Child Psychology Commons^™

Adhd: Culture, Treatment Strategies And Their Relevance To Preschool Children, Nelson M. Bean

CMC Senior Theses

In recent decades a growing number of individuals in preschool, middle childhood and adolescence have been diagnosed with ADHD. Accompanying increasing rates of diagnoses is an increase in the use of stimulant medication in preschool populations, a practice not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This paper reviews the current literature pertaining the social and developmental consequences of ADHD, its effect on the child and family, treatment strategies with and without the use of stimulants, and cultural and diagnostic trends which may be contributing to the rising number of diagnoses. A review of the literature suggests that there is …

The Reality Of Child Sexual Abuse: A Critique Of The Arguments Used By Adult-Child Sex Advoates, Kacey Klein

CMC Senior Theses

In the United States, there are advocacy groups that support sexual relationships between adults and children. These groups use justifications that make pedophile behaviors seem normal and appropriate. This thesis describes the physical, emotional, and psychological harms that result from child sexual abuse. The reader will understand how prominent child sexual abuse is and how it takes a lot of effort for abusers to take advantage of children. There are many psychological resources available to children and their families, but it does not make sexual abuse okay for society to ignore. The justifications used by pedophile advocates are irrational and …

Grasshoppers In The Outfield: An Examination Of The Effects Of Sports On Children, Chelsea R. Baker

CMC Senior Theses

Many psychologists have studied the effects of sports on children because it is an issue that is important for children and parents alike. Athletic participation is a popular activity in the United States for children and many begin sports at young ages. Theokas (2009) claimed that the importance of athletics is that sports are more than physical activity—sports have an influence in many other areas of a child’s life. The goal of the current review was to examine how sports affect children in domains such as: friendships, self-esteem, family, and academics. Athletic involvement helps a child in more ways that …

Evidence-Based Programs That Address Social Emotional Learning In An Early Childhood Setting, Jihan Ali

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The purpose of this project is to compare and contrast evidence-based curriculums that address social-emotional learning for children 3 to 5 years old in a rural early childhood setting. Factors that will be considered include the effectiveness of the program with diverse populations, implementation in rural areas, includes a parenting component, cost of training as well as other appropriate factors. By providing effective early childhood education to children and parents, Fernbrook will be able to give the parents skills to more effectively parent at the home and children skills to develop healthy social emotional skills.

Research Question: What evidence-based social …

Typically Developing Children’S Attitudes And Acceptance Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder After Integrated Play Group Involvement, Karen Kay Toon

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

In an urban, midwestern public school, six children, ages 8-10 years old, engaged in ten weeks of Integrated Play Groups (IPGs) to teach skills to students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Lasting two and a half months, IPGs met for 30 minutes, twice weekly. The participants engaged in pre- and post-tests of the revised Chedoke-McMaster Attitudes Towards Children with Handicaps scale and pre- and post-focus groups. These means were used to investigate the research question: What can be learned about typical peers’ attitudes and acceptance of students with ASD through the expert players’ reflections on Integrated Play Group involvement? The …

A Conceptual Guide To Museum Visitors’ Understanding Of Evolution, E. Margaret Evans, Amy Spiegel, Wendy Gram, Brandy N. Frazier, Sarah Cover, Medha Tare, Judy Diamond

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to profile natural history museum visitors’ reasoning about the evolution of seven organisms featured in Explore Evolution, an NSF funded exhibition. Seven current research studies on evolution were exhibited; each targeted different organisms: HIV, diatoms, ant/fungus, Hawaiian flies, Galapagos finches, humans/chimps, and fossilized whales. The exhibits illustrated a common set of evolutionary principles, variation, inheritance, selection, time, and adaptation, in diverse organisms.

Method: As part of the front-end evaluation, 32 museum visitors were interviewed and asked to explain evolutionary change in the seven organisms, though the term evolution was not mentioned. …

Vocabulary And Phonological Awareness In 3- To 4-Year-Old Children: Effects Of A Training Program, Iuliana Elena Baciu

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The impact of a preschool training program that combined a vocabulary instruction strategy with phonological awareness activities and instruction in the alphabetic principle, as well as incidental teaching of basic vocabulary items was evaluated using a pretest-posttest design with a control group. This language and literacy (LL) training targeted three to four year-old English as a second language (L2) learners and monolingual (L1) English speakers (n = 63) and was conducted twice a week for two hours, for a total of 24 weeks. Both language groups contained a low socioeconomic status (SES) and a middle SES groups. The children …

Moral Emotion Expectancies In Adolescence: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, Fanli Jia

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Cross-cultural research on moral development has documented reliable cultural differences in people’s evaluations of moral and immoral actions. Prosocial actions are typically viewed as more obligatory and less discretionary in collectivistic cultures relative to individualistic cultures. While past research mostly focused on moral judgments, it largely neglected moral emotions. The present study was aimed at investigating self- and other-evaluative emotions following (im) moral actions in different situational and cultural contexts. It investigated moral emotion expectancies of Canadian and Chinese adolescents and young adults across different situational contexts. For each culture, 179 Canadian and 193 Chinese adolescents from grade levels 7-8, …

Age And Amount Of Experience On Children’S Representations Of Repeated Events, Una Glisic

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The current study examined how children’s event representations changed with increasing experience with an event. There were 81 children (40 4-to-5-year-olds, and 41 7-to-8-year-olds) who participated in either 2 (n = 41) or 4 (n = 40) repeated event sessions, which consisted of activities such as playing a counting game, and/or doing a puzzle. Event sessions included three different item types; variable items (which changed at every occurrence), fixed items (which stayed constant throughout the event), and new items (which only occurred once throughout the series). Children were interviewed 5-7- days following their last event session using free-recall, …

A Comprehensive Investigation Of Variables Related To Children's Self-Perceptions, Renee Payton Cahill

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

In recent decades much has been revealed regarding children’s self-perceptions and sense of worth. Children engage in social comparisons to gauge their strengths and weaknesses relative to those around them. Thus one’s environment plays a critical role impacting one’s perceptions of self. Other variables suggested as contributing to children’s formulation of self-worth, include academic achievement, perception of victimization by peers, and academic placement. However, findings have been inconsistent in regard to the extent to which these variables relate to self-worth. The present study sought to discern if these variables relate to children’s self-perceptions. Results revealed a positive correlation between students’ …

Teacher Training For The Implementation Of The Incredible Years At Gfw Elementary School, Karen J. Appel

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research project was to determine whether training the Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) teachers, paraprofessionals, and staff would increase the social and emotional literacy of the children as well as the staff in the ECSE classroom . The four areas of training & research consisted of: 1. Increasing staff’s positive attention, encouragement and praise while working as a team in the ECSE classroom; 2. Using incentives for the purpose of promoting positive attention in the classroom; 3. Using more proactive teaching techniques for the purpose of preventing behavior problems in the classroom, and 4. Increasing staff’s …

The Influence Of Treatment Team Cohesion In The Success Of In-Home Mental Health Treatment For Children And Adolescents With Emotional And Behavioral Disorders, Jaimie C. Orndorff

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Background: The author pursued this area of interest due to having had a positive experience working as a therapist within a high cohesion treatment team in an in-home setting. This experience with a high cohesion team seemed to lead to more successful results than other teams that were deemed low cohesion, in the same format. This experience led to a general curiosity about why the team this author was on was more effective. Additional research allowed this author to determine the possible link between cohesion, success of treatment and reduced risk for burnout, defined as a response to chronic job …

Childhood Under Threat: Effect Of Child Sexual Abuse On Mental Health, Ruby Charak

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

“Unlike physical abuse and neglect, sexual abuse has no connection to child rearing practices, discipline......Rather, it constitutes a breach of trust, deception, intrusion, and exploitation of child’s innocence and status”-Finkelhor.

Overview Of The Nature And Extent Of Child Sexual Abuse In Europe, Kevin Lalor, Rosaleen Mcelvaney

Books/Book chapters

No abstract provided.

Child Sexual Abuse, Links To Later Sexual Exploitation/High-Risk Sexual Behavior, And Prevention/Treatment Programs, Kevin Lalor, Rosaleen Mcelvaney

Articles

This paper reviews the literature on the nature and incidence of child sexual abuse, explores the link between child sexual abuse and later sexual exploitation, and reviews the literature on prevention strategies and effective interventions in child sexual abuse services. Our understanding of the international epidemiology of child sexual abuse is considerably greater than it was just 10 years ago, and studies from around the world are examined. Childhood sexual abuse can involve a wide number of psychological sequelae, including low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. Numerous studies have noted that child sexual abuse victims are vulnerable to later sexual revictimization, …

Asperger's Disorder: A Musical Treatment For Child Anxiety, Jeremy Marriott

Theses : Honours

School-aged females with Asperger's Disorder (AD) are significantly affected by debilitating anxiety. At present, no empirically validated treatments exist to treat this anxiety. To investigate this affect and treatment gap, a mixed-methods revelatory single-case design, built on evidence-based treatment elements was designed and tested. Solo pianist, David Helfgott rated, performed and provided musical performances by Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Claude Debussy which were listened to once each morning before school by a 10-year-old female with AD. Anxiety was recorded via a self-report Daily Journal and parent-report Spence Child Anxiety Scale for 20 consecutive school days. Results indicated support for the …

From Junior To Senior Sport: Do Athletes Differ In Their Transitional Experiences?, Glen Ewen

Theses : Honours

The purpose of this research was to investigate whether athletes at the beginning (BTG) of their transition from junior to senior sport, had different transitional experiences to those in the middle (MTG). One hundred and forty eight male and female elite athletes aged between 14 and 18 years, from a variety of sports in both city and country locations of Western Australia, were surveyed. Two test instruments were used; the newly developed Swedish, Transitional Monitoring Survey (TMS), and the Athletic Identity Measurement Scales (AIMS). Univariate descriptive statistics, One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and reliability measures were used to analyse …

Community-Based Psychosocial Interventions Improve Psychosocial Outcomes For Children And Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus And Their Families: A Systematic Review; And, Community Mental Health Nursing For Children/Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus And Their Families, Caris Bailey

Theses : Honours

Background: Research indicates an increased prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus in comparison to their peers. As a result, psychosocial community-based services are sometimes available to those who are experiencing psychosocial problems. Several reviews have examined the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions for children/ adolescents living with type 1 diabetes mellitus, however the psychosocial outcomes of psychosocial interventions being conducted in the community specifically, have yet to be systematically reviewed. Objective: To systematically review the psychosocial outcomes of community-based psychosocial interventions for children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus and their families. Subjects …

A Glance Backwards: An Analysis Of Youth Resiliency Through Autoethnographical And Life History Lenses, Toney Bissett Ford

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this study was to investigate youth resiliency employing dual methodologies, auto-ethnography and life history research respectively, to reveal how two middle-aged adults (one African-American, the other Caucasian) achieved resiliency; and most importantly, how their experiences and insights might inform ongoing efforts to promote youth resiliency. This research project was a follow-up to a previous study (involving four African American participants – two males and two females) conducted to determine the roles that schools and communities play in promoting youth resiliency.

Offering insights into the usefulness of extended research, Herr and Anderson (2005) captured the essence of my …