Child Psychology Commons^™

Children’S Views On Playtime In Schools: A Systematic Literature Review, Thomas Clements, Emma L. Harding Dr

International Journal of Playwork Practice

Background and aim(s)

Playtime in schools has been shown to have wide-ranging benefits to children and young people. However, opportunities for playtime in schools have declined over time. It is important children’s voices are heard on matters that are important to them, yet playtime is often driven by adult policy. The aim of this systematic literature review (SLR) was to explore children’s views on playtime to further our understanding of what is important to them, and what affects their access to playtime.

Methodology

This SLR employed thematic synthesis to aggregate the views of children on playtime. This review includes 8 …

Examining The Moderating Effects Of Adult Social Support On The Relationship Between Adverse Experiences And Psychosocial Adjustment, Zachary Wilde

Master's Theses

Exposure to adverse experiences during childhood place adolescents at a disproportionately high risk of developing physical and mental health problems later in life (Anthony et al., 2019; Basto-Pereira et al., 2016; Brown & Shillington, 2016; Felitti et al., 1998). Further, at-risk adolescents, conceptualized as children and adolescents who lack resources for upward mobility, are more likely to be exposed to adverse experiences and thus are at greater risk for these negative outcomes when compared to adolescents who are not considered at-risk (Fernandes-Alcantara, 2018). To obtain better specificity of what outcomes adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) predict in a sample of vulnerable …

Exposure To Unpredictability And Mental Health: Validation Of The Brief Version Of The Questionnaire Of Unpredictability In Childhood (Quic-5) In English And Spanish, Natasha G. Lindert, Megan Y. Maxwell, Sabrina R. Liu, Hal S. Stern, Tallie Z. Baram, Elysia Poggi Davis, Victoria B. Risbrough, Dewleen G. Baker, Caroline M. Nievergelt, Laura M. Glynn

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Unpredictability is increasingly recognized as a primary dimension of early life adversity affecting lifespan mental health trajectories; screening for these experiences is therefore vital. The Questionnaire of Unpredictability in Childhood (QUIC) is a 38-item tool that measures unpredictability in childhood in social, emotional and physical domains. The available evidence indicates that exposure to unpredictable experiences measured with the QUIC predicts internalizing symptoms including depression and anxiety. The purpose of the present study was to validate English and Spanish brief versions (QUIC-5) suitable for administration in time-limited settings (e.g., clinical care settings, large-scale epidemiological studies). Five representative items were identified from …

Computational Thinking And Coding For Young Children: A Hybrid Approach To Link Unplugged And Plugged Activities, Daisuke Akiba

Publications and Research

In our increasingly technology-dependent society, the importance of promoting digital literacy (e.g., computational thinking, coding, and programming) has become a critical focus in the field of childhood education. While young children these days are routinely and extensively exposed to digital devices and tools, the efficacy of the methods for fostering digital skills in the early childhood classroom has not always been closely considered. This is particularly true in settings where early childhood educators are not digital experts. Currently, most of the efforts in standard early childhood settings, taught by teachers who are not digital experts, appear to revolve around “unplugged” …

Community-Based Agency Delivery Of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy: Comparing Outcomes For Children With And Without Autism Spectrum Disorder And/Or Developmental Delays, Lauren B. Quetsch, Rebecca S. Bradley, Laurie Theodorou, Kathleen Newton, Cheryl B. Mcneil

Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

While externalizing behaviors are common among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there is a shortage of specialist community-based clinicians to provide treatment. Parent–Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), an intervention designed to reduce child disruptive behaviors, may be effective for families of children with ASD but has rarely been studied outside of university-based research settings. We examined the effectiveness of PCIT delivered for children with (N = 109) and without (N = 2,324) ASD/developmental delays (DD) across community-based agencies in Oregon. Findings revealed significant reductions in disruptive behavior and positive changes in the parent-child relationship in both groups. These findings support …

Exploring Children’S Insights About Participating In Recreational Activities With Horses And Farm Animals: Social Emotional Experiences And Belief In Animal Mind, Christine Yvette Tardif-Williams, Renata P. S. Roma

People and Animals: The International Journal of Research and Practice

Research continues to shed light on the impact of children’s interactions with horses in equine-assisted, learning, and therapeutic contexts. However, we know relatively less about the impact of children’s recreational activities with horses and a diversity of farm animals. What is needed is research that explores how recreational programs involving activities with horses and farm animals are perceived by the child participants themselves. This pilot study sought to explore the insights of children who participated in a nine-week recreational program involving activities with horses and farm animals, with a focus on children’s social emotional experiences and belief in animal mind …

Anxious Attachment As A Mediator Between Parental Abuse In Childhood And Partner Attributions In Adulthood, Naomi Michele Pearson

Honors Theses

Parenting in childhood can positively or negatively affect physical and mental health and behaviors in adulthood. When a child undergoes abuse or neglect from their caregiver, they often develop inadequate adjustment, due to insecurity in close relationships, which may continue throughout their lives. Furthermore, this insecurity, established in childhood, can manifest in adult romantic relationships, as assurance-seeking, jealousy, and hostility, causing insecurely-attached individuals to attribute blame onto their partners, internal attributes, or circumstances.

These pessimistic attributions, caused by parental- influenced feelings of ambivalence and separation anxiety, may lead to increased tension and dissatisfaction within close relationships. A sample of 150 …

Does Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Increase The Risk Of Minor Blunt Head Trauma In Children?, Murat Pakyurek, Mohamed Badawy, Irma T Ugalde, Paul Ishimine, Pradip P Chaudhari, Kevan Mccarten-Gibbs, Ozra Nobari, Nathan Kuppermann, James F Holmes

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

PROBLEM: It is unclear if attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increases the risk of head trauma in children.

METHODS: We conducted a multicenter prospective observational study of children with minor blunt head trauma. Guardians were queried, and medical records were reviewed as to whether the patient had previously been diagnosed with ADHD. Enrolled patients were categorized based on their mechanism of injury, with a comparison of those with motor vehicle collision (MVC) versus non-MVC mechanisms.

FINDINGS: A total of 3410 (84%) enrolled children had ADHD status available, and 274 (8.0%; 95% confidence interval, CI: 7.1, 9.0%) had been diagnosed with ADHD. …

Early Life Exposure To Unpredictable Parental Sensory Signals Shapes Cognitive Development Across Three Species, Elyssia Poggi Davis, Kari Mccormack, Hina Arora, Desiree Sharpe, Annabel K. Short, Jocelyne Bachevalier, Laura M. Glynn, Curt A. Sandman, Hal S. Stern, Mar Sanchez, Tallie Z. Baram

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Exposure to early life adversity has long term consequences on cognitive function. Most research has focused on understanding components of early life adversities that contribute to later risk, including poverty, trauma, maltreatment, and neglect. Whereas these factors, in the aggregate, explain a significant proportion of emotional and cognitive problems, there are serious gaps in our ability to identify potential mechanisms by which early life adversities might promote vulnerability or resilience. Here we discuss early life exposure to unpredictable signals from the caretaker as an understudied type of adversity that is amenable to prevention and intervention. We employ a translational approach …

Personality And Psychopathology Correlates Of Institutional Misconduct Among Juvenile Offenders, Paula Floyd

Dissertations

Juvenile delinquency is a national concern, as delinquent behavior is associated with a host of poor psychosocial outcomes during later adolescence and adulthood. To address delinquency, it is important to understand psychological adjustment among adolescents who have already made contact with the juvenile justice system. One way to explore adjustment within this population involves examining personality and psychopathology correlates of institutional misconduct (i.e., behavioral infractions while incarcerated). While there is a robust body of literature regarding personality and psychopathology correlates of misconduct in adult inmate samples, there has been far less work devoted to these relationships among justice-involved youth. Furthermore, …

Stress Arising From The Covid-19 Pandemic: Impacts On Coparenting Quality And Child Internalizing And Externalizing Problems, Michelle R. Ebrahim

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Since emerging in late 2019, the highly contagious coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has caused worldwide disruptions, with major shutdowns in school, work, and other aspects of life. These stressors uniquely impacted families with young children. The present study investigated the impact of the pandemic on family functioning and risk for child internalizing and externalizing problems during the first year after the pandemic. The study included three waves of data collection from a larger longitudinal study aimed at understanding how couples navigate the prenatal-postpartum transition and the impacts of the family on early child development. We found that family pandemic-related stress was …

Challenges, Opportunities, And Adaptations Of A College Preparatory 4-H Youth Development Program During Covid-19, Emily M. Davis, Ann Sansing, Jasmine Harris-Speight, Mary Nelson Robertson, David Buys

Journal of Youth Development

SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) has proliferated across the United States, and in the process, it has disrupted all sense of normalcy. Because adolescents are in a critical period for growth and development, youth are particularly susceptible to negative impacts of disruption from COVID-19. Therefore, sustaining youth development programs is essential to ensuring positive youth development occurs despite significant challenges. Unfortunately, the implementation of programs that maintain safety precautions can be challenging. Many programs have been forced to either cancel all activities or to transition program elements to a virtual format. Rural Medical and Science Scholars (RMSS) program administrative staff made the decision …

An Enhanced Mentoring Model’S Impact On Youth In Boys And Girls Clubs, Lisa Mcgarrie, Eric Napierala, Carrie Oliver, Emily Heberlein, Brittany Taylor, Angie Snyder

Journal of Youth Development

Although federal funding has been provided to add mentoring to youth development programs for decades, we still lack knowledge about the impacts of mentoring on youth outcomes. This research seeks to fill a gap by documenting youth outcomes from an enhanced mentoring approach for urban Boys and Girls Clubs (BGC) in the Southeastern United States delivered by paid staff who serve as mentors through group activities and 1:1 interactions with youth. We perform logistic regressions of secondary data from a cohort of BGCs to understand the relationships between enhanced mentoring and youth outcomes related to program retention, behaviors, and academics. …

Importance Of The Access, Equity, And Opportunity Competencies Among 4-H Professionals, Matt Benge, Jeff Wayne Howard

Journal of Youth Development

The 4-H Professional Research, Knowledge and Competencies (PRKC) is a professional development framework that can be used to identify competency gaps and training needs of 4-H professionals. The PRKC consists of 6 competency domains, 1 being access, equity, and opportunity (AEO). A tailored design method was used to gather data and sort the respondents between rural and urban community type. 4-H Extension agents serving urban communities perceived 12 out of the 14 AEO domain components as more important than agents serving rural communities did. The 2 AEO domain components that were not significantly different in perceived importance were values, norms, …

A Self-Assessment Approach To Understanding 4-H Professional Development Needs In The Northeast, Marycarmen Kunicki, Marissa Staffen, Jennifer Cushman, Rachel E. Lyons, Lisa Phelps, Kevin Sullivan

Journal of Youth Development

In 2017, the National 4-H professional research, knowledge, and competencies (PRKC) taxonomy was updated reflecting the current needs of 4-H youth development professionals. Knowledge and skill gaps of 4-H professionals need to be identified to optimize resource allocation for professional development on the state and regional level. We developed a web-based self-assessment of the PRKC tool using Qualtrics, that evaluated the core competencies across the 6 PRKC domains: (a) youth development; (b) youth program development; (c) volunteerism; (d) equity, access, and opportunity; (e) partnerships; and (f) organizational systems. The responses from 188 Extension 4-H professionals (approximately a quarter of the …

How To Survive College As An Acoa: The Effectiveness Of University Resources On Helping Acoas Socially And Psychologically Succeed During Their Academic Career, Kelly Buchan

Senior Theses

In 2019, 14.5 million people ages 12 and older had Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), but only 10% received treatment (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [NIAAA], 2022). Parental drinking problems can directly affect children, or “Adult Children of Alcoholics.” Of the few studies targeting ACoAs, results show that ACoAs not only have higher risks of mental illness, but they also have lower GPAs and social health (Schroeder & Kelley, 2008). Thus, this study assessed the extent to which perceptions of the college drinking environment are related to higher depression rates in ACoAs, certain drinking motivations, and reluctance to use …

Maximizing Youth Leadership In Out-Of-School Time Programs: Six Best Practices From Youth Driven Spaces, Jamie Heng-Chieh Wu, Alison Shereda, Sara T. Stacy, John Kenneth Weiss, Megan Heintschel

Journal of Youth Development

This paper aims to provide strategies for youth-serving organizations to maximize opportunities for youth to develop leadership skills within the out-of-school time program context. The sample includes 5 youth-serving agencies who participated in the Youth Driven Spaces initiative led by a Midwest program. Data for this project included observations of youth–adult meetings, field notes from youths’ reflections on key model activities, and interviews with adult staff to identify common challenges and supportive solutions. We identified 6 emergent themes for supporting youth leadership: (a) engage youth in meetings, (b) create opportunities for youth to learn how to be leaders, (c) recognize …

Civic Engagement And Advocacy In Rural Wisconsin: Youth Development Through Legislative Forums, Doug Liphart, Neil James Klemme, Ian Meeker

Journal of Youth Development

Youth Development programming that engages youth to work side by side with local leaders creates an environment where youth develop civic skills. These skills include a greater understanding of the legislative process, their role in our democracy, and increased engagement in the democratic process. Through their participation in the Superior Days Legislative Forum, youth increase their civic skills, are inspired to create change in their communities, ask questions and respond to challenges by bringing legislative issues of concern unique to their community to the entire representative body at the state capitol. Youth delegates also gain experience partnering with adults from …

Cultural Humility Training For Mentors: Lessons Learned And Implications Of Youth Programs, Amy J. Anderson, April Riordan, Lavasha Smith, Bridget Hillard, Bernadette Sánchez

Journal of Youth Development

The current paper presents lessons learned from a research-to-practice partnership between mentoring program practitioners and researchers that focused on the development and implementation of a cultural humility training for volunteer mentors. Using multiple data sources (e.g., training materials, field notes, mentor surveys), we present a description of the research-to-practice partnership and the Culturally Smart Relationships pilot training content. We generate practice-oriented lessons to inform future cultural humility training work with staff and volunteers in youth programs. Our lessons reflect recommendations that emerged from five project phases: (a) organizational commitment to justice, equity, diversity, inclusion; (b) training curriculum and logistical planning; …

Informing Practice Through Professional Development: An Interstate Urban Programming Study Tour, Vernelle Mitchell-Hawkins, Deborah Dietrich

Journal of Youth Development

Southeast Pennsylvania 4-H Extension educators identified a need for professional development in order to further develop current urban 4-H programs. The expectation was that increased awareness and knowledge would lead to increased skills competency in planning, implementing, and evaluating urban 4-H youth development programs. An interstate professional development program was developed to inform practitioners on positive youth development in urban communities. The 2-day program included on-site observations of urban programs and professional development on best practices. The event was scheduled as a study tour that involved intentional focus on practical applications of research theory for informal education. The Penn State …