resilience of individuals, rather than risk factors, in the hopes of better understanding the factors …

The Role Of Environmental Context In Supporting Children’S 24- Hour Movement Behaviors; A Positive Deviance Perspective, Roddrick Dugger

Theses and Dissertations

Background: During summer, children display less favorable movement behaviors than the school year. To investigate the role of environmental context in supporting children’s ability to meet the 24-hour Movement Guidelines (i.e., Moderate-to-Vigorous Physical Activity: ≥ 60 minutes, Sleep duration: 9-11 hours, Screen Time: ≤ 2 hours), this dissertation had three primary aims: 1) Utilize the Positive Deviance Framework to identify unique practices and resources that enabled children to meet guidelines, 2) Examine potential associations between the neighborhood built and social environment with movement behaviors by household poverty experience, and 3) Identify specific features of the family and home environment that …

Accounting For Oral Language Skills In Children With Dyslexia: A Systematic Review Of The Literature, Natalie Kay Olsen Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: In the present study, we conducted a systematic review to determine whether studies involving children with dyslexia include the assessment of oral language skills in their assessment batteries across various professional disciplines. Overlooking assessment of oral language in children with dyslexia may result in the misinterpretation of research findings and applications to children who present with both dyslexia and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) or experience secondary oral language deficits. Method: According to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and MetaAnalyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we searched the Elsevier Scopus database and obtained and analyzed 764 articles, up to 40 articles …

Parental Psychological Maltreatment In Egypt: Exploring Intergenerational Parenting Behavior And Identifying Protective Factors, Sylvia Said

Theses and Dissertations

Psychological maltreatment is an under-recognized problem, even though it is a widespread form of child maltreatment and has detrimental consequences, whether in the short or long term. This study aims to explore the intergenerational patterns of parenting behaviors, measure the difference in emotionally abusive behaviors between mothers and fathers, investigate the relationship between childhood emotional abuse and adopting different parenting styles, and identify the protective factors against parental psychological maltreatment. A mixed-methods approach was used to answer these research questions thoroughly. Online versions of the survey, in English and Arabic, were shared on social media platforms, and online interviews were …

Protections And Liabilities: Parental Attributes Of Lynch Victims, Peter Shumway Polhill

Theses and Dissertations

Minimal research has focused on how lynching was not purely an individual-level event but, at times, was a family-level process. Prior research has focused on the economic forces, social factors, and individual level attributes that changed the probability of being lynched. Research studying these topics has identified that marginalization, status, distinctiveness, and the racial threat hypothesis contribute to lynching. However, this research has not studied child victims and how parental level attributes may intersect differently with these theoretical perspectives. Using machine-learning tools, I created census linked data which identifies the families of child lynch victims and other non-victim families in …

Development And Validation Of A Spanish Nutrition Screening Tool For Hispanic American 3 To 5-Year-Olds, Denisse Arias Olivas

Theses and Dissertations

Latinos comprise 18.9% of the population in the United States and are the largest and fastest growing minority group. Obesity prevalence was 26.2% among Hispanic children compared to 16.6% among non-Hispanic White children. The obesity epidemic among Latino children has been growing rapidly over the past three decades. Multiple barriers, such as lack of culturally appropriate screening tools, language, and lack of access to nutritional assessment and expert consultation, prevents screening of Latino children and further nutritional guidance. For this reason, prevention efforts such as the use of nutritional screening tools is required for early intervention, more so with populations …

Mothering Experiences Of Women In Jail, Bothwell Piason

Theses and Dissertations

Women make relatively small proportions of incarcerated population worldwide, but the rate at which they have been incarcerated over the past four decades in the U.S. has outpaced that of their male counterparts. Although carceral trends show declining patterns in prison population numbers, the jailed population continues on an upward trend (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2022), studies have focused more on prison than jail. The disproportional incarceration of women is evident in jails where the majority of women incarcerated are mothers of young children (Sawyer & Bertram, 2022). The current paper explores mothering experiences of women in two Midwestern jails, …

Current International Legal Measures For The Protection Of Children Used In Armed Conflicts: Recommendations For The Resolution Of The Problem, Elliot Bibaje

Theses and Dissertations

War is not new; Armed Conflicts are not new. The use of Children in Armed Conflicts is not new. From Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Nigeria, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DCR) and the world over, children are being used in Armed Conflicts. These have led to crime, criminality, diseases, rape destruction of basic infrastructure, the eco system and future of the dead, living and unborn generation.

Despite International legal instruments put in place to curb the use of children in Armed conflicts, in the area International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Labor Law and International criminal Law, the use of children …

The Association Between Covid-19 Exposure, Secondary Adversities, And Trauma Symptoms In Children, Maddi Gervasio

Theses and Dissertations

Natural disasters include direct exposure and secondary adversities (Chrisman & Dougherty, 2014). For youth, severity of disaster exposure and number of secondary adversities have been found to be positively associated with the severity of trauma-related psychopathology, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression (Giannopoulou et al., 2006). Preliminary studies suggest an interaction between trauma exposure severity and number of secondary adversities in the prediction of psychopathology. Notably, youth who experienced secondary adversities without directly experiencing the trauma exhibited heightened psychopathology (Kar, 2019), yet these children tend to be excluded from studies and missed when identifying children in need of services. …

Predicting Therapists’ Intentions To Use An Innovation: The Role Of Innovation-Specific, Individual, And Organizational Factors, Jonathan KuʻUhoaepilipono Ahuna

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding factors that contribute to an individual’s decision to use an innovation can increase the public health impact of innovations in children’s mental health services. Objective. This study examined whether and to what extent therapists’ innovation-specific judgements (e.g., innovation is easy to use, socially desirable) were associated with intentions to use an innovation using constructs from one of the most robust theories of innovation use–the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Method. Two aims were addressed using data collected from 95 therapists and 28 supervisors who participated in a multi-site cluster randomized trial. Therapists used either a …

Effectiveness Of Group Interventions For Weight Loss For Youth: A Meta-Analytic Review, Monica Carolina Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Nearly 19.3% of children in the United States have obesity. There are several behavioral weight loss (BWL) programs available for children and adolescents that have proven effective in managing weight. Many of these treatments are delivered to groups of children rather than to individual youth. However, previous reviews of the literature have not explored the unique effects of group treatment modalities. Research has shown that social ties, particularly with peers, have an impact on adolescents' physical activity engagement and dietary habits. Therefore, it is important to explore how the interaction component of group delivered BWL treatments contributes to their …

Measuring Orthographic Influences On Phonological Processing In Beginning Readers: An Eyetracking Study, Emily Grace Fisher

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose – Both orthographic and phonemic awareness are essential to reading. However, the role of orthographic knowledge in phonemic awareness has not been thoroughly investigated in beginning readers until recently. The purpose of this study was to examine if orthographic knowledge influenced phonological processing in beginning readers and to establish a proof of concept for the use of eyetracking measures to examine these skills in young children.

Method – 22 participants, aged 6-7 years, completed norm-referenced assessments of language and reading ability as well as experimental measures of orthographic and phonological awareness while their eye movements were monitored.

Results – …

Teaching Children With Autism To Tact Private Events Based On Common Properties, Madisyn Quidort

Theses and Dissertations

Skinner (1957) proposed that people learn to talk about private events in several ways. This study sought to examine the plausibility of one of those mechanisms: common properties. Skinner asserted that children learn tacts for public stimuli through normal interaction with their caregivers. When a child experiences a private stimulus that shares some feature with a previously learned public stimulus, the child generalizes the tact to the private sensation because there is a common property between the two stimuli. Three children with autistic disorder were taught 6 to 9 sensation tacts (e.g., prickly, cozy, tight) depicted in videos (e.g., a …

Relationships Among Sleep, Physical Activity, And Weight Status In Children And Adolescents, Agnes Bucko

Theses and Dissertations

Sleep and physical activity are both associated with multiple behavioral and metabolic health outcomes, and both behaviors have been linked to the development of weight status. Recent estimates suggest that many children are not meeting sleep recommendations or participating in adequate levels of physical activity, which may be related to the high prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity. Much of the research assessing these relationships has focused on adults and older children, and has relied on parent- or child-reported, cross-sectional research in predominantly White samples. Little work has focused on these relationships in very young children. Although more research has …

Defining Dyslexia Within And Across Disciplines: A Systematic Review Of The Literature, Ann Marie Trumbo

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: In the present study, we conducted a systematic review to investigate the core features of the definition of dyslexia across different disciplines according to their associated professional organizations and published research in order to evaluate the presence and type of inconsistencies within and across disciplines in how dyslexia is defined. Method: Definition statements of dyslexia from professional organizations in medicine, education, speech-language pathology, psychology, and the International Dyslexia Association were collected via scope of practice guidelines or via the organization's official website. Using a database with a wide disciplinary reach, we collected 764 of the most cited articles from …

Nutrients Associated With Stunting Among Children In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review, Abby Mae Reynolds

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify specific nutrients or nutritional biomarkers of dietary intake that are associated with stunting among children ages 2 and older in sub-Saharan Africa. This is a systematic review conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Twelve studies from sub-Saharan Africa met the eligibility criteria, including 11 observational studies and one randomized control trial. Nine of the 12 studies assessed dietary intake of macronutrients. Four studies found a significant association between proteins and stunting. Four found that children with stunting had lower dietary fat intakes or lower …

An Examination Of Early Childhood Teachers’ Perceptions Of Discussing Race With Children, Sarah Elizabeth Kubly

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study examines early childhood teachers’ perceptions and practices with regard to talking to young children about race. Through an online survey and an individual interview with two early childhood teachers, I uncovered three findings: a) teachers’ understandings of their students’ racial awareness, b) teachers’ current classroom practices regarding race, culture, ethnicity, and c) challenges teachers faced in talking about race with their students along with possible sources of support. Based on these findings, I concluded that teachers made the decision not to directly confront the issue of race with their students due to feelings of fear and discomfort. …

Huérfanos: A Memoir, Mauricio Garcia

Theses and Dissertations

If you look hard enough, there are stories of children in foster care. Tales of their plight, longing for love, the love of their parents, love from the foster care system, or a foster care family. However, despite their existence, so much is left in the unknown. The story of how this child’s life came into the world, what outcomes transpired for a parent to give up a child, and the journey the child may have to take for closure. Answers to the why. Why was I given up, why was I not sought out, why did my family …

Is This A Line? Visual Literacy, Visual Inquiry, And Visual Communication In The Elementary School Years, Connie J. Broadbent

Theses and Dissertations

As a mother and public elementary school art teacher, I recognize the impact images have in the lives of children. Our culture is image rich and often image saturated. I believe I can do more to prepare my students to become discerning consumers and creators of images. Art teachers are uniquely qualified to teach visual literacy and visual inquiry. If grade school children can be taught to think more deeply and critically about their visual world, they will be better prepared for responding to it in a healthy, empowering way. This research describes an elementary school curriculum based on teaching …

Evaluating Nutrition Knowledge In Parents And Its Relation To Childhood Obesity, Rachael Shangraw

Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to evaluate the relationship between parental nutrition knowledge and their child’s body mass index (BMI) to identify variables that are associated with increased obesity in American children. A cross-sectional study design was employed with a convenience sample of 464 parents of children between the ages of 2 and 12. Parents completed a GNKQ-R (General Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire – Revised) survey to measure nutrition knowledge. Parents reported their child’s height and weight which was later calculated and categorized according to the Center for Disease Control’s BMI-for-age growth chart. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test for Normality was conducted to examine the …

Opportunities For Wonder In A Public Park, Alexander Butler

Theses and Dissertations

Research suggests unstructured play is important to a child's mental and physical development, and the natural world provides excellent opportunities for formative experiences. Urban environments, however, present challenges to finding and enjoying wild spaces. The potential role of public parks, supported by a small survey of college students, is discussed.

Associations Between Problem Recognition And Help-Seeking Behavior In Mothers Of Preschoolers, Samuel T. Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

Preschool children are often underserved in mental healthcare. One explanation for this is that caregivers do not recognize preschoolers’ mental health difficulties as problems. While previous research has identified an association between a caregiver’s skill at accurately applying diagnostic labels and help-seeking, factors such as behavior severity, functional impairment, and caregiver stress are important to the help-seeking process as well. The current study examined associations between all these variables. Participants were 82 adult mothers of preschoolers. The participants read a series of vignettes describing preschool-aged children with depression, anxiety, and ADHD, and then answered a series of questions to assess …

Measuring Irrational Beliefs Among Youth: Development Of The Children’S Irrational Response Checklist, Alexa K. Pata

Theses and Dissertations

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) are evidenced-based approaches that have been identified as effective for the treatment of psychological disorders among youth (Bernard & Terjesen, 2020). However, although beliefs and cognitions have been shown to be predictive of emotional and behavioral problems in children (Mogoaşe, Podină, et al., 2013), and modifications in cognitions have been shown to be vital for treatment (David et al., 2017), the research and psychometric properties surrounding measures designed to specifically assess irrational beliefs, self-statements, or automatic thoughts in youth are lacking due to theoretical and practical limitations (Terjesen et al., …

Trends And Outcomes Of A School-Based Campaign To Reduce Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption Among Racially And Ethnically Diverse Students In Middle School, Roya Amirniroumand

Theses and Dissertations

Reducing sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption has been identified as a chronic disease prevention strategy in children and adolescents (Muth et al., 2019; USDA & HSS, 2015) and promoting healthier alternative beverage options has become an important focus for public health policy and educational efforts. Community-driven school-based health initiatives targeting SSB consumption have shown promising outcomes however, few studies have explored these strategies for middle school students and less is known about the potential benefits of these efforts with racial/ethnic minority youth.

The present study examined whether racial/ethnic differences in SSB consumption existed in a sample of 419 students at one …

“Before The World Gets Them”: The Impact Of Racialized Parenting On Black Mothers, Mia Brantley

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the distinct practices Black women implement to protect their children from both actualized and anticipatory experiences of racism, as well as its effects on their mothering experiences, health and well-being, as well as how they manage the emotional and mental toll of their children’s experiences. Race plays an integral role in shaping mothering practices. More specifically, motherwork examines how Black mothers ensure the physical, mental, and emotional survival of their children in the face of micro-and macro-level structures that perpetuate racism and inequality. However, much is left to explore regarding the interconnectedness between Black women’s motherwork, linked …

Anxiety And Social Withdrawal Among Children: Associations With Emotion Awareness And Emotion Regulation Strategy Use At The Intra- And Interpersonal Levels, Janae Ellen Teer

Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety and social withdrawal are two frequently experienced internalizing conditions among children. These early-onset challenges are associated with numerous maladaptive outcomes in the academic, social, and psychological domains (Levitt & Merrill, 2009; Long, 2018; Sanchez et al., 2018; Shernoff et al., 2017). While identifying anxious and socially withdrawn children in the classroom is difficult as symptoms generally occur internally, distinguishing between the conditions is perhaps more challenging as the two are closely associated, oftentimes overlapping constructs (Barzeva et al., 2019; Rubin et al., 2009). Particularly, it is unclear whether anxiety and social withdrawal are similarly or differently associated with key …