Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Examining The Moderating Role Of Promotive Factors On The Relationship Between Bullying Victimization And Suicidal Behavior, Rachel Simonds

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Bullying is one of the most common challenges that youth in the United States face that can often have negative impacts on children’s lives and mental health. One potential negative outcome of bullying victimization is increased risk for suicidal behavior, including suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. Implementing interventions and supports for youth involved in bullying has the ability to decrease risk for suicidal ideation and suicide attempts.

Previous literature supports that those involved in bullying are at an increased risk for both suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts. Evidence supports promotive factors that help minimize negative outcomes those who are involved …

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Familial Emotion Socialization, And Adult Emotion Regulation: A Moderation Model, Rebecca Otwell-Dove

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been associated with maladaptive outcomes, including difficulties with emotion regulation (ER). ER difficulties, in turn, increase risk for experiencing physical and mental health problems. Parental emotion socialization is one factor that has been associated with ER skills across development. No known studies, however, have examined whether parental emotion socialization moderates the relationship between ACEs and ER difficulties. In the current study, undergraduates (N = 678) completed questionnaires about their history of ACEs, parental emotion socialization experiences, and current ER difficulties. Correlational results indicated a positive correlation between ACEs and ER difficulties. Results of the hierarchical …

Childhood Abuse, Religiosity, And Opioid Use: Findings From The National Epidemiologic Survey On Alcohol And Related Conditions Data, James E. Lewis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Religiosity is adopting a belief system surrounding concepts of purpose, meaning, and value through an institution that has already defined these concepts prior to the individual member attending and that member’s degree of participation. Religiosity does have protective factors against negative health outcomes. This protective influence was evaluated in this study. Data from Wave 2 of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions were examined to learn about the relationship between protective effects of religious participation on substance abuse, and whether this association weakened for individuals who have experienced higher levels of childhood abuse. A binary logistic regression …

Beyond A Reasonable Doubt: A Discourse Analysis Of Forensic And Psychological Truth In Child Narratives, Elizabeth Samson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation draws on a hermeneutically-informed modification of Potter and Wetherell’s (1987) discourse analysis methodology to explore how child memory and experience are conceptualized in two widely-used forensic psychology training manuals. Current research about child testimony tends to focus on how well children can factually recount their experiences, or on optimizing interviewer performance so as to obtain accurate accounts and minimize the risk of distorting children’s memories. Results of this discourse analysis include: 1) frequent advisement of evaluator caution, objectivity, and thoroughness, since evaluators are understood as responsible for preserving the accuracy of children’s memories during the evaluation process; and …

School-Based Services For Children With Pediatric Acute-Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome (Pans), Maura Miglioretti

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pediatric Acute-Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome (PANS) is an emerging disorder affecting school age children causing deleterious cognitive, social, emotional, and academic effects. Most frequently, children with PANS demonstrate severe, rapid-onset obsessive-compulsive symptoms in addition to a variety of other psychiatric disturbances. Symptoms are known to significantly a child’s educational experience. Despite this, little is known about the educational impacts related to the disorder or the supports provided to children with the diagnosis. This research sought to identify the school related impairments of children with PANS, the school-based services provided for children with PANS, and the relationships between obsessive compulsive symptoms and …

Using The Coaching Approach Behavior And Leading By Modeling (Calm) Program To Examine Attachment And Parental Behaviors In Childhood Anxiety, Seana Bandi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety is one of the most common disorders in children that can often lead to detrimental outcomes. Empirically-supported risk factors for child anxiety include the child’s temperament and behavioral inhibition, insecure attachment, parental over-controlling behaviors, parental anxiety, and the impact of adverse life events on the child. Targeting these risk factors early on has the ability to lead to a decrease in anxiety symptoms later in adolescence and adulthood.

Evidence suggests behavioral, therapeutic interventions are effective for treating anxiety and other mood disorders for middle childhood and adolescents. Recent research has begun to focus on developmentally-appropriate adaptations for younger children …

A Tactful Conceptualization Of Joint Attention: Joint Haptic Attention And Language Development, Lauren P. Driggers-Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research investigating associations between joint attention and language development have thus far only investigated joint attention by way of visual perceptions while neglecting the potential effects of joint attention engaged through other sensory modalities. In the present study, I aimed to investigate the joint attention-language development relationship by investigating the possible links between joint haptic attention and language development, while also exploring the likely contributions of joint visual attention through a mediation analysis. Using video recordings from an archival dataset, measures of joint haptic attention and joint visual attention were derived from behavioral tasks, and measures of vocabulary development were …

Beyond School Engagement: School Adaptation And Its Role In Bolstering Resilience Among Youth Who Have Been Involved With Child Welfare Services, Skyler S. Leonard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Objective: Youth involved with the child welfare system are at significant risk of poor school functioning and mental health. Little research has explored how the connection to school impacts known relationships between adversity and youth outcomes. The following project sought to shed light on the role of schools in conferring risk or resilience for youth in contact with the child welfare system, with regard to their mental health. The overall aims of this project were to (1) improve our conceptualization of school adaptation, with particular attention to individual variation along multiple dimensions of school adaptation, (2) examine the relationship of …

The Cultural Transmission Of Gender Roles In Childhood, Sarah Ariel Lamer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the present work, I summarize extant theories and evidence on how children learn about gender roles and test an ecological framework for gender-role learning (i.e., the Gendered Ecology Model). Existing theory has demonstrated that children begin to form symbolic representations of gender as young as 9 months and acquire basic gender stereotypes about behaviors and activities considered appropriate for each gender by 3 years. Theories have proposed several potential sources and moderators of how children learn about the roles that women and men generally hold. However, no theories have examined these sources from an ecological approach, leaving open the …

Exploring Early Temperament Predictors Of Maladaptive Behavior In A Group Of Elementary School Age Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Caren D. Rhodes-Doudna

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study is an ex post facto nonexperimental design analyzing archival data collected from previous trials of a large-scale longitudinal study conducted by researchers at JFK Partners, Center of Excellence in Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities in collaboration with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical School (Principal Investigator: Susan Hepburn, Ph.D.). Specifically, the study looked at the temperament characteristics of mood, intensity, adaptability, and approach measured within early childhood and how they relate to later maladaptive behavior within a group of elementary age children diagnosed with ASD. Maladaptive behavior is a particularly salient outcome, as it impacts the child and …