Developmental Psychology Commons^™

The Importance Of Nutrition For Development In Early Childhood, Kaitlyn Sue Suha

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Understanding which foods contain the necessary vitamins and nutrients for a child’s health, and which ones are lacking, can decrease the likelihood of children developing nutritional deficiencies and promote their overall developmental health. It is important for parents of young children to have an understanding of nutrition and the effect that poor nutrition can have. this project presented information sessions to parents to educate them further about these important topics through four weekly online workshops. Participants were asked to complete a pre- and post-session survey. Survey results scores indicated that participants reported an increase in knowledge and understanding in regards …

We All Feel Feelings, Ben Ohene

Theses and Dissertations

Consisting of three illustrated books, We All Feel Feelings is designed as a vehicle for the discussion of emotional and mental health with young boys. These books will help foster a mindset of openness and acceptance through different methods of displaying and understanding emotions.

Children's Use Of Accent As A Cue For Cooperative Potential, Rachel Stevens

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, several studies have shown that 5- and 6-year-old children make social judgments based on accent, consistently displaying a social preference for individuals who speak with a native accent. One theory hypothesizes that this preference to favor individuals who speak like us stems from our evolutionary history, during which accent and other language variations would have been strong, salient cues to group membership, and thus, cues to ones likelihood of cooperative behavior. The current study aimed to test this theory by determining if 5- and 6-year-old children use accent to make judgments about an individual’s cooperative potential. Participants …

Impacts Of Motor And Sensory Impairment On Language In Young Children With Autism, Elizabeth A. Bisi

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present with varying degrees of deficit in the broader areas of social communication and stereotyped behaviors, but emerging research proposes delayed motor skill and atypical sensory processing as additional factors worth closer examination. In the current study, I sought to investigate the impacts of visual motor skills and sensory differences on language ability in young children with autism. I hypothesized that young children with autism, atypical sensory processing (Short Sensory Profile, 2^nd Edition), and impaired visual motor integration (Beery VMI, 6^th Edition) would have the most impacted language ability scores (Differential Ability …

Social-Ecological And Protective Factor Approach To Managing Parental Incarceration, Jacquelyn Harris

Dissertations

Mass imprisonment does not only impact the incarcerated individual; it also affects approximately five million children in the United States. Researchers identified and compare the impact of parental incarceration on child development. They acknowledged the protective factors across the lifecycle from a social-ecological perspective and specifically related to parental incarceration. The comprehensive literature review inspired an innovative model, the social-ecological and protective factor approach to managing parental incarceration. The primary goal of this model is to combat the detrimental effects of parental incarceration by identifying protective factors across the lifecycle and throughout the microsystem, mesosystem, and exosystem. This model is …

Testing Reliability Of Biophilic Design Matrix Within Urban Residential Playrooms, Ellen Marte

Theses and Dissertations

Biophilic interior design in urban playrooms has been greatly understudied. We measured inter-rater reliability of the Biophilic Interior Design Matrix (BID-M) and matrix items by quantitatively coding images of 45 New York City residential playrooms. Findings suggest that the BID-M needs to be modified to better assess urban playrooms.

A Needs Assessment For The Utilization Of Child Life Specialist Bereavement Support Services In An Emergency Veterinary Hospital Setting, Jared R. Negin-Fryers

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Studies indicate that there is an affective attachment bond, and related emotional involvement that exists between the companion animal and their human owners. Patient companion-animal death within the veterinary hospital, is a daily occurrence, with death rates per patient being significantly higher than in human health care. This comparatively higher death rate is due to the commonplace utilization of professionally sanctioned euthanasia to relieve animal pain and suffering. Companion animal death, may elicit grief reactions that are identical to what is experienced upon the death of a family member. A void currently exists in family centered veterinary care in terms …

Peer Acceptance In The Lunchroom And Children’S Internalizing Symptoms, Jake Steggerda

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is evidence to suggest that the context of the school lunchrooms provides children with rich opportunities for enhancing or hampering the quality of their relationships (Craig, Gregus, Elledge, Pastrana, & Cavell, 2016; Steggerda et al., in preparation). Although past research has linked children’s peer acceptance to their level of internalizing symptoms, few studies have examined peer acceptance within the lunchroom context. This study extends that work by examining associations between lunchroom peer acceptance (assessed via self- and peer-reports) and children’s internalizing symptoms. Participants were 676 fourth-grade students (50.7% female; 42.7% Hispanic/Latino, 30.3% White, 10% Pacific Islander, and 17% other) …

The Effect Of Parental Interaction On Emotional Learning With Interactive Devices In Children Ages Three To Five, Kathleen Rosneck

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

As the popularity of child-friendly tablet-based apps and games has grown, the need to evaluate the effects of tablet play has also developed. The current study used an app designed for children ages two to five years called “Daniel Tiger’s Grr-ific Feelings” to examine whether prosocial interactive media can be beneficial for emotional development. The present study was modeled after a study by Rasmussen et al. (2018), wherein children ages three and four years spent two weeks with an experimenter- adapted version of the same app. This experimenter adaptation consisted of limiting children’s access to a subset of the available …

Teaching Echoics To A Student With Autism: Video Model Vs Live Model, Dana Waddell

Honors Theses

Learning a language is not always an easy task for all children. Typically, language is a skill that comes naturally very young in a child’s life, but for children with autism, the path to learning language is very different. The first stages of learning language involve many skills, one of which are called “echoic skills,” because the child directly echoes a sound a person elicits. This is fundamental to learning language, especially in children with autism. The field of behavior analysis has conducted great amounts of research on this topic and has found that using technology in therapy sessions can …

Neighborhoods And Mental Health: Understanding The Social, Environmental And Structural Factors To Better Support Our Youth And Communities, Meghan Murtagh

Community Engagement Student Work

The social, structural and environmental characteristics of neighborhoods can have a significant impact on the social, emotional, behavioral and cognitive development of children and adolescents. The Center for Disease Control reports every 1 out of 5 children (22%) living below 100% of the federal poverty level have a mental, behavioral and/or developmental disorder (CDC, 2019). Through the utilization of ecological frameworks and a “place” based framework called The Social Determinates of Health, research was conducted to examine the link between neighborhoods and health outcomes in children and adolescents. These findings were then shared through a workshop with the target audience …

Phone A Friend Or Ask Alexa? Children’S Trust In Voice-Activated Devices, Hailey M Streble, Laura K. Gregg, Evonie L. Daugherty, Lauren N. Girouard, Judith H. Danovitch

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Voice-activated devices such as Google Home, Siri, and Alexa are in many homes and children are interacting with these devices. It is unclear if they treat these devices the way they treat human informants. Children prefer human informants that are reliable and familiar. This study examined whether children believe voice-activated devices provide accurate information. Participants included 40 4- and 5-year-olds and 40 7- and 8-year-olds. Children were introduced to two informants: the experimenter’s good friend and the experimenter’s new device. Children heard questions about personal information (e.g., the experimenter’s favorite color), facts that do not change (e.g., the color of …

Teaching Texting On A Smart Phone To Children And Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder (Asd), Jenna Gilder

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Children and adolescents diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have deficits in social communication ( Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -5th edition, APA, 2013). These deficits are significantly pronounced when individuals with ASD attempt to engage in conversations. Due to advances in technology, children and adolescents are now conversing through computer mediated communication (CMC; Pew, 2015, 2018). Texting in particular is one popular form of CMC that may mitigate the non-verbal social skill deficits seen in individuals with ASD, such as eye contact and tone of voice. Despite the potential of texting and its' popularity as a CMC …

Bilingual Children's L1 And L2 Word Frequency Effects: The Role Of Individual Differences, Astrid Michelle Portillo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Bilingualism continues to grow among the world's population. Nevertheless, most research studies on language processing have focused on monolingual individuals, leaving questions about how language processing unfolds in bilingual individuals. Here, we investigated how individual differences in bilingual experience, indexed by current L2 exposure, impact eye movement measures of reading fluency, indexed by word frequency effects, in an understudied population: bilingual children. Prior eye movement research involving bilingual younger adults (aged 18 to 30) has reported a trade-off in L1 and L2 word frequency effects with greater levels of current L2 exposure (Whitford & Titone, 2012, 2017). We wanted to …

Does Context Matter? A Multilevel Analysis Of Neighborhood Disadvantage And Children's Sleep Health, Carlyn Graham, Eric N. Reither, Gabriele Ciciurkaite, Dipti Dev, Jamison Fargo

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

Objectives: To determine how demographic, socioeconomic, and neighborhood characteristics are associated with bedtimes among US kindergarteners.

Design: Parents reported bedtimes of their children as well as personal, household, and residential characteristics via interviews in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten (ECLS-K) Class of 1998-1999. The ECLS-K links individual households to US Census tracts.

Setting: A random selection of 1,280 schools and surrounding communities in the US.

Participants: A random selection of 16,936 kindergarteners and their parents.

Measurements: The 2 outcomes were regular and latest weekday bedtimes of kindergarteners. Through a series of nested multilevel regression models, these outcomes were regressed on …

Does Context Matter? A Multilevel Analysis Of Neighborhood Disadvantage And Children's Sleep Health, Carlyn Graham, Eric Reither, Gabriele Ciciurkaite, Dipti Dev, Jamison Fargo

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

Objectives: To determine how demographic, socioeconomic, and neighborhood characteristics are associated with bedtimes among US kindergarteners.

Design: Parents reported bedtimes of their children as well as personal, household, and residential characteristics via interviews in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten (ECLS-K) Class of 1998–1999. The ECLS-K links individual households to US Census tracts.

Setting: A random selection of 1,280 schools and surrounding communities in the US.

Participants: A random selection of 16,936 kindergarteners and their parents.

Measurements: The 2 outcomes were regular and latest weekday bedtimes of kindergarteners. Through a series of nested multilevel regression models, these outcomes were regressed on …

Does Resilience Moderate The Impact Of Children’S Experiences Of Racial And Ethnic Discrimination On Internalizing Problems?, Dahlia Abbas

Dissertations and Theses

This study’s objectives were to investigate how children’s experiences of discrimination impact the severity of their internalizing symptoms, and whether the relation between discrimination and internalizing symptom severity is moderated by resilience. It was predicted that children who had experienced more discrimination would have more severe internalizing symptoms, especially when they have low levels of resilience. Children [N=20; Mean (SD) age= 11.83 (2.50)] receiving low-cost music lessons in northern Manhattan were recruited into a larger study examining how learning music affects cognitive and emotional development. Children were interviewed in-person about experiences of discrimination because of their race/ethnicity using the Perceptions …

Be Kind To Your Mind: A Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing The Benefits Of Mindfulness And Self-Compassion Vs. Social Skills Training Among Children And Adolescents, Lindsey Feltis

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Childhood and adolescence can be difficult for young people as they navigate a variety of significant transitions. Thus, it is imperative that researchers focus on programs that support children and adolescents during this time. Mindfulness and self-compassion are two such programs that may promote positive youth development. Mindfulness and self-compassion have been explored in the adolescent context, and mindfulness has been explored with young children, however research on self-compassion for children is currently lacking. The present studies were designed to examine the feasibility, acceptability and potential benefits of a combined mindfulness + self-compassion program for children and adolescents in the …

The Inclusive Nature Of Mindfulness-Based Practice: Does Executive Functioning Play A Role In Children's Mindful Experience?, Kaitlyn Butterfield

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

We examined the effects of a six-week mindfulness program in order to assess how executive function level played a role in students’ mindful experience. The effects of the mindfulness program were evaluated according to prospective outcomes across students’ level of executive function, in comparison to an active control group. Classrooms were randomly assigned to a mindfulness-based program or a health-based active control group. Pre- and early adolescent students in the 5th to 8th grade (N = 52) from two MindfulMe! program classrooms and two HealthyMe! program classrooms (active control group) completed self-reported pretest and post-test measures to assess mindful attention …

How Commercial Advertising Enforces Gender Stereotypes Among Children And The Ways This Affects Them Psychologically, Abigail Frisoli

Sacred Heart University Scholar

Some people believe that children of different sexes are born with completely separate preferences and mindsets which are permanent and predetermined. However, children are very influenced by their surroundings, which is often the main deciding factor which is predetermined by parents and caretakers from birth. Separating children by gender puts them into boxes, stunting their ability to make their own decisions and creating stereotypes. This segregation is painfully apparent in commercial advertising and is proven to have affected children psychologically in ways that can be detrimental.

Differentiating Cognitive Deficits Between Adhd And In Utero Polysubstance Exposure, Dylan J. Seitz

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

ADHD is the most prevalent psychiatric disorder in children, affecting their executive and overall well-being as a result (Barkley, 2014; Shaw, Gogtay, & Rapoport, 2010). A rampant increase in new diagnoses of ADHD suggests the potential for misdiagnosis. Stimulants are the first line of treatment and associated with a number of deleterious long-term consequences for those misdiagnosed (Urban & Gao, 2014a). This is of particular concern for children prenatally exposed to substances as in utero use acts on similar neural mechanisms impacted by ADHD – leaving the children vulnerable to misdiagnosis and contraindicated intervention (Derauf, Kekatpure, Neyzi, Lester, & Kosofsky, …

Children Of Mumbai’S Brothels: Investigating Developmental Prospects, Primary Relationships, And Service Provision, Rochelle L. Dalla, Sarah Erwin, Lee Kreimer

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

Objective: To understand the context of the lives of children reared in India’s red-light brothel districts. Background: Substantial empirical insight has emerged on the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). Yet the extant literature on brothel-based children (BBC), a uniquely vulnerable subset of at-risk children, is paradoxically deficient. Understanding the developmental needs of BBC is critical to mitigating risk.

Method: In-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with 9 service providers and 30 women residing in 2 red-light brothel districts of Mumbai. Phenomenological inquiry informed the research methodology and data analysis.

Results: Mothers’ goals for children included survival, academic success, and future …

Gray Space And Green Space Proximity Associated With Higher Anxiety In Youth With Autism, Lincoln R. Lawson, Brian Barger, Scott Ogletree, Julia C. Torquati, Steven Rosenberg, Cassandra Johnson Gaither, Jodie Marie Bartz, Andrew Gardner, Eric Moody, Anne R. Schutte

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

This study used ZIP code level data on children's health (National Survey of Children's Health, 2012) and land cover (National Land Cover Database, 2011) from across the United States to investigate connections between proximity to green space (tree canopy), gray space (impervious surfaces), and expression of a critical co-morbid condition, anxiety, in three groups of youth: children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD, n=1501), non-ASD children with special healthcare needs (CSHCN, n=15,776), and typically developing children (n=53,650). Both impervious surface coverage and tree canopy coverage increased the risk of severe anxiety in youth with autism, but not CSHCN or typical …

Parental Mindfulness And Stress As An Influence On Clinically Referred Children’S Emotional Competence, Ahmad Baiyasi

Honors College Theses

Children acquire the skills of emotional competence in a variety of contexts, and demonstrate through their behavior the skills evident of emotional competence. Such skills include a sense of well-being, adaptive resilience in the face of stressful circumstances, and the ability to manage their own emotions (Saarni, 2000). Mindfulness, a relatively new construct in the study of human development, is nonjudgmentally paying attention to relevant aspects of our experiences, including our own emotions and thoughts (Ludwig & Kabat-Zinn, 2008). Stress is emotional or mental strain resulting from adverse or very demanding life circumstances, such as our living environment (Lunney, 2006). …

Social Work Trauma Interventions: Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Kassie Baumann

Senior Honors Theses

According to Lynne Weilart (2013), in her article on the reasons why people seek out therapy, trauma is the number one reason people attend counseling. Many different trauma-informed approaches are designed specifically to address the consequences of trauma and to facilitate healing. Some of these approaches are as follows: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT); Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT);Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT); Trauma Systems Therapy (TST); Trauma Assessment Pathway (TAP); and Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competency (ARC) (de Arellano, Danielson, Ko, & Sprauge, 2008). The effectiveness of each trauma intervention will be examined. DBT is one of these trauma interventions that is growing …

Unintentional Minor Injury In Children: The Role Of Executive Function And Motor Ability, Denise Richard

Undergraduate Distinction Papers

Abstract

This study builds off of previous research developed by Bennett Murphy and colleagues (Bennet Murphy, Gilliland, & Griswold-Rhymer, 2001; Bennett Murphy, Murphy, & Laurie-Rose, 2001) by examining executive function (EF) in an attempt to isolate the aspects of attention that may contribute to unintentional injury. The aim of the present study was to explore whether a relationship exists between EF, motor ability, and unintentional injury in preschool aged children. This study consisted of 13 preschool children between the ages of 5 and 6 who were recruited from two Catholic preschools located in Ohio. All children took part in two …

A Parent Education Curriculum For Decreasing Stress In Families Raising A Child With An Autism Spectrum Disorder, Hannah L. Wohlk

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Research has consistently shown that parents raising a child with autism spectrum disorders, or ASDs, have higher levels of stress than parents of typically-developing children or children with other disabilities. These parents’ higher levels of stress are attributed to a number of different factors, including early atypical development, getting the diagnosis, lack of awareness of resources, lack of support from their communities, unmet resource and schooling needs for their ASD child, financial strain, strain on the couple relationship, managing maladaptive behaviors, regulatory problems of the ASD child may experience, communication problems between ASD child and parent, parents’ perception of their …

Growing Up With Porn: The Developmental And Societal Impact Of Pornography On Children, Gail Dines

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Conceptualizing The Emergence Of Social Capital In Young Children, Courtney Wong

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper explores the concept of social capital as it relates to children. Three major theorists, Coleman (1988), Putnam (1995), and Bourdieu (1986), offer different conceptualizations of social capital, but all agree that social capital exists within relationships amongst people and allows them to facilitate an action or receive some sort of benefit. Within much of social capital literature, children are mostly viewed as passive recipients of social capital from their parents and teachers, as opposed to being acknowledged as creators of their own social capital. More recent research is starting to recognize the latter and to conceptualize how children, …

A Study Exploring Parents’ And Occupational Therapists Views On Facilitating Social And Emotional Development, Salena C. Neuwar

Honors College Theses

This study examined how parents of a child with a disability and the child's occupational therapist each facilitate social and emotional development among children who have or are currently receiving occupational therapy services. This study first served to identify, through interviews, what social and emotional skills are important individually to the parent and the occupational therapist that the child gains. Through interviews, the researcher investigated the perceptions of how parents and occupational therapists facilitate social and emotional skills. The location of the therapy session was found to be a vital component among parent and occupational therapist interaction. Finally, this research …