Child Psychology Commons^™

Lost In Loss: A Supportive Handbook For Teens Grieving The Suicide Of A Loved One, Gabriella Potter

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Adolescence is a complex developmental time. For adolescents grieving a suicide death, there can be added layers of complexity in navigating this developmental period, due to unique challenges and stigma, family disruption, trauma, unanswerable questions, feelings of rejection, abandonment, responsibility, and anger that can result from a suicide death loss. Through a literature review of the available research on adolescent suicide bereavement, this doctoral paper examines models of grief, adolescent development, and suicide loss, aiming to bridge the literature in all these domains. Despite the high prevalence of bereavement in young people, there are limited, tailored resources designed to support …

Partners In Pilgrimage: Transforming The Journey Of Adolescence By Guiding Teenagers Toward Faithful Lives, Redefining Success, And Cultivating Connection To God, Abigail R. Weaver

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

Adolescence is a formative period in which young people seek meaning, identity, and belonging while navigating a complex array of cultural, social, and developmental pressures. In suburban American contexts, these pressures are intensified by competitive academic environments, demanding extracurricular commitments, and pervasive societal expectations that equate worth with achievement. Drawing from my experience as a youth minister in suburban United Methodist churches, this dissertation examines how such forces shape the spiritual and personal development of 15- to 18-year-olds and explores the Church’s role in guiding adolescents through this landscape with wisdom and care.

Grounded in the Christian tradition and informed …

Youth Development Opportunities Among Sexual/Gender Minoritized Youth: Who Is Left Out?, Amy L. Gower Ph.D., Ben Parchem, G. Nic Rider, Hana-May Eadeh, Ryan Watson, Samantha E. Lawrence, Stephen Russell, De'shay Thomas, Marla E. Eisenberg

Journal of Youth Development

Youth development opportunities promote health and wellbeing across adolescence. However, scholars have increasingly questioned whether these programs are relevant to and meet the needs of youth with minoritized identities. Using an intersectionality lens, 2022 Minnesota Student Survey data from 8th, 9th, and 11th graders who indicated a minoritized sexual and/or gender identity (N=24,400) were analyzed using exhaustive Chi-square automatic interaction detection to understand how youth’s racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender identities and grade contributed to engagement in youth development opportunities. Mean youth development opportunity scores were lowest among youth with multiple minoritized identities, particularly transgender and gender diverse youth of …

“I Don’T Want To Be The Bad Kind Of Special”: The Lived Experiences Of Autistic Youth In Extracurricular Programs In Their Communities, Catherine A. Sargent Ph.D.

Counseling and Psychology Dissertations

Autistic youth face barriers to participation and belonging in community settings. Historically, autism research has privileged researcher perspectives and deficit-based frameworks, often excluding the authentic voices of autistic individuals, particularly young people. This qualitative, phenomenological study sought to address that gap by exploring the lived experiences of autistic youth (ages 13–18) participating in extracurricular community programs in Massachusetts. Framed by critical disability theory, critical autism studies, ecological systems theory, and intersectionality, the study examined how autistic youth experience inclusion, connection, and self-expression within programs designed largely for neurotypical participants.

Seven autistic youths contributed to this research through participant-generated photographs and …

Pathways To Aggression: Understanding Peer Victimization In Adolescence, Makenzie H. Clarken

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Insight into aggression among early adolescents is important to understanding its predictors and consequences. In adolescence, aggression is typically related to underlying issues. Addressing this is important, as unmanageable aggression progressing past early adolescence can result in involvement in the criminal justice system. Studies show that peer victimization is associated with increased levels of aggression. Aggressive adolescents may attract victimization from their peers, or those who are victimized may respond with aggression. The current study followed a sample of 182 fifth and sixth graders over the course of the school year. Constructs such as aggression, peer victimization, and social withdrawal …

Social Buffering By Siblings In Childhood And Adolescence, Deborah Han, Natalie A. Thwaites, Julia Olson, Kenia Rivera, Julia Dmitrieva, Jenalee R. Doom

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

Although positive sibling relationships are associated with better developmental outcomes for children and adolescents, it is unknown whether siblings may be effective social buffers of physiological stress. In addition, there is little research on whether depressive symptoms may moderate the effectiveness of social buffering. The current study examined (1) whether siblings, compared to strangers, buffered the cortisol response to a social evaluative stressor in children and adolescents, (2) whether depressive symptoms moderated this effect, and (3) whether self-reported sibling relationship quality influenced sibling buffering effectiveness. A total of 72 children (9-11 years) and 65 adolescents (15-17 years) were randomly assigned …

The Impact Of Mindfulness Therapy To Reduce Disruptive Behavior In High School, Wendy Peters

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this project was to determine the impact and effectiveness of Gina Biegel’s mindfulness techniques for stressed teens method on adolescent anxiety and the disruptive symptoms that lead to high school adolescents being assigned to detention. This project described a quantitative correlational design research project that investigated a small adolescent sample size, with a goal of decreasing the number of local high school adolescent students who are repeat detention offenders, by implementing Gina Biegel’s mindfulness techniques for stressed teens method on those high school adolescents who were assigned to detention. This was achieved by collecting demographic data from …

Building Media Literacy In Adolescence: A Cognitive Behavioral Clinician's Manual To Combat Misinformation And Misdiagnosis During Sessions, Patricia Sacchetti

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

This paper examines the role of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) in countering misinformation that youth encounter on social media and other informal sources, with the goal of creating a manual for mental health clinicians. The use of CBT by clinicians working with adolescents to combat the issue of misinformation and misdiagnosis has received little attention in the literature. Mental health clinicians’ knowledge of media literacy as a psychological construct can foster an effective treatment style by building upon the foundation of well-established theory and practice, such as CBT. CBT is a multifaceted treatment that can help guide mental health clinicians …

Early Adolescent Intervention: A Therapy Group For Girls, Madelyn A. Ohm

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

As mental health concerns are on the rise, especially among adolescents, it is important to consider promoting early intervention. Paying attention to the nuances surrounding personal identity and interpersonal relationships during adolescence is crucial. Dialectical-Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills encompass just what is needed to address said nuances, including interpersonal effectiveness skills, emotion regulation skills, distress tolerance, and mindfulness. Thus, the proposed DBT group and therapeutic manual designated for adolescent girls summarizes and explores suggestions for early intervention of mental health services. This, alongside the careful attention to the population’s specific needs and noted modules, allows for the exploration of mental …

Adolescent Externalizing Symptoms And Parent Emotion Socialization: An Examination Of Longitudinal Effects And Differences By Adolescent Sex, Cheston West

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Adolescence is an important developmental context with several changes in social and emotional functioning. Though adolescents are gaining independence from their caregivers, they still engage in dynamic interactions with their caregivers who remain key figures in their lives. When adolescents express emotions, caregivers engage in various behaviors in response to these expressions, a process known as emotion socialization. This process has mostly been examined as a parent-driven construct in which parent emotion socialization impacts child-level outcomes, namely internalizing symptoms, with limited research on externalizing symptoms. However, available literature demonstrates that child-level characteristics (e.g., externalizing symptoms) are linked to differences in …

Adolescence: Bio-Physiological Development, Theresa C. Allen

Essays in Developmental Psychology

The Wonder Years was a television comedy-drama that aired for six seasons from 1988 to 1993.  It was a series on the coming of age…life through the eyes of an adolescent boy, Kevin Arnold, living in the late 1960’s - early 70’s.  From surviving the indignities of the junior high gym locker room, to discovering the joys of the opposite sex, to struggling to cut parental apron strings, a nation watched Kevin Arnold try to navigate the ever-changing waters of puberty, friendships, love and lust, and the uncertainty of tumultuous social times while trying to forge a sense of self …

Lasting Impact Of Friendship: A Group Manual For Meaningful Connections In Adolescence, Kristen M. Hull

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

Adolescence brings profound changes in physical growth, emotions, and social interactions. The friendships formed during this time of life play a crucial role in shaping a young person’s sense of self, emotional health, and ability to navigate social relationships well into the future. This group manual examines the importance of friendships in adolescence, offering a research-based approach to understanding how these relationships influence mental well-being, academic success, and personal development. Designed for school counselors and other trained professionals, it provides practical strategies to help students build and maintain meaningful, supportive friendships during this pivotal stage of life.

Keywords: adolescence, friendship, …

Voices From The Classroom: A Qualitative Study Of Teachers' Perspectives On Student Depression, Naomi Brinton, Jacqlyn Zarabba, Linda Mcwhorter, Linda Knauss

Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice

Rising levels of depression among adolescents is an important issue to teachers and school administrators, as teenagers spend the majority of their time in the school environment. By analyzing individual interviews with 15 public high school teachers using a modified grounded theory approach, this qualitative study examines the role high school teachers might play in identifying and referring students who exhibit signs and symptoms of depression. Results provide guidance for high school teachers in connecting students with appropriate services and identifying common barriers and facilitating factors in this process. Specific recommendations are outlined to help aid schools in the identification …

The Role Of Sport For Adolescents: The Effect Of Sport Participation As A Unique Form Of Physical Activity On Mental Health And Overall Subjective Well-Being During Adolescence, Caleb M. Rogers

Senior Theses

Well-being is an extremely multifaceted domain, as there are numerous factors that contribute to one’s way of life. Objective well-being focuses primarily on material factors such as access to food, housing, and a steady household income. Although these factors play a large role, it is important to analyze well-being from the perspective of the individual. Subjective well-being focuses on how one perceives one's own well-being. Physical activity has been well established as one factor associated with improvements within this domain for adolescents. This project investigates the role of one specific form of physical activity during adolescence: sport. The general assumption …

Change Patterns Of Mother-Adolescent Perceived Parenting And The Corresponding Trajectories In Their Internalizing Symptoms, Wen Wen, Lester Sim, Yang Hou, Shanting Chen, Su Yeong Kim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Adolescence is a challenging and sensitive developmental period in which mothers and adolescents may be vulnerable to internalizing symptoms. The current study aimed to understand how patterns of changes in mother-adolescent perceived parenting (i.e., mother-adolescent perceived parenting transition profiles) corresponded with trajectories of mothers' and adolescents' internalizing symptoms from early to late adolescence. The current study utilized a three-wave longitudinal data set of 604 adolescents (54% female, Mage = 12.92, SD = 0.92) and 595 mothers (Mage = 38.89, SD = 5.74) from Mexican-origin immigrant families and adopted mother-adolescent perceived parenting transition profiles from a previous study. Multiple group analyses …

Using A Thin Slice Coding Approach To Measure Temperament Traits In Youth, Sara J. Conley

ETD Archive

Researchers have demonstrated that unacquainted observers can reliably rate children’s personality traits based on initial impressions, called the thin slice (TS) method (Tackett et al., 2016). Temperament describes characteristics a child is born with and consists of a child's ability to cope with emotion, activity level, ability to focus, and mood; temperament has been shown to map onto personality traits in reliable ways (Rothbart & Bates 1998). Although TS personality has been correlated with temperament traits in a clinical sample of youth (Brandes et al., 2020), it is unclear whether the TS approach can be applied to temperament traits in …

An Exploration Of The Relation Between Psychological Functioning And Reactions To Global Climate Change For Late Adolescents In New York City, Emma Routhier

Dissertations and Theses

Climate change poses a potentially unique generational crisis, as it threatens the viability of the very world that the current adolescent generation stands to inherit. While some studies have begun to appreciate the specific experience of adolescents as it pertains to climate change, they attend to young people’s behavior or self-reported feelings. The present study aims to employ psychoanalytic constructs, with attention to the unconscious determinants of psychic life and behavior, in an empirical examination of this topic, and to introduce a level of sensitivity to the vicissitudes of the adolescent period that have not previously been addressed in the …

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 …

Examining Allostatic Load As A Biological Mechanism Linking Childhood Adversity And Pediatric Pain, Angela Pascale

Theses and Dissertations

Despite a strong literature base relating childhood adversity to pain, the biological mechanisms underlying these associations remain unclear. Theoretical and preliminary empirical evidence supports allostatic load as a potential biological mechanism, though prior studies investigating associations between childhood adversity and elevated allostatic load and/or between elevated allostatic load and poorer pain outcomes have primarily focused on adult populations and individual allostatic load indicators rather than a comprehensive index. Thus, the current study built upon prior literature by testing longitudinal relationships between childhood adversity and multiple biological indicators spanning across physiological systems (i.e., comprehensive allostatic load index) and pediatric pain outcomes …

Associations Between Cannabis, Psychosis, And Schizophrenia In Adolescents, Lauren Moment

Academic Leadership Journal in Student Research

The effects of cannabis use on the brain, mind, and body have been studied for decades. The developing brain, particularly the adolescent and young adult brain, undergoes critical development that makes it especially susceptible to the effects of cannabis use. Among the adverse effects of cannabis use in adolescence and young adulthood, psychosis and psychotic disorders (e.g., schizophrenia) have been examined. The association of cannabis use with schizophrenia was first elucidated in a Swedish study of army conscripts. Specifically, conscripts reported their cannabis use exposure and were followed longitudinally to assess the emergence of schizophrenia. The authors found that those …

Under The Skin Social Stress: Physiological Effects Of Racial Discrimination And Family Communication During Adolescence, Dana Mansfield

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Adolescence is a formative, developmental period that encompasses increased life stress. For youth of color, these stressors are amplified due to race-related experiences such as racial discrimination. Studies have shown that family communication greatly influences the physiological stress response in childhood development. The purpose of the current study was to examine how interpersonal and institutional discrimination impact the physiological stress response and how supportive family communication may influence the stress response in adolescents from various ethnic and racial groups. A sample of 379 ethnically diverse adolescents participated in this study and completed self-report questionnaires. Cortisol samples were collected in conjunction …

Music Interventions In The Treatment Of Adolescent Trauma: A Systematic Review, Diana C. Hereld

Theses and Dissertations

As multidisciplinary research continues to uncover the promise of non-invasive interventions such as music in mental health treatment, clinicians, researchers, and music scholars alike have increasingly come together through the field of music psychology. As such, it is unsurprising that some of the most significant findings have come from cross-disciplinary studies in music and medicine. The juxtaposition of music and mental health creates a unique and substantial need for integration of literature across multiple disparate settings, including clinical psychology, education, neuroscience, music therapy, behavioral medicine, and psychiatry. Through methodological application of a textual narrative evidence synthesis, this review examines multiple …

Using Photovoice To Understand And Amplify Youth Voices To Prevent Sexual And Relationship Violence, Victoria Banyard, Katie Edwards, Ramona Herrington, Skyler Hopfauf, Briana Simon, Linda Shroll

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Aims: Efforts to improve prevention of sexual and relationship violence (SRV) among adolescents call for more centering of youth voices, experiences, and skills to design prevention programs that incorporate youth engagement rather than those that are designed by adults for youth. Amplifying the voices of historically marginalized youth are especially needed. Photovoice (PV) is a participatory action method that can empower youth and generate prevention knowledge.

Methods: The current project used PV to engage youth in late middle and early high school to discuss how they could work to prevent SRV in their community. A convenience sample of nine youth …

Positive Youth Development: Parental Warmth, Values, And Prosocial Behavior In 11 Cultural Groups, Concetta Pastorelli, Antonio Zuffiano, Jennifer E. Lansford, Eriona Thartori, Marc H. Bornstein, Lei Chang, Kirby Deater-Deckard, Laura Di Giunta, Kenneth A. Dodge, Sevtap Gurdal, Qin Liu, Qian Long, Paul Oburu, Ann T. Skinner, Emma Sorbing, Laurence Steinberg, Sombat Tapanya, Liliana Maria Uribe Tirado, Saengduean Yotanyamaneewong, Suha M. Al-Hassan, Liane Peña Alampay, Dario Bacchini

Psychology Department Faculty Publications

The current cross-cultural study aimed to extend research on parenting and children’s prosocial behavior by examining relations among parental warmth, values related to family obligations (i.e., children’s support to and respect for their parents, siblings, and extended family), and prosocial behavior during the transition to adolescence (from ages 9 to 12). Mothers, fathers, and their children (N = 1107 families) from 8 countries including 11 cultural groups (Colombia; Rome and Naples, Italy; Jordan; Kenya; the Philippines; Sweden; Thailand; and African Americans, European Americans, and Latin Americans in the United States) provided data over 3 years in 3 waves (M_{age …}

Co-Constructing Stigma: Treating Trauma In Adolescence, Isabelle Sanderson

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Public stigma and self-stigma are major factors that impede the seeking of mental health treatment as well as the development of an effective therapeutic alliance. This paper explores the co-creation of stigma dynamics from an intersubjective systems theory lens suggesting these dynamics may play a role for adolescent clients who have experienced significant trauma. Specifically, the potential overlooking and/or misdiagnosis of trauma-related experiences and symptoms often occurring with adolescents diagnosed with ADHD may be contributing to a co-constructed dynamic between the therapist and client to avoid an exploration of trauma that would be experienced as more stigmatizing, more threatening, and …

Developmental Predictors Of Adolescent Mental Health Stigma And A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial Of "Ending The Silence" In New York City, Joseph S. Deluca

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study explored predictors of mental health stigma among adolescents and the effectiveness of a school-based mental health stigma reduction and health promotion program, “Ending the Silence” (ETS), developed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Youth mental health service use is impacted by many factors, but concern about stigma and low mental health knowledge have been consistently identified as leading barriers to help-seeking. Beyond education and contact program components, existing research on how to design a successful adolescent stigma reduction intervention has been inconclusive. A diverse sample of 206 high school students in New York City participated in the …

An Integrated Analysis Of The Mechanisms By Which Parents Facilitate The Development Of Emotion Regulation In Young Adolescents, Andrew Fox

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

Effective emotion regulation strategies are associated with adaptive outcomes in youth. While previous research has established parental socialization of emotion regulation as an important predictor of adaptive outcomes, the mechanisms by which parents contribute to young adolescents’ emotion regulation outcomes is poorly understood. The current study examined pathways between parenting style, parental socialization of emotion regulation practices, and adolescent negative affectivity to emotion regulation outcomes in adolescents cross-sectionally and prospectively over the course of a year. Participants were 150 young adolescents ages to 10 to 14 (M_age = 13.03, SD_age = .90; 51.33% female) and their parent/legal …

Latina Mothers Awareness Of Their Childrens Exposure To Community Violence, Rosanne M. Jocson, Francheska Alers-Rojas, James Cranford, Rosario Ceballo

Psychology Department Faculty Publications

This study examines (a) the degree of agreement between mother-reported child community violence exposure and children's self-reports and whether agreement changes over time; (b) whether child gender is associated with mother-child agreement; and (c) whether greater mother-child agreement is concurrently and longitudinally associated with children's psychological well-being. We conducted secondary data analyses using longitudinal data with a socioeconomically diverse sample of 287 Latino adolescents (MageW2 = 11.2, 47% girls) and their mothers (MageW1 = 35.3) from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Mother-child agreement about non-exposure to violence was high. However, for violence-exposed children, mothers overestimated exposure in …

Dance/Movement Therapy And Its Implications In A Studio-Based Dance Program: A Community Engagement Project, Akeila Sharp

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Adolescent females often struggle with emotional regulation, developing relationships, and poor body image. Research indicates that taking dance classes or participating in dance movement therapy sessions can be an effective technique to improve in these areas. However, there is limited research on the use of both in one setting. Therefore, this capstone explored the impacts of dance on adolescent females and the implications of dance/movement therapy (DMT) in a studio-based dance program. The objective of this project was to examine how restructuring a dance class using DMT interventions could improve problem areas such as low self-esteem, lack of communication skills, …

Understanding Adolescent Friendships: An Analysis Of The Role Of Social Perspective-Taking In Friendship Dissolutions, Joseph W. Stewart

Transformations: Presentation Slides

Friendships are critical relationships in adolescence, however, many friendships dissolve. One construct that may play a role in how adolescents experience such dissolutions is social perspective-taking (SPT). To test this hypothesis, 354 middle-schoolers (Mage=11.89, SD=0.86; 53% female; 82% white) completed a self-report, online survey regarding a dissolution experience. Results from an independent samples t-test revealed that females (M=2.45, SD=0.70) displayed higher SPT than males (M=2.09, SD=0.73), t(270)=-4.13, p<0.001. A correlational analysis confirmed our hypothesis that adolescents who showed greater SPT would report higher quality friendships, r(271)=0.593, p<0.001. Contrary to our hypothesis, adolescents who displayed higher SPT were more likely to react with anger (r(257)=0.16, p<0.001), sadness (r(252)=0.31, p=0.01), loneliness (r(253)=0.28, p<0.001), and rumination (r(252)=0.23, p<0.001), and less likely to feel happy (r(259)=-0.29, p<0.001) and relieved (r(255)=-0.26, p<0.001) following a dissolution. These results aid in the understanding of social perspective-taking and its meaning in adolescent relationships and social development.