Developmental Psychology Commons^™

Cultural Considerations For Working With Young Adults Who Have Experienced Childhood Trauma, Yasmine Rodriguez

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

Childhood trauma can create effects that show up throughout the lifespan. Young adulthood is the first stage of life after adolescence and involves working through more advanced developmental challenges. This offers an important reason to examine the possible outcomes early life has on young adulthood, especially for those who have experienced trauma. This knowledge can be pivotal in different professional sectors such as the mental health and educational fields. The work presented explores common childhood trauma experiences, signs of childhood trauma within both children and young adults, and cultural considerations. Recommendations such as possible interventions and training for professionals …

Playful Learning: The Disposition Of Architecture As Pedagogy, Alyssa Franklin

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Education is a vital foundation of a society. The standard of today’s school environment is built upon the pedigree of the factory schools from the nineteenth century. However, elementary age children require a flexible, engaging, and creative learning environment that the standard school environment does not provide. Learning is a dynamic and innovative action. Architecture should mirror the learning that it supports through providing spaces that allow for flexibility, engagement, accessibility, and attraction. Children are transformed by the spaces they are in, spaces that will leave lasting impacts on the cognitive development of the children, spaces that can be playful …

Embodied Fatness In Boys: A Critical Phenomenological Study, Sean Leadem

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation was an exploratory study of experiences of fatness in boyhood using a hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative method. The author conducted in-depth, open-ended interviews with participants who identify as men and for whom fatness or related body-difference was an issue in childhood or adolescence to gather data on the meanings of fatness for boys and the men they become. Data analysis was organized around the existential dimensions of embodiment, temporality, and relationality. Themes emerging from this analysis included a) the discovery of fatness as ambiguous meanings mediated by others, b) fatness as a problem in a horizon that does not …

Low-Income Caregivers With Young Children Experience Risk And Resilience Through Pandemic-Related Stressors, Nicole Kingdon, Molly Dubuc, Rosemarie Dibiase

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

In March 2020, United States government implemented health and safety mandates, including school closures, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). As a result, some caregivers with young children were forced to take on new roles. Low-income households with young children appeared to be more highly impacted than other groups, experiencing acute pandemic-related stressors on top of previous vulnerabilities. Using qualitative analysis, this study examined how low-income caregivers with young children adapted to pandemic-related stressors and how stressors may have altered relationships and well-being in the household (Daks et al., 2020). Two research questions were examined: (1) how …

The Role Of Multiple Object Views In Early Word Learning: A Dynamic Process, Abigail Julian Dimercurio

Doctoral Dissertations

Word learning is a complex process that involves multiple interacting components. One of these components is the motor system. During the first few years of development, the onset of motor skills predicts the development of language skills such that earlier onsets of crawling and walking relate to greater vocabulary sizes. It is thought that this relationship occurs due to a developmental cascade where gaining locomotive skills allows for greater environmental exploration, thus, more opportunities to learn new words. One area of interest in this cascade is object manipulation. Moving objects in a way that creates multiple views is related to …

Working Memory And Language Associations In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Megan A. Goldfarb

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in social communication and interaction, with repetitive behaviors or specialized interests. A range of language abilities is seen in ASD, with some having typical abilities and others severe impairments. Working memory (WM) deficits have also been found in some children with ASD. In typically developing, as well as non-ASD children with language deficits a strong relationship has been found between WM and language abilities. Although both language and WM deficits are often seen in ASD, the relationship between these deficits has been underexplored. The objective of this study is …

Children’S Disclosure Of School Bullying: The Relation Between Peer Victimization, Internalizing Symptoms, Negative Affect, And Gender, Julia L. Kiefer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Children who are bullied by their peers are at risk for several negative developmental outcomes and are therefore advised to tell an adult when they are. However, victims of school bullying are often reluctant to disclose to adults that they are being bullied. Some bullied children also experience symptoms of anxiety or depression, which could further reduce their likelihood of telling an adult. In this study, I tested the degree to which children’s internalizing symptoms predicted their likelihood of telling adults about being bullied at school, and if this relation was exacerbated by children’s negative feelings associated with telling an …

Parents’ Adverse Childhood Experiences In Relation To Parent-Child Emotion Socialization, Emily Thompson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Parents’ adverse childhood experiences in relation to parent-child emotion socialization

Objective: Parents have an integral role in a child’s development of important emotional and psychosocial processes through emotion socialization. The goal of this paper is to examine the presence of adverse childhood experiences during the parents’ childhood and adolescence alongside the parents’ responses to their child’s emotional expression. The impact of adverse childhood experiences on a parent’s ability to socialize their child’s emotions is a key factor in the continued objective of cultivating positive parent-child interaction and improving adolescent mental health.

Methods: Participants were 165 adolescents and their parents. Adolescent …

Associations Among Self-Regulation, Life Stress, And Suicidal Ideation In Adolescents: A Developmental Psychopathology Approach, Yifan Yuan

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Background: Suicide is a major public health concern among adolescents. Although research has made progress in identifying risk factors for youth suicidality, there has been less focus on early developmental antecedents of youth suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Taking a developmental psychopathology perspective, we examined longitudinal associations among multiple aspects of self-regulation (i.e., emotion regulation, emotion reactivity, parasympathetic regulation, inhibitory control), life stress, and suicidal ideation. We hypothesized that deficits in self-regulation during middle childhood and early adolescence and greater life stress during early and middle childhood would predict higher lifetime suicidal ideation reported in adolescence.

Method: Participants were adolescents ( …

Impacts Of Poverty On Language Development How Low Socio-Economic Status Students Are At An Academic Disadvantage, Farbod Samari

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Socioeconomic status impacts a variety of mental health outcomes, including language development. Delays in language development have consistently been linked to poverty. Decreases in vocabulary and phonological awareness are among developmental delays in school-aged children living in poverty. This research aims to contribute to the field of human services by examining the negative impacts of poverty on language development from a social worker’s perspective. As social workers thrive to serve disadvantaged populations, this research brings awareness to how language development deficiencies occur in school-aged children living in poverty.

To fulfill the purpose of this study, a quantitative, descriptive/explanatory design …

Success Over Stress Support Group, Sophia Pescador-Torrance

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The Harden Wellness Center is located in Salinas, California on the campus of Harden Middle School. After surveying and interviewing eighth-grade students at Harden Middle School, it was determined that there was a need to provide healthy coping skills for stress and anxiety. The project provided students a place to learn healthy coping skills along with normalizing mental health services among adolescents. In order to engage students and keep them interested each week, focus on a new skill with an activity attached to reinforce the coping skill. By the end of the six weeks, the group started to talk about …

Maladaptive Social Cognitions And Peer Victimization In Elementary-Aged Students, Katelyn Szarko

Honors Theses

Among elementary-aged students, peer victimization is common and is associated with psychological maladjustment and poor academic achievement. Students with maladaptive social cognitions, like low social competence and low perceived control, are more likely to be victimized, but having a supportive teacher and/or a positive classroom climate might help to mitigate this association. This study aimed to answer the question of whether teacher support and classroom climate protect against peer victimization for students with maladaptive social cognitions. It was hypothesized that teacher support and classroom climate will separately moderate the link between social competence/perceived control and subsequent peer victimization such that …

The Effects Of Family Size And Birth Order On Students' Social Emotional And Cognitive Development, Mary Watson

Honors Projects

This project sought to analyze and understand the differences in student’s cognitive and social emotional development based on their number of siblings (also referred to as family size) and birth order. To accomplish this, a 130-question survey was created and emailed to approximately 125 teachers. 27 survey responses were received, which is a response rate of approximately 21.6%. The response data was categorized by only child, oldest child, youngest child, child with one or two siblings, child with three or four siblings, and child with five or more siblings. Though the responses were varied, the data showed that oldest children …

The Effect Of The Degree Of Authoritative Parenting On Adolescents' Adjustment To College, Elizabeth Smith

Senior Theses

This research aimed to explore how parenting style relates to college students’ adjustment in the first month of college. Authoritative parenting is marked by a standard of maintaining some control, while also promoting children’s autonomy. Previous research has found that authoritative parenting is positively associated with adolescent behavior that is more socially responsible, self-reliant, cheerful, and cooperative. Furthermore, the more support and independence that parents encourage, will in turn breed confidence and academic persistence in adolescent years. I will expand on this research by evaluating whether parenting style also relates to adjustment and mental health outcomes among first year college …

Effects Of Neighborhood Disadvantage And Peer Deviance On Conduct Problems: Interactions With Age Of Onset, Courtney Marie Goetz

LSU Master's Theses

Youth with conduct problems (CP) generally fall into two developmental classifications, child-onset and adolescent-onset, which exhibit different causal processes and life course trajectories. Research suggests that child-onset CP is more likely to be related to individual predispositions, while adolescent-onset CP is more associated with social factors, such as peer delinquency. Living in impoverished and disorganized neighborhoods increases the risk for associating with deviant peers. Thus, the current study tested the hypothesis that neighborhood factors would be more strongly associated with adolescent-onset CP than child-onset CP, which would be explained by a greater association with deviant peers. Linear and negative binomial …

Exploring Third Party Moral Transgressions In Preschool-Age Children, Courtney Trohn

Honors Program Theses

The present study investigates agent-neutral application of moral norms in preschool-age children and seeks to replicate a previous study that found children as young as 3 to actively intervene in third-party moral transgressions. The relationship between verbal ability and moral intervention is also explored. In an experimental research design, 3, 4, and 5-year-olds and two puppets each created their own drawing together, after which one confederate puppet left the room. The participants were randomly assigned to either a Harm condition (in which the absent puppet’s drawing was destroyed by the remaining puppet) or a Control condition (in which an extra …

Relation Between Parent Feeding And Emotional Overeating In Preschoolers As Mediated By Emotion Regulation, Lindsay Nicole Baker

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emotional overeating is defined as eating in response to negative emotions, and the shift from emotional undereating to overeating around the preschool years indicates environmental influences. Parent feeding practices such as using food to regulate emotions and behavior may impede children’s ability to regulate their emotions, leading to emotional overeating. This study analyzed the relation between parent feeding practices, child emotion regulation, and emotional overeating in 4- and 5-year-old children. For study 1, mothers of 4- and 5-year-old children completed online questionnaires through MTurk and Prolific. Questionnaires measured parent feeding practices, emotion regulation, and emotional overeating. Parent use of food …

The Impact Of Perceived Social Support On Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Elizabeth Eng

Dissertations and Theses

Individuals who have experienced repeated and interpersonal trauma often develop symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), along with additional features relating to disturbances in self-organization (DSO), which is now known as Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). CPTSD has been seen to be associated with adverse outcomes such as somatic symptoms, attachment insecurity, and overall lower life satisfaction (Karatzias et al., 2018; Kuhar & Zager Kocjan 2022; Maercker et al, 2022). Due to these additional features relating to DSO, CPTSD has been identified as distinct from PTSD, and so it has been important to investigate these unique symptoms. One such symptom …

How Adults Use Reddit To Cope With Being Children Of Divorce, Tamera A. Joseph

Dissertations and Theses

How do adults on social media describe their experiences as a child of divorce? The purpose of this study was to explore how posts on the social media platform Reddit are used by people to reflect on their parents’ divorce when they were younger. Reddit is a social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. The platform allows users to post content such as links, posts, images, and discussion boards. Posts on the website are organized by subjects called “subreddits”. In these subreddits, users discuss topics from news, philosophy, entertainment, and life experiences. Existing public data of archived and …

Parent Anger Relates To Cortisol Elevations For Children Attending Head Start Preschool, Jamie Gensbauer

West Chester University Master’s Theses

A robust research literature suggests that the impact of early adversity on child developmental outcomes is partially mediated or explained by the physiological stress response functioning. Economic hardship, for example, has been linked to dysregulation in levels of the stress hormone cortisol, as has negative parent emotion expression. Whereas a number of studies have examined links between parent depression and anxiety and child stress levels, the present study is the first we know of to examine parent anger in relation to child cortisol. Participants were 370 children attending Head Start preschool, and their parents or primary caregivers. According to federal …

Progression And Protectiveness Of Social Bonds And Play In A Captive Group Of Western Lowland Gorillas, Madeline L. Vandevere

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

The current study aims to bring to light the critical role that play has on healthy development, not only for nonhuman primates, but also for humans. In addition to building the literature concerning social and play development among gorillas and humans, this study also hopes to promote the observation and welfare of captive gorillas. The present study conducted longitudinal observational research of a troop of captive western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) to gain insights into primate play development and how it relates to social bonding and zoological enrichment. The study followed the early infancy and juvenile years …

Assessing 4-H And Its Circle Of Courage In A Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility: A Case Study, Elizabeth Steering

Theses and Dissertations--Family Sciences

This 4-H case study takes place in a psychiatric residential treatment facility (PRTF) in Kentucky. The PRTF provides clinical services to youth that are not able to be safely maintained in their homes due to having demonstrated unsafe or harmful behaviors. Youth admitted to the PRTF stay for an average of three to six months while they receive intensive therapeutic and psychiatric care as well as medical treatment and public schooling. The current case study incorporates programming from 4-H, which is the youth development program of the Cooperative Extension System (CES) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), …

“For All My Students, I Just Want Them To Love Learning, I Just Want Them To Love Life. To Love The Possibility Of Who They Are”: A Qualitative Study Investigating The Multifaceted Roles Of Special Educators At A Small Autism School In The Hudson Valley, Sydney Simone Darling

Senior Projects Fall 2023

This is a qualitative study which investigates the multifaceted roles of special educators.The United States is currently facing a crisis in teacher attrition. Attrition destabilizes schools, and negatively impacts student outcomes. Special education teachers are the teachers most likely to leave their field. In hopes of reducing attrition, this study seeks out the unique perspectives of special educators. Six special educators from a small school in the Hudson Valley completed 15-45 minute semi structured interviews. Interviews were transcribed and coded in a software MAXQDA. 3 themes were generated. These themes are: continuous learning, expending emotional labor, and balancing care with …

The Relationship Between Maternal Emotion Socialization And Child Executive Functioning And Behavior: Exploring The Moderating Role Of Cortisol, Mayela Norwood

CMC Senior Theses

In the early years of life, the development of children’s executive functioning (EF) and behavior regulation are critical to their later growth and self-sufficiency. Previous studies have indicated that one pathway by which children learn to regulate their emotions is through their immediate social environments (de Cock et al., 2017). Parents, in particular, play a significant role in the development of their children‘s emotion regulation and executive functioning (Fernandes et al., 2022). At the same time, physiological responses to stress also matter. Cortisol, the end product of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, has also been associated with children’s executive functioning and behavior …

A Preliminary Investigation Of A Brief, Virtual, Behavioral Parent Training Program On Parents’ Self-Efficacy And Young Children’S Behavior, Taylor Daniels

Masters Theses

A single-case, multiple-baseline research design was used to evaluate the effects of a two-session, virtual behavioral parent training program on parents’ self-efficacy and their children’s compliance and appropriate behavior. Participants included five parent-child dyads recruited from a grant-funded preschool program in Northern Illinois. When the parent training program was implemented, parent self-efficacy increased across four of the five parent participants (using daily behavior ratings). Effect size comparisons for self-efficacy reflected large effects for three parents. Further, child compliance increased across four of the five child participants and child appropriate behavior increased across three of the five child participants (using daily …

The Relationship Between Isolation And Social Emotional Experiences In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Jana Arslan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Children with ASD often face socioemotional challenges compared to their typical developing classmates (Chamberlain et al., 2006; Deckers et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2021; Locke et al, 2010; Zeedyk et al., 2015). The objective of the current study was to assess the relationship between classroom isolation and social emotional experiences (i.e., social isolation, loneliness, self-efficacy with peers, and friendship quality) in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) through self-report surveys in order to foster the best possible academic environment for children with ASD to succeed and create outlets for further research to be developed in regards to this subject. …

Profiles Of Family Functioning In Pediatric Hematology-Oncology Patients: Longitudinal Associations With Child Well-Being, Sydney Sumrall

Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to assess 1) patterns of family functioning and 2) longitudinal associations between family functioning patterns and well-being in a vulnerable cohort of children with chronic illness. Caregivers of hematology (16.4%) and oncology (83.6%) patients ages 7-20 (N=55; M_age = 13.3 [SD = 2.7]; 52.7% female; 45.5% non-Latinx White, 38.2% Black or African American, 12.7% Latinx, 1.8% Asian, and 1.8% multi-racial,) reported on family functioning via the Family Assessment Device. Cluster analyses identified three mutually exclusive clusters: one high adaptive group, one moderate adaptive group, and one maladaptive group. Group membership was not significantly …

Witnessing Community Violence And Its Consequences: Changes Across Middle School, Sarah Pittman

Theses and Dissertations

Community violence exposure is prevalent among youth residing in economically marginalized communities that have high rates of violence. Witnessing community violence has been concurrently associated with persistent adverse consequences. However, few studies have applied a developmental psychopathology framework and examined dynamic developmental processes between witnessing community violence and outcomes over time. Moreover, most prior studies have used analyses that assume that associations between witnessing violence and outcomes are the same for all adolescents, which is inconsistent with both developmental theories and theories specific to community violence exposure. The goal of this study was to apply a developmental psychopathological framework to …

K-5 Elementary Alternative Program: A Case Study, William E. Scheuer Iv

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this case study was to examine how the K-5 elementary alternative program All Students Can Thrive (ASCT) used student-centered learning practices to influence the whole child. There is a lack of research on K-5 elementary alternative programs, such as ASCT, and specifically those that integrate student-centered learning practices to influence the whole child. Literature does not contain universally accepted interventions that are effective in the elementary alternative setting to help students return to the mainstream classroom setting better prepared to display appropriate behaviors when a student is removed from a mainstream classroom setting due to disruptive behaviors. …

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 …