Relationships Between Sensory Reactivity, Restricted And Repetitive Behaviors, And Autonomic Nervous System Activity In Autistic And Non-Autistic Individuals, Sapir Elimaliah

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The current dissertation includes seven chapters. Chapter 1 includes my professional background and describes the experiences that led me to study restricted and repetitive behaviors. It also briefly describes my personal journey as an international graduate student. Chapter 2 is devoted to the rich literature that this dissertation is based on. The literature review covers both the foundational and most recent findings in the fields of sensory reactivity, restricted and repetitive behaviors, and autonomic activity, as well as the known relationships between these areas in autistic and non-autistic individuals. In Chapter 3, I describe in detail the methodology used in …

Fathers Are Fathers Are Fathers: How Sociocultural Context And Sexual Orientation Influence The Gendering Of Children, Sarah M. Frantz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Though the body of literature on gay father-headed families indicates there is no significant differences on measures of gender normativity and well-being between children raised with two dads and their peers raised by heterosexual parents, there is a proliferation of anti-LGBTQ+ policies throughout the United States aimed at limiting this community’s rights and silencing their lived experiences. Given that sociocultural and political environments vary greatly state-to-state, it is important to see how the specific context in which fathers live may impact their differential parenting of sons and daughters, their gender beliefs, and the way they feel they would navigate gender …

Antisocial Behavior And Callous Unemotional Traits In Youth: A Biosocial Approach, Yong Lin Huang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Early life presence of antisocial behavior (e.g., aggression/delinquency) and psychopathic/callous-unemotional (CU) traits (lacking empathy/remorse, shallow affect) are precursors to juvenile crime and criminal offending in adulthood. Etiological research on antisocial/CU tendencies has implicated both neurobiological (e.g., alterations in brain function and structure) and environmental (social adversity, prenatal stress) underpinnings. It has been proposed that reward and punishment processing deficits may induce problematic traits and behavior, such that antisocial/CU tendencies may be linked to hypersensitivity to rewards and hyposensitivity to punishment. Studies in this area have generated inconsistent findings and focused primarily on adult and clinical samples, leaving youth and community …

Associations Between The Content And Level Of Parent Concerns Pre-Diagnosis And Timeliness Of Autism Screening And Diagnostic Evaluation Among A Diverse Sample Of Children In Part C Early Intervention, Kohrissa Joseph

Graduate Masters Theses

Though autism can be diagnosed as early as 18 months for many children, the current average age of diagnosis is between 3 and 4 years old. Children of color are diagnosed even later. Several studies have examined this disparity and have found that one significant contributor is pediatric providers’ screening practices. Though the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends autism specific screening at 18- and 24-month well-child visits, many pediatricians report only screening if they are concerned or if the parent mentions a concern. In light of recent findings that Black and Latinx parents may have fewer autism-related concerns than …

Transformation Based Digital Technology: The Effectivity Of Psychosocial Intervention Method, I Kadek Agus Hendriawan Putra, Pande Putu Narisya Ardhaneswari, Ni Wayan Devi Ariasih, I Komang Krisnata Kanaya

Smart City

A multitude of patterns resulting from technological change have an influence on people's mental health. People in the digital era need strong mental health in order to prevent mental disease. Coupled with the pandemic condition that happened around two years ago, it also took a part of the economic chain stability in the public, which is really important for everyday daily life. From the literature studies that have been read, showed that approximately 20% of the Indonesian population has the potential to have a mental disorder. Based on the various mental health problems that occur, the approach using the psychosocial …

Introduction To Human Development: Infancy And Childhood, Hawai Kwok

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Familiarity And The Age-Based Double Standard In Evaluating Memory And Iadl Errors, Kristopher J. Kimbler, Ashley M. Escalon

Adultspan Journal

Research suggests that errors committed by older adults are viewed as more problematic than identical errors committed by younger adults. This study is the first to examine whether these age-based biases are found when evaluating social partners. The current study (N = 162) used a 2 X 2 (target age: young vs. old; familiarity: hypothetical vs. social partner) between-subjects design to assess the extent that familiarity influences the evaluations of errors committed by others. Findings suggest that age-based biases do not differ when evaluating social partners compared to hypothetical targets. Implications for counselors and other healthcare professionals are included.

Self-Regulation, Emotion Regulation, & Social Problem-Solving: Common & Distinct Pathways To Depression, Michelle L. Buffie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study examined the relationships among three psychological constructs: self-regulation (SR), emotion regulation (ER), and social problem-solving (SPS), and their connection to depressive symptomology. SR, ER, and SPS arose from independent, well-established literature bases and each has demonstrated links to psychopathology. The theories underlying these constructs, however, suggest overlap in their operationalization and measurement. Despite these concerns, no empirical investigations to date have examined the measurement and predictive validity of measures of SR, ER, and SPS in the context of one another. Undergraduate students aged 18-29 (N = 592) completed three self-report measures each of the constructs interest, …

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 Negative Effects Of Social Media Sites On Adolescents And The Benefits Of Evoking Empathy Through Reading, Lindsay Everson

Honors Program Theses and Projects

This thesis describes the rise in narcissistic behaviors, cyberbullying, and mental health issues in adolescents ages 13-19 due to frequent social media usage on sites such as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. The rise in narcissistic behavior, cyberbullying, and mental health issues among teens places prominence on the need for adolescents to engage in activities that evoke empathy. To combat the issues that come with an adolescent’s frequent social media usage this paper reveals the benefits of reading when it comes to evoking empathy in teens. The paper concludes that evoking empathy in adolescents through reading encourages them to contribute to …

Changes In Audiovisual Integration In Aging, Alyssa S. Lynn

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

The proposed study will examine changes in audiovisual integration between younger and older adults. Audiovisual integration enables us to associate and bind related auditory and visual information and experience it as a single percept (Spence, 2007). Being able to properly integrate is crucial in our everyday lives. When perceiving speech, audiovisual integration binds visual information from lip movements with auditory information from the speaker's utterances so that speech can be perceived multimodally. With age, our auditory and visual sensory acuity tends to decline with audiovisual integration being impacted as a result (Brooks et al., 2018; Mahoney et al., 2011). We …

Parent-Youth Similarities On Negative Affect: Analyses Of Language Parameters In Semi-Structured Interviews, Leo Ye

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Abstract

Emotion is a crucial component of verbal communication that conveys messages besides the semantic meanings in speech. The phonological and locutionary cues reflect various emotional effects that are detectable for interpretation. Past research suggests that people who are physically and psychologically close to each other tend to express similar emotions through speech. This relationship has been scrutinized under empirical research for parent-infant relations. However, it is unclear whether the effect exists between parents and youths. This study analyzes recorded speeches of n = 8 parent-youth pairs from semi-structured Zoom interviews and compares them based on their similarities in negative …

Teacher Perception Of A Brief Mindfulness-Based Curriculum And Its Impact On The Development Of Social Skills And Self-Regulation On A Preschool Classroom, Allison Poggendorf

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

Recent studies on mindfulness and its impact on children have found promising results, especially with social-emotional skill development. A majority of the research on mindfulness applied in educational setting tends to focus on elementary and high school students, and there is limited, but growing research that examines the impact of mindfulness among early childhood students. This current study explored the impact of a brief mindfulness-based curriculum on an intact preschool classroom. Specifically, this study examined if preschool teachers perceive mindfulness practices in the classroom to impact their students’ self-regulation skills and social skills and how likely they were to continue …

Toddler Characteristics And Attention, Lani A. Taylor

Research Psychology Theses

Abstract

Individual differences have become increasingly relevant when addressing variability across child development. Literature bears evidence that these differences may impact a toddler’s ability to respond to Joint Attention (JA). JA refers to a communicative gaze and pointing between a child and another individual. JA has been recognized as being a critical milestone, to the formation and cultivation of shared awareness and attention of an event or object. JA is a skill that is critical to the development of future language acquisition (Vaughan Van Hecke et al., 2007). The aim of this study is to measure whether child characteristics, such …

Impact Of Parental Substance Misuse On Attachment In Young Adults: A Qualitative Approach, Susan E. Hardman

Dissertations, 2020-current

This study examined the impact of parental substance misuse on young adult development and relationships by interviewing young adults about their experience being raised by a parent who misused substances. A qualitative design based on constructivist grounded theory and informed by constructs from attachment theory was used. Participants consisted of 10 young adults, ages 18-26, who endorsed being raised by a parent who misused substances. The interview questions developed for the study were informed by a measure of adult attachment. Analysis of the data included identification of emergent categories/themes as well as a priori constructs from attachment theory (safe haven, …

Let’S Talk: The Dual Process Model Of Supportive Communication In Peers, Erica Marie Szkody

Theses and Dissertations

Supportive messages occur within most relationships. Researchers have found strong relationships between social support and various physical and psychological health outcomes, but the specific mechanisms at work have yet to be fully explored. Many factors contribute to whether a supportive interaction is processed as helpful or supportive by the recipient including relational factors, message content, past experiences, etc. For peer dyads, the context and supportive messages individuals provide their peer may inhibit or contribute to their perception of their peer’s supportive behavior. The current study examined the impact of contextual factors (such as family communication patterns and relationship quality) on …

An Exploratory Study Of Early Childhood Coaches’ Practices And Professional Learning Needs, Rachel E. Schachter, Holly Hatton-Bowers, Hayley Jackson, Lisa Knoche

Faculty Publications, Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies

Coaching is increasingly being used as a mechanism to improve the quality of early childhood education. Yet, for coaching outside of researcher-controlled interventions, limited information details coaches’ reports of their practices’ professional learning needs. We addressed this gap via an exploratory study utilizing online questionnaires of 91 coaches working with educators in a Midwestern US state across 12 coaching initiatives. Most participants had less than 5 years of experience working as an early childhood coach. Almost a third coached for multiple initiatives. Coaching occurred via multiple formats and often addressed behavior management and social emotional development regardless of the coaching …

A Randomized Controlled Trial Of Telehealth Mindful Parenting Training On Executive Function In Autistic Children And Their Parents, Vanessa Zhou

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

This randomized controlled trial study explored the effect of telehealth mindful parenting group intervention on executive function in autistic children and their parents. Participants included 83 caregivers (29-54 years) of autistic children (5-18 years) in the United States who were randomized into either the immediate (n = 40) or waitlist-control group (n = 43). Of the participants randomized, 55 caregivers (immediate = 33; waitlist = 22) followed the protocol and were included in the primary analysis. Caregivers in the sample (mean age of 42.97 years) were mostly white (73%), married (76%), female (80%), biological mothers (67%), from Washington …

Raising Flourishing Adults: How Positive Psychology Can Help Adolescents Rise Above Stressful Life Events To Lead Flourishing Adult Lives, Devon J. Still

Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) Capstone Projects

Adolescence is a time of dramatic change and growth across multiple systems. Simultaneous development of neural, biological, and social domains of functioning renders adolescence a heightened period of sensitivity to early life experiences. Among these experiences, stressful life events are shown to disrupt the architecture of the developing brain, increasing the risk of future mental health disorders, such as depression and anxiety. In this paper, I discuss the risk of adolescence, such as the vulnerabilities to stress, alongside the unique plasticity that creates an opportunity for positive external influences (e.g., family milieu). Finally, I propose a multidimensional construct, known as …

Impact Of Teacher Cognition On The Implementation Of Social- Emotional Learning Practices For El Students, Madeline Bliske

Theses and Dissertations

There is a well-established achievement and graduation rate gap between English Learner (EL) students and their monolingual English-speaking peers (U.S. Department of Education, 2020). The current study focuses on teacher cognition and characteristics that may impact the likelihood that they will implement culturally and linguistically sustaining (CLS) social-emotional learning (SEL) practices for EL students within their classroom. Specifically, I descriptively analyze whether personal, professional, or school characteristics are associated with teachers’ perception of EL students SEL competencies or implementation of CLS SEL practices. Utilizing the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), I evaluate whether teacher cognition (i.e., behavioral attitudes, subjective norms, …