Child Psychology Commons^™

Exploring Obesity And After-School Supervision With Adolescents In Rural West Virginia, Sallie Dawn Richards

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Both childhood obesity and the number of children in self-care have increased during the past several decades. Child care arrangements for working parents of middle school children can be a complex problem because unsupervised children who “hang out” with peers after school are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, although unsupervised children at home after school tend to watch more television than their supervised peers. Because children in self-care at home after school tend to engage in more sedentary activities, they may be at greater risk for becoming overweight or obese. The purpose of the present study was to …

Estudio Sobre El Comportamiento Y Salud En Los Jóvenes Escolares De La República Dominicana: Resultados De 2009, Juan B. Peña, Elián P. Cabrera-Nguyen, Diana Chaves, Rosa Fernández

Elián P. Cabrera-Nguyen

This scientific report on risk behaviors among adolescents in the Dominican Republic (DR) was prepared for the DR Ministry of Education. The study used a stratified cluster design of public high schools in the DR with sample weights. The questionnaire included items from the 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Results of this nationally representative survey were presented to a delegation from the DR Ministry of Education at Washington University's Brown School. This report was also presented at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo. Dr. Juan Peña, assistant professor at Washington University's Brown School, was the PI and is listed as …

"It's All One Big Circle": Welfare Discourse And The Everyday Lives Of Urban Adolescents, Staci T. Lowe

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Welfare reform succeeded, in part, because of discourse that characterized the poverty problem as one of long-term dependency and personal irresponsibility. Adolescent pregnancy was targeted as both cause and manifestation of a welfare crisis. This study examined how welfare reform was perceived and experienced by lowincome, urban adolescents. Findings from interviews revealed that adolescents agreed with many of the basic tenets of welfare reform, largely because they had appropriated much of the discourse prevalent in wider society. However, their complex life stories contained a powerful subtext concerning structural determinants of poverty that ran counter to prevailing notions of "personal responsibility."

Religious Orientation And Religious Coping In Adolescents With And Without A Chronic Illness, Jacqueline Beine Brown

Dissertations

Religion plays an important role in most people's lives and can greatly affect how individuals cope and interpret stressful situations. However, very little is known about how adolescents incorporate religion into their lives (e.g., is it central or peripheral to their lives, do they utilize religious coping). Furthermore, given the additional stressors experienced by adolescents who have a chronic illness, it is likely their religious orientations and religious coping strategies are different from their healthy peers. Thus, the present study was designed to examine the constructs in both typically developing and chronically ill adolescents. Additional constructs of hope, general coping, …

Reducing Adolescents' Perceived Barriers To Treatment And Increasing Help-Seeking Intentions: Effects Of Classroom Presentations By General Practitioners., Coralie J. Wilson

Coralie J Wilson

The Building Bridges to General Practice (BBGP) program is an outreach initiative (written by the first author). It aims to reduce young peoples’ perceived knowledge- and belief-based barriers to engaging in treatment and to increase their behavioral intentions to consult a general medical practitioner (GP) for physical and psychological problems. By increasing intentions, the BBGP program aims to increase actual consultations with a GP for both types of problem. The current paper is the first of a series that report results from a larger multi-cite research project, developed and led by the first author, which examines the impact of BBGP …

Reducing Adolescents' Perceived Barriers To Treatment And Increasing Help-Seeking Intentions: Effects Of Classroom Presentations By General Practitioners., Coralie J. Wilson

Frank Deane

The Building Bridges to General Practice (BBGP) program is an outreach initiative (written by the first author). It aims to reduce young peoples’ perceived knowledge- and belief-based barriers to engaging in treatment and to increase their behavioral intentions to consult a general medical practitioner (GP) for physical and psychological problems. By increasing intentions, the BBGP program aims to increase actual consultations with a GP for both types of problem. The current paper is the first of a series that report results from a larger multi-cite research project, developed and led by the first author, which examines the impact of BBGP …

Self-Mutilation In Adolescents: Recognizing A Silent Epidemic, Constance Glenn, Susan M. Denisco

Nursing Faculty Publications

This article describes the physical and emotional manifestations of self-mutilation behavior (SMB) in adolescents and provides information about diagnosis and treatment. The authors' own survey of school nurses' on-the-job experience with SMB is presented. Finally, the implications of the problem for nurse practitioners (NPs) who care for teens at risk for SMB are discussed.

Early Predictors Of Sexual Behavior: Implications For Young Adolescents And Their Parents, Lisa D. Lieberman

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

The study provides empirical evidence of the independent contribution of nonsexual romantic relationships in the seventh grade to the onset of sexual intercourse by the ninth grade for both males and females. In addition, it shows that among females, seventh graders in serious relationships with older teenagers—uniquely defined as those two or more years older—have an increased likelihood of sex in the ninth grade. Finally, the study demonstrates that seventh graders of both genders who have had serious romantic relationships were already significantly different in the sixth grade from those who have not: They had peers who were more accepting …

Scale Development For Perceived School Climate For Girls’ Physical Activity, Amanda Birnbaum, Kelly R. Evenson, Robert W. Motl, Rod K. Dishman, Carolyn C. Voorhees, James F. Sallis, John P. Elder, Marsha Dowda

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Objectives: To test an original scale assessing perceived school climate for girls' physical activity in middle school girls. Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). Results: CFA retained 5 of 14 original items. A model with 2 correlated factors, perceptions about teachers' and boys' behaviors, respectively, fit the data well in both sixth and eighth-graders. SEM detected a positive, significant direct association of the teacher factor, but not the boy factor, with girls' self-reported physical activity. Conclusions:School climate for girls' physical activity is a measurable construct, and preliminary evidence suggests a relationship with physical activity.

Predictors Of Violent Behavior In An Early Adolescent Cohort: Similarities And Differences Across Genders, Jonathan L. Blitstein, David M. Murray, Leslie A. Lytle, Amanda Birnbaum, Cheryl L. Perry

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

The authors assessed a cohort of 2,335 students from the Minneapolis, Minnesota, area to identify predictors of violent behavior and to determine whether the predictors varied by gender. The sample was 76% White; boys and girls were equally represented. The majority lived with two parents. A measure of violent behavior collected at the end of the eighth-grade year (2000) was entered into Poisson regression against baseline data collected at the beginning of the seventh-grade year (1998). Predictors of violent behavior influencing both boys and girls included depressive symptoms, perceived invulnerability to negative future events, paternal nonauthoritative behavior, and drinking alcohol. …

Strategies For Universal Prevention Of Depression In Adolescents., Patrick Possel

Faculty Scholarship

Background: The occurrence of depressive disorders in adolescence is of high individual and social importance because of their prevalence and persistence into adulthood and their co-morbidity with other psychological disorders and psychosocial problems. International researchers have recognized the seriousness of depressive disorders in adolescence and thus have been involved in the development and evaluation of prevention programs.

Methods: This article will present the difficulties encountered in prevention research with adolescents and in the determination of prevention program efficacy. The main focus will be an overview of current prevention programs and their efficacy with special attention paid to programs featured in …

Can Hopelessness And Adolescents’ Beliefs And Attitudes About Seeking Help Account For Help Negation?, Coralie J. Wilson

Frank Deane

Avoidance of appropriate help is common in acutely suicidal samples and has been confirmed in nonclinical samples but factors that contribute to this help negation effect remain unclear. The current study is the second in series from the first author's larger PhD research program. In a sample of 269 nonclinical Australian high school students, the current study examines the impact of hopelessness, previous mental health care, beliefs, and attitudes toward professional psychological help on the help negation relationship. Results revealed that suicidal ideation significantly predicted lower help seeking intentions and that although hopelessness could not explain the help negation effect, …

Help Seeking For Mental Health Problems In Adolescence And Early Adulthood., Coralie J. Wilson

Coralie J Wilson

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Adolescence and young adulthood are critical life stages for mental health, as this is the period when most mental health problems and mental disorders have their peak incidence. It is also a time of increased suicidal ideation and frequency of suicide attempts. Despite the importance of adolescence and young adulthood in the aetiology of mental disorders, there is evidence that young people may be poorly informed about mental health and are unlikely to consult a professional for their mental health problems. Help-seeking is a term used to refer to the behaviour of actively seeking help from other people. …

Early Adolescent Through Young Adult Alcohol And Marijuana Use Trajectories: Early Predictors, Young Adult Outcomes, And Predictive Utility, Kate Flory, Donald Lynam, Richard Milich, Carl Leukefeld, Richard Clayton

Psychology Faculty Publications

The present study takes a developmental approach to subgrouping and examines the trajectories of substance use from early adolescence through young adulthood among a community sample of 481 individuals. The patterns of use were examined, subgroups were identified separately for men and women and for alcohol and marijuana, and psychosocial predictors and psychopathology outcomes that differentiated the groups were identified. The results revealed three substantially overlapping subgroups for both alcohol and marijuana: early onset, late onset, and nonuser. Although the general patterns of which dependent variables were related to group were similar for alcohol and marijuana, a closer examination revealed …

School Functioning And Violent Behavior Among Young Adolescents: A Contextual Analysis, Amanda Birnbaum, Leslie A. Lytle, Peter J. Hannan, David M. Murray, Cheryl L. Perry, Jean L. Foster

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper examines associations between overall school functioning and the frequency of violent behaviors among young adolescents (ages 10–14). The sample included 16 middle schools participating in an unrelated intervention study (on nutrition) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A School Functioning Index developed to characterize schools’ overall stability, performance, and demographics was constructed using data from public archives and school administrator surveys. Data on violent behaviors and other variables were collected in student surveys in fall 1998 and spring 1999. We used multilevel modeling to assess the effect of school functioning on violent behavior after adjusting for known individual-level covariates of violent …

Epilepsia Mioclónica Juvenil: Estudio De 13 Pacientes Venezolanos [Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy: Study On 13 Venezuelan Patients], Joaquín A. Peña, Cecilia Montiel-Nava, Sandra González-Ferrer, Jessica Freda, Enoe Medrano

Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

La epilepsia mioclónica juvenil (EMJ) es un síndrome hereditario no progresivo caracterizado por convulsiones con sacudidas mioclónicas bilaterales, únicas o repetitivas, de predominio en brazos. Objetivo: Analizar las características clínicas y electroencefalográficas en pacientes con diagnóstico de EMJ. Metodología: Se revisaron las historias clínicas de 13 pacientes evaluados en el Hospital Clínico de Maracaibo entre 1990 y 1999 quienes reunieron los criterios diagnósticos de EMJ. Analizamos los siguientes parámetros clínicos y electroencefalográficos: sexo, antecedentes personales y familiares, edad de comienzo, semiología, distribución, duración y frecuencia de las crisis, examen neurológico, tiempo de seguimiento y evolución. Resultados: Nueve pacientes eran varones …

Adolescent Opinions About Reducing Help-Seeking Barriers And Increasing Engagement., Coralie Wilson

Coralie J Wilson

Effective mental illness prevention programs are important for the safety of youth and adolescents. Research suggests that programs should facilitate appropriate help-seeking by lowering help-seeking barriers. This study used focus groups to obtain high school student opinions about actual help-seeking behaviors, reducing adolescent help-seeking barriers, raising sensitive issues with adolescents, and increasing appropriate help-source engagement. Transcript analysis revealed several themes. Relationship and trust were key approach factors for current help-seeking. Memories of successful prior helping episodes were also important. Education about appropriate help-seeking, presented in ways consistent with those currently used by adolescents (e.g., through peer networks), might reduce help-seeking …

Adolescent Opinions About Reducing Help-Seeking Barriers And Increasing Engagement., Coralie J. Wilson

Frank Deane

Effective mental illness prevention programs are important for the safety of youth and adolescents. Research suggests that programs should facilitate appropriate help-seeking by lowering help-seeking barriers. This study used focus groups to obtain high school student opinions about actual help-seeking behaviors, reducing adolescent help-seeking barriers, raising sensitive issues with adolescents, and increasing appropriate help-source engagement. Transcript analysis revealed several themes. Relationship and trust were key approach factors for current help-seeking. Memories of successful prior helping episodes were also important. Education about appropriate help-seeking, presented in ways consistent with those currently used by adolescents (e.g., through peer networks), might reduce help-seeking …

Guarded And Unguarded Responses To Sentence Completion Tests Among Normal Adolescents And Juvenile Delinquents, Mohammed K. Fazel

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study was designed to test the responses of a group of juvenile delinquests and a group of normal adolescents to a sentence completion test. The test used was a modified form of Sack's Sentence Completion test in two forms--form A, first person stems and form B, third person stems. The hypothesis to be tested were (1) people project more in the third person, (2) the normal projects more, and (3) there would be no difference in projection on neutral items. The results bear out the three hypothesis. The sex scale, however, was an exception. This may be due to …