Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Functional Assessment And Treatment Of Elopement Occasioned By Transitions, Denice Rios Mojica

Dissertations

Elopement is a dangerous behavior in children with developmental disabilities because it greatly increases the risk of accidents that lead to serious injury or death. The dangers of elopement are especially high during transitions because these situations increase the chance that a child will gain unsupervised access outside, where the most serious accidents typically occur. Despite its severity, assessment methodologies that specifically evaluate the contextual variables found during transitions are not available. Additionally, treatment for elopement during transitions typically involves antecedent interventions which do not address function. Continued research on effective and efficient means for the assessment and treatment of …

Evaluating Recommendations Versus Utilization Of Essential Components Of A Functional Analysis Procedure, Alissa Conway

Dissertations

Functional behavior assessment (FBA) has been identified as an essential process for behavior analytic practitioners to identify the variables maintaining challenging behaviors (BACB Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts (PECC), 3.01ab, 2014). FBAs include a range of strategies, including indirect measures (e.g., interviews and questionnaires) and direct measures of behavior (descriptive and experimental strategies). Functional analysis (FA) is typically considered the most sophisticated of the options subsumed under FBAs in that it involves both direct measures of behavior and experimental manipulation of hypothesized controlling variables to identify controlling variables for challenging behaviors. The results of FAs allow practitioners …

Assessment For Mild Cognitive Impairment: Striving For Best Practice, Julie Leigh Dalmasso

Dissertations

This dissertation is a series of three studies aimed at determining the best assessment practices for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) that can employed by speech-language pathologists (SLPs). The first study was non-experimental and descriptive examining whether three commonly used assessment instruments yielded similar categorical results. The data were analyzed to determine whether the Eight-Item Interview to Differentiate Aging and Dementia (AD8), the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and the Cognitive-Linguistic Quick Test (CLQT) identified the same participants from a neurotypical sample as having cognitive deficits. Very little agreement was found amongst the three tools.

Study two was modified to include two …

An Analysis Of Campus Violence Threat Assessment Policy Implementation At Michigan Community Colleges, Russell T. Panico Jr.

Dissertations

This dissertation evaluated campus violence threat assessment policy and procedure implementation at the community college level of higher education. The importance of this topic was to provide a manageable and collaborative initiative for leadership at institutions of higher learning to identify, develop, implement, and evaluate a policy that can effectively prevent acts of campus-related violence. A mixed-methods study approach using a Likert-scale survey with supporting open-ended questions was used to guide the exploration. Bardach’s (2016) Eightfold Path for Policy Analysis was the framework used by Michigan community colleges to apply to their own unique situations. This method determined the prevalence …

A Transdiagnostic Approach To Emotion Regulation: The Development And Validation Of Two Scales Of Emotion Regulation, Lauren M. Borges

Dissertations

To address limitations of existing emotion regulation measures, the goal of the present study was to develop new measures of emotion undercontrol and emotion overcontrol. These measures were created from 305 undergraduate participants who completed preexisting scales of emotion regulation. Analyses were applied to determine which regulatory strategies were most predictive of personality disorders associated with emotion overcontrol (i.e., AVPD and OCPD) and emotion undercontrol (i.e., BPD and ASPD). The variables most predictive of these disorders and related traits were included in the item pools for factor analysis. Exploratory factor analyses were implemented to determine which factors were associated with …

Using Dynamic Lndicators Of Basic Early Literacy Skills (Dibels) Oral Reading Fluency Data To Predict Michigan Educational Assessment Program Outcomes, Lisa Lockman

Dissertations

Schools are under legislative pressure to ensure students make adequate progress each year, and therefore, must identify students in need of intervention at early grade levels. Educators use diagnostic tools to measure student progress, attempting to determine which children may be most at risk for future reading failure. The Dynamic Indicators of Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) is widely used for early identification of students who have risk factors. This study incorporated a quantitative, correlational, ex post facto design to examine the relationship between students’ third grade scores on the spring DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) assessment and their fifth grade …

Clinician's Experience Of Suicide Assessment From A Qualitative Perspective, Eric W. Macleod

Dissertations

Using a qualitative research method, the researcher explored the lived experiences of 17 clinicians in southwest Michigan who assess the risk of their clients committing suicide as a part of their professional practice. A phenomenological approach was used to interpret and understand the results. In-person interviews were conducted at a place chosen by the participant. Four broad interview questions with several subquestions within each created a semi-structured format. The questions explored the way clinicians assess suicide, the professional impact of suicide assessment, the personal impact of suicide assessment, and any changes in participants’ worldview as a result of suicide assessment. …