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Spring Commencement, 2024, Marshall University

Marshall University Commencement

Program for the One Hundred Eighty-Seventh Commencement of Marshall University, Saturday, April 27, 2024 held at the Mountain Health Arena in Huntington, West Virginia.

Parent Perceived Facilitators And Barriers To Implementation Of Ayres Sensory Integration® (Asi) Parent Education Modules For Autistic Children, Emily E. Lowry, Ms, Otr/L

Post-Professional Occupational Therapy Doctorate Culminating Presentations

Introduction: Ayres Sensory Integration® (ASI) is an evidence-based intervention for children with challenges in sensory integration. Parent education is an integral part of ASI (Parham et al., 2011). To address parent education, researchers developed the ASI Parent Education Modules, developed by a team of researchers (Schaaf et al., 2015) and embellished by others (Roan et al., 2022) designed to educate parents about their child’s sensory integrative challenges, ideas for addressing these at home, and to promote collaboration between therapists and parents.

Objective: To examine parental perceptions of the facilitators and barriers impacting the implementation of ASI Parent Education Modules for …

The Experience Of The Pediatric Outpatient Therapy Waiting Room Design For Autistic Children, Maria J. Vetter, Ms, Otr/L

Post-Professional Occupational Therapy Doctorate Culminating Presentations

Introduction: Autistic children attend an annual average of 41.5 outpatient visits, while typically developing children attend an average of 3.3 visits (Liptak, Stuart, & Auinger, 2006). Autistic children generally experience sensory processing and self-regulation differences. Outpatient therapy waiting rooms are frequented by autistic children for outpatient services. These settings consist of unpredictable and uncontrollable stimuli that may be difficult for children with different sensory needs to tolerate, leading to high stress levels and struggles with self-regulation impacting their experience (Higuera-Trujillo et al., 2020; Schaaf et al., 2011). However, there is scant occupational therapy research informing the design of supportive waiting …

Certified Hand Therapists’ Perceptions Of The Impact And Implications Of Psychosocial Factors On Patients With Complex Traumatic Hand Injuries, Noha A. Elfar, Otr/L, Cht

Post-Professional Occupational Therapy Doctorate Culminating Presentations

Background: Hand therapists utilize special skills in assessing, planning, and treating patients to prevent dysfunction, restore function, and/or reverse the progress of pathology of the upper limb to enhance an individual’s ability to execute tasks and participate fully in life. However, little is known about how hand therapists address psychosocial factors in patients with complex traumatic hand injuries (CTHIs) and their perspectives on how physical and psychological adaptation is required following hand trauma to optimize care.¹

Purpose: To identify Certified Hand Therapists’ (CHTs) perceptions of the impact and implications of psychosocial factors in patients with CTHIs by analyzing qualitative …

Georgia Ghosts: History, Folklore, And The Roots Of The Southern Gothic, Katherine M. Mcdowell

Master's Projects

There is something quintessentially human about ghost stories, yet particular regions tend to be more powerfully associated with haunted folktales than others. One of the regions is the southeastern United States. In fact, these oral traditions appear to have influenced the area's best-known literary subgenre: the Southern Gothic.

Why is the South considered haunted? Are there particular qualities in historical events that make them more likely to engender ghost stories? What makes the South's folkloric spirits so powerful that they appear even in modern literature? Most of all, what connects the region's history and folklore with the Southern Gothic? By …

Family Physicians And Menstrual Care: An Analysis Of Cera 2023, Allison Casola, Olivia Rea, Tiffany Ho

Department of Family & Community Medicine Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: Menstrual health is an important indicator of overall health and has large impacts on quality of life. Despite number and impact, discussion of menstruation remains largely taboo within health care. Patients and physicians are not engaging in regular, meaningful discussions on menstruation. Family physicians, as primary care providers, can facilitate these important conversations.

OBJECTIVES: We sought to understand the profile of menstrual care providing family physicians and assessed physician comfort, knowledge, training, and perceived importance regarding menstrual care.

DESIGN/METHODS: This is a cross-sectional analysis of the 2022 Council of Academic Family Medicine Educational Research Alliance survey. The survey included …

Jtc 24: Making His Mark, Edwin Smith

University of Mississippi News

This story is part of the 2024 Journey to Commencement series, which celebrates the pinnacle of the academic year by highlighting University of Mississippi students and their outstanding academic and personal journeys from college student to college graduate.

Jtc 24: Student, Veteran, Mother Refuses To Give Up, Clara Turnage

University of Mississippi News

This story is part of the 2024 Journey to Commencement series, which celebrates the pinnacle of the academic year by highlighting University of Mississippi students and their outstanding academic and personal journeys from college student to college graduate.

The Psychology And Impact Of Cheating, Jackson Smith, Hagar Ahmed, Michael Burrough, Isaac Britland, Barish Mertkolu

ENGL 1102 Showcase

This anthology discusses cheating as an idea, and its effects in a variety of different social spaces, digital and physical. We talk about how and why cheating occurs, as well as what is done to prevent it. Additionally, we discuss what more can be done to mitigate the effects that cheating has as it becomes more widespread due to advances in technology. The first topic discussed is how the architecture of educational institutions can affect cheating in school. The next topic discusses the variety of ways that players in casual and competitive eSports cheat, and what is done to prevent …

A New Update Is Ready To Be Installed: The Ever-Increasing Advancement Of The Video Game Industry., Tristen Schubert, Patrynna Mensah, Colin Lara, Nicholas Wasztyl

ENGL 1102 Showcase

The topics being discussed in this anthology all have a deep connection to video games and talk about the different aspects of the video game industry. This includes the way that video game narratives have changed, how video games use psychology to immerse their players, to how video games are able to be played through new services such as cloud gaming, and even how copyright works when it comes to video games. With all this in mind, this anthology strives to inform our readers about aspects of the video game industry that are crucial to its overall success.

M’Ma, Charlotte Rose Eshelman

Theses

As I wrestle with myself, I wrestle with my mother. Both my mother and I survived domestic abuse as children, my mother again as an adult. Our bodies carry our trauma, her body carried mine, and someday, my body will carry my children. M’ma contemplates what we do with what we’re given, how trauma is inherited and passed down to the next generation through the body, and the complex intimacy of the mother-child relationship. I express and project my questions about my future children, my relationship with and understanding of my mother, and of myself in anticipation of being a …

Examining The Effect Of Genes On Depression As Mediated By Smoking And Modified By Sex, Kirsten Voorhies, Julian Hecker, Sanghun Lee, Georg Hahn, Dmitry Prokopenko, Merry-Lynn Mcdonald, Alexander C Wu, Ann Wu, John E Hokanson, Michael H Cho, Christoph Lange, Karin F Hoth, Sharon M Lutz

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Depression is heritable, differs by sex, and has environmental risk factors such as cigarette smoking. However, the effect of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on depression through cigarette smoking and the role of sex is unclear. In order to examine the association of SNPs with depression and smoking in the UK Biobank with replication in the COPDGene study, we used counterfactual-based mediation analysis to test the indirect or mediated effect of SNPs on broad depression through the log of pack-years of cigarette smoking, adjusting for age, sex, current smoking status, and genetic ancestry (via principal components). In secondary analyses, we adjusted …

Graph-Based Learning, Jason Gronn

Honors Projects

An educational approach to teaching students based on prerequisite knowledge they may or may not have is presented. This approach represents educational content in the form of a graph, where edges link each topic to the prerequisites of that topic. A proof-of-concept website is created based on this approach, where qualitative results are observed and a number of conclusions are drawn. Some of the findings are that, while it can prevent users from being confused by lacked prior knowledge, the users may instead be confused by the presentation of the graph structure. The work finds that the approach is workable, …

Breaking The Stigma And Raising Awareness: The Grisly Effects Developmental Trauma Has On Early Adulthood And How To Put A Stop To This Monstrosity, Grace Fleishman

Academic Festival

I lived a great childhood, and I mean really great. I had a seemingly stable home life and the world was full of colors and endless possibilities. Then suddenly, on my twentieth birthday, I found myself locked in a psych ward not wanting to be alive. Imagine growing up in a world full of colors. Everything is bright and happy and you live in a house full of love, safety, and security. Then, once you hit early adulthood, the world goes gray.

Sometimes, you cannot always describe why you feel a certain way or why things are the way that …

The Effects Of Social Media On The Women Of Generation Z, Maren Hubler

Academic Festival

This paper provides a thorough examination of the multifaceted influence of social media on the lives of young women from Generation Z. It begins by contextualizing social media as a pervasive force in contemporary society, defining its various functions and highlighting generational differences in usage. Through a balanced exploration of both positive and negative effects, the paper elucidates the complex relationship between social media and the development of young women.

Positive aspects include increased connectivity, heightened awareness of social issues, and greater access to information. However, the paper also delves into negative consequences such as the pressure to maintain a …

The Effects Of Semantic Priming On Cultural Vs. Non-Cultural Words In Individuals With Semantic Dementia, Lila Armstrong, Morgan Craig, Erica Santangeli, Kathleen Vergnolle

Academic Festival

Semantic dementia (SD) is a frontal lobe dementia variant characterized by poor semantic memory and impairments in lexical access (Paplikar et al., 2022, Roelofs, 2023). It has been hypothesized that cultural words may be easier to retrieve from memory than non-cultural words because they include personal significance. This project proposes a semantic priming study to evaluate the speed and accuracy of lexical access between cultural and non-cultural words in individuals with SD. Participants will be presented with a word-picture pair and then a target picture. The target picture will be 1) culturally significant or 2) culturally neutral. The word-picture pair …

One Year Later: Development Of The Ageist Experiences Questionnaire, Ava K. Bjelka, Francesca L. Davenport, Angelina M. Wargo

Academic Festival

Ageism refers to the combined stereotypes, prejudice, and discriminatory behaviors based on someone’s presumed age. Oftentimes we see older adults being viewed with mixed (ambivalent) perceptions, such that they are viewed as being warm, but not very capable. Thus, there are multiple forms of ageism. Hostile ageism refers to overtly negative ageism, whereas benevolent ageism refers to the seemingly kind form of ageism that still reinforces negative stereotypes (e.g., giving your seat to someone, assuming they are fragile or weak). Most current research on ageism has referred to attitudes directed towards older adults and aging. This work has found that …

Poverty's Role In Shaping The Childhood Obesity Epidemic, Leah Demko, Megan Gaffney, Abby Hudson, Katherin Mazzarelli, Sabrina Palen

Academic Festival

Childhood obesity is a major healthcare concern, as millions of children are classified as overweight and obese. Socioeconomic status (SES) influences the prevalence of childhood obesity, especially individuals from low SES. A child's living environment, attending low income schools, parental education, and low family income all impact a child's risk of becoming obese. The National Survey of Children's Health 2021 data was used to observe the relationship between Federal Poverty Level (FPL) and identification of being overweight by a doctor. Family poverty level is significantly associated with obesity among children aged 5-12. This hypothesis was tested used cross-tabulation with chi-square …

What Are The Effects Of Psychological Trauma On Nurses With Psychological Trauma, As Well As Their Care To Patients?, Abigail Marsh

Academic Festival

Nursing encompasses the promotion of health and prevention of illness, the care of the healthy, the physically ill, mentally ill, and disabled people of any age, in all health care and community settings. It is among one of the most sought-after professions, as well as a profession that will always be necessary. “Internationally, nurses are recognized as an integral part of healthcare with a number of reports highlighting the value of nursing and the importance of nurses being able to practice to their full potential” (Bragadóttir, H., Burmeister, E. A., et. al, 2020).

Historically, nurses have worked closely with doctors, …

Cognitive Copycats: An Eeg Study Of Imitative Behavior In Infants, Isabella Leva

Academic Festival

The neural mirroring system activates during action observation and execution. This overlap in activation may support various social cognitive functions (e.g., imitation)—however, associations between infants’ neural mirroring activity and imitation remain relatively unclear. The present study examines whether 6-month-old infants’ mu rhythm desynchronization (MRD; indicator of neural mirroring system activity) is associated with their imitation. We hypothesized that infants with stronger MRD during action observation would imitate more actions than infants with weaker MRD.

Social Identity Salience & Threat: Validating The Sitc Inventory, Christina Poirier, Katherine Dempsey

Academic Festival

Social identity threat refers to the fear that stigmatized groups often face about being mistreated, invalidated, or devalued for their social identification. All individuals have multiple intersecting social identities that influence how people are treated and perform. Complex discriminatory experiences of advantage and disadvantage often arise and persist. Past social identity threat measures have examined identity as singular rather than multifaceted, which fails to recognize intersectionality. We introduce the Social Identity Threat Concerns (SITC) Inventory–a novel tool for measuring social identity threat concerns that allows for an exploration of threats related to both singular social identities and their complex intersections. …

Effects Of Sleep On Academic Performance In College Students, Skyla Contarino

Academic Festival

No abstract provided.

How Older Men And Women Varied In Coping During Covid-19 Pandemic, Mateo Villarreal

Academic Festival

Due to the novelty experience posed by COVID-19, understanding how older adults coped is important and more so, if their coping strategies varied by sex. Research studies show that older adults differ in terms of comorbidity, with women mostly affected. Since COVID-19 poses unique challenges such as social distancing and quarantine, the present study seeks to understand COVID-19 coping related strategies among older adults, and variations in coping by sex. The present study recruited 68 older adults (39 females and 29 males), aged 55-69 (m=65.7 years) from the East Coast region of the United States to participate in interviews on …

Perceived Risk Of Harms Of Alcohol And Cannabis Among Female College Students, Megan Dunne, Katherine Fitzpatrick, Christina Poirier

Academic Festival

Perceived Risk of Harms of Alcohol and Cannabis among Female College Students

Effects Of Cardiac Rehabilitation On Patients With Congestive Heart Failure Following A Myocardial Infarction, Stasia Dussault

Academic Festival

•Three phases of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs: in hospital, early outpatient, and maintenance. •Maintenance includes a supervised recovery program, focused on physical activity, health education, mental health and risk factor awareness. •CR has been known to lower the risk of death from future heart problems by 1/3. •Depression and lack of motivation are common amongst people with cardiovascular disease. •CR improves mood and perception of life in addition to cardiovascular health.

Impact Of Covid-19 On High-Level Athletes, Brendan O'Donnell

Academic Festival

The COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented era of uncertainty and disruption, profoundly impacting every part of human life, especially the world of sports. High-level athletes, admired for their physical abilities and mental toughness, were not immune to the far-reaching impacts of the pandemic. From mental health challenges to disruptions in training routines, and physical injuries to long-term implications, the journey of high-level athletes through the COVID-19 pandemic has been defined by resilience, adaptation, and significant change.

The Use Of Rapid Motor Imitation Antecedent Training For Increasing Spoken Phonology In Minimally Speaking Autistic Preschoolers, Bethany Mitros, Biana Blasi, Kianna Bergin, Taylor Mason

Academic Festival

Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) fail to acquire spoken language (Tager-Flusberg & Kasari, 2013) with spoken language predicting positive outcomes (Tager-Flusberg, 2016). Thus, the more evidence-based interventions available to clinicians, the more likely these children will acquire language. This project proposes to evaluate the effectiveness of Rapid Motor Imitation Antecedent Training (RMIA) for improving speech production in preschoolers with ASD. Twenty children, 3-4 years, diagnosed with ASD and exhibiting restricted spoken phonemic repertoires, will be recruited from early intervention programs. Participants will be randomly assigned to either an immediate treatment group or a delayed treatment group. The delayed …

Social Media Needs To Change, Alexis Benevento

Academic Festival

No abstract provided.

Calling-In Vs. Calling-Out: Style Preferences For Confronting Prejudice, Michele Chu, Nick Granja, Casey Russell

Academic Festival

Confronting prejudice—directly challenging biased comments and behaviors—is an effective strategy for reducing prejudiced attitudes and instances of stereotyping. However, it remains unclear how people feel about different confrontation styles and which tactics are most comfortable and preferred. In this study, we compared two confrontation styles: “calling-out,” which aims to shame and/or correct the offender, and “calling-in,” which aims to understand and educate the offender. We recruited 400 SHU students (75.5% White, 82.3% women). Participants were randomly assigned to read one of six scenarios (covering ableism, sexism, ethnic bias, ageism, racism/classism, or homophobia), imagining a friend making a biased comment that …

Effects Of Seed Source And Sediment Composition On Seagrass Germination And Seedling Performance, Mason Tsaglos

Academic Festival

The global decline of seagrass meadows urgently requires finding consistently effective restoration methods. Recently, there has been increased interest in seed-based methods of seagrass restoration. However, these methods have had mixed success, with highly variable outcomes. Relatively little is known about how sediment characteristics, including soil conditioning by seagrasses, may affect seed germination and seedling success in a restoration context. To examine the effects of seed source and sediment characteristics, we conducted a laboratory experiment using eelgrass seeds collected from different source meadows and sediment collected from vegetated and unvegetated areas at restored meadows, as well as commercial sand. We …