Developmental Regression In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Associated Factors And Outcomes, Jasper Abarte Estabillo

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an increasingly common neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in socialization skills and the presence of restricted and repetitive behaviors. In addition to a number of medical and psychological comorbidities, ASD is associated with a complex phenomenon: developmental regression (i.e., loss of skills in developmental domains). Although present in other disorders (albeit rare), developmental regression is prevalent among individuals with ASD. Thus, interest in studying the phenomenon has grown. However, research on associated risk factors and outcomes is limited and findings have been inconsistent. The current study had two aims: (1) examine potential factors associated with …

Examining Early Maladaptive Schemas, Depression, And Health Behaviors, Juliana D'Onofrio

Theses and Dissertations

Chronic disease continues to predominate the leading causes of death and account for the majority of healthcare expenditures in the United States. Researchers have identified that engagement in negative health behaviors, such as eating a poor diet, physical inactivity, risky sexual activity, nicotine and illicit drug use, and excessive alcohol consumption is a key risk factor for developing chronic disease later in life. In order to help motivate individuals to adhere to a healthy lifestyle, understanding why an individual might engage in negative health behaviors is warranted. Young's schema theory is a social cognitive theory that explores early maladaptive schemas …

Empathic Responsivity And Callous-Unemotional Traits Across Development, Julia Elizabeth Clark

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are associated with deficits in empathy and emotional responses to others. Specifically, CU traits are consistently correlated with under-reactivity to others’ distress cues. However, it is unknown whether CU traits are also associated with more general deficits in emotional reactivity (e.g., to situations involving threat to the self). Further, the relationship between CU traits and the ability to accurately identify others’ emotions is not well established, and prior work often has not considered possible developmental changes in this relationship. To address these questions, the current study recruited a school-based community sample of children from kindergarten, third, and …

Self-Affirmation Theory And The Change Of Perception Of Self And Threats, Isaac Wicker

Theses and Dissertations

In today’s American culture, people experience high rates of distress and depression (Kessler et al., 2005). Self-affirmation theory has been shown to help people reduce stress and defensiveness in the face of a wide variety of stressors. A shortcoming of self-affirmation exercises is that there are barriers to using them in naturalistic settings. One such barrier is that the affirmation content needs to be regulated so that it is not closely related to the salient stressor or else the effects of the affirmation could be counteracted. The current study sought to use a prompt-guided value selection for the self-affirmation exercise …

Emotional Clarity In Young Adults: Operationalization, Measurement, And Associations With Mental Health Outcomes, Madeline D W Noland

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

Emotional clarity (EC) refers to the ability to identify, understand, and distinguish one’s emotions (Gohm & Clore, 2000). The literature suggests that EC is highly related to emotion regulation (ER), such that individuals with higher EC are more likely to use adaptive ER strategies and individuals with lower EC are more likely to use maladaptive ER strategies (Vine & Aldao, 2014). EC has been measured with both self-report measures and physiological tasks. Due to the limitations of both self-report measures and physiological tasks, I aimed to develop a behavioral measure of EC using the concordance between change in individuals’ physiological …

How Women Navigate Safety In The Dominican Bateyes, Mary Margaret Tull

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Research has demonstrated that individuals of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic are at high risk of violence and experience multiple levels of structural oppression. However, less research exists specifically for women of Haitian descent, who are at unique risk of violence due to the complex political history between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, as well as structural and gendered violence. I use frameworks of socio-ecological systems, intersectionality, structured violence, and gendered violence to consider how women of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic construct safety and prioritize different needs for their survival. I used thematic analysis to analyze life …

Understanding The Impact Of Social Location And English As A Second Language On Service Needs And Outcomes Of Intimate Partner Violence Victims, Christina Vosky Soibatian

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Victims of intimate partner violence have various needs due to abuse (e.g. safety, housing, gaining employment). Domestic violence programs play a crucial role in helping victims address their complex needs through services such as advocacy, legal support, counseling, and immediate housing. In an effort to better understand diverse victims’ needs and help-attained in domestic violence program settings, a study was conducted of 464 female victims across 15 domestic violence services agencies throughout a major Midwestern metropolitan area. Victims completed surveys six months after beginning services. The current study examined victims’ profiles across various needs upon their entry to services to …

Key Expressions Of Posttraumatic Distress In Cambodian Children: A Step Toward Culturally-Sensitive Trauma Assessment And Intervention, Caleb J. Figge

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

More than half of all children in Cambodia experience direct abuse and over 70% other traumatic events, which significantly increase risk for a range of physical and mental health problems. Additionally, Cambodian children face longstanding sociopolitical, intergenerational, and cultural factors that compound the impact of direct victimization. As a result, rates of posttraumatic stress symptoms among Cambodian youth are high. However, care providers often rely on Western-based nosology that does not account for culturally specific expressions of trauma. Lack of knowledge surrounding the expressions of distress that best represent the experience of traumatized Cambodian children hinders diagnostic accuracy and treatment …

Chasing The White Whale: Capturing The Relation Between Parent Educational Involvement And Student Socioemotional Difficulties Over Time, Samantha Irene Reaves

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Early childhood socioemotional difficulties are of increasing concern due to their impact on later functioning, particularly in the academic environment. A large body of research highlights the relation between parent educational involvement and student academic success, such that more involvement is associated with better grades, retention, and graduation. It is praised as a protective factor for those students at risk for poor outcomes. An under-researched area of the parent educational involvement literature is the construct’s relation to student socioemotional functioning, which also affects success in the academic environment and predicts long term functioning. This study seeks to longitudinally investigate these …

Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Neighborhoods, Stroke Risk, And Cognition In Older Adults: A Focus On Violent Crime, Linda D. Ruiz

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Living in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods, i.e., neighborhoods with lower incomes, lower education/occupational levels, and/or higher crime, increases one’s risk of developing chronic health problems, including cardiovascular disease risk factors and stroke. These health problems are associated with reduced cognition and dementia and may help to explain disparities in brain aging. We investigated the association of neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics on stroke risk and cognitive outcomes hypothesizing that stroke risk mediates the association between the socioeconomic environment and cognitive functioning. Participants were non-demented community-dwelling older adults (N=121), ~67 years of age (50% male, 44% non-Latino Black) who underwent cognitive and medical assessments. …

How Music Therapy Effects The Traumatized Brain: Neurorehabilitation For Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Through Music Therapy, Jordan Winter Payne

Honors Projects

This review discusses the neurological components of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and how both structures and processes in the brain are altered in individuals with the disorder, specifically the neural network that includes the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, and the amygdala. This impacts awareness and responsiveness to stimuli. After examining these aspects, invasive and non-invasive treatment approaches are examined, with a specific emphasis on the treatment approach of music therapy. Musical stimuli are processed in many areas of the brain, so it has therapeutic potential for modulating neurological changes. Music therapy applies music clinically to address a variety of goals …

The Impact Of Trauma Experience, Adverse Early Circumstances And Unit Cohesion On Posttraumatic Growth In Active Duty Service Members, John Charleson

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

Active duty service members are regularly exposed to highly traumatic events. Commonly, individuals exposed to trauma experience positive changes as a result of the trauma they experienced. The likelihood of these changes occurring can be positively or negatively influenced by characteristics of the event itself, the biopsychosocial history of the service member, and the availability of internal and external coping resources. The present study aimed to evaluate how threat to life during a traumatic event influences posttraumatic growth using a sample of active duty service members (N = 818). Participant’s ranged in age from 19 to 54 (M …

Disentangling The Impact Of Poor Sleep From Depressive Symptoms On Emotion Regulation, Kimberly O'Leary

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Depressive symptoms and sleep are both strongly associated with deficits in emotional functioning (Durmer & Dinges, 2005; van der Helm & Walker, 2010). Although sleep and depression are tightly intertwined, understanding their independent and conjoint impact on emotional functioning is imperative. Given the limitations of previous designs, the primary goal of this study was to examine the separate impact of poor sleep quality and depressive symptoms on emotion regulation. In order to accomplish this goal, we preselected groups on the basis of their sleep and depression profiles: individuals with mainly sleep problems (N = 30), individuals with mainly depressive symptoms …

The Roles Of Pragmatic Language And Theory Of Mind In The Adaptive Communication Skills Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Taja Estrada

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit marked social communication impairments. Research suggests that these deficits often lead to delays in adaptive behavior, such as adaptive communication. In this study, I examined the roles of two social constructs, pragmatic language and theory of mind (ToM), in the adaptive communication abilities of young children with and without ASD. Thirteen children with ASD (31% female; M age = 58.08 months) and 24 children with typical development (58% female; M age = 52.42 months) between the ages of 3:0 and 6:5 were assessed. Adaptive communication was measured by the Functional Communication subscale of …

The “Journey” Of Doctoral Study In Applied Psychology: Lived Experiences Of Students In Counseling, Clinical, And School Psychology, Jason S. Frydman, Linda Cheung, Joseph G. Ponterotto

The Qualitative Report

A qualitative methodology was adopted to explore the lived experiences of doctoral level students in applied psychology. A total of 15 students ranging in age from 24 to 43, who were at varying levels of their doctoral education, participated in individual semi-structured interviews exploring themes related to influences for the pursuit of graduate study, experiences in their program of study, and general reflections of the graduate school journey. All interviews were conducted from a constructivist-interpretivist model, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using a phenomenological coding approach (Creswell, 2012; Moustakas, 1994). Emergent broad themes included antecedents leading to graduate study, current experience …

Identity Orientation And Depressive Symptoms Amongst Adult Third Culture Kids At Uaeu: An Exploratory Study, Hiba Habeeb

Physiology Theses

Adult Third Culture Kids (ATCKs) make up a large number of the population of U.A.E but very few studies explore the possible psychological distresses faced by this population within the country. Some of the extensively studied difficulties faced by ATCKs include high mobility, unresolved grief, relationship struggles and identity development. The present study aimed to explore the prevalent identity orientation and depressive symptoms, as well as to identify whether identity orientations predicted depression amongst Adult Third Culture Kids at United Arab Emirates University. A sample of about 250 Immigrant Undergraduate males and females, who have spent a major period of …

Bound By Silence: Psychological Effects Of The Traditional Oath Ceremony Used In The Sex Trafficking Of Nigerian Women And Girls, Jennifer Millett-Barrett

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Nigerian women and children have been trafficked to Italy over the last 30 years for commercial sexual exploitation with an alarming increase in the past three years. The Central Mediterranean Route that runs from West African countries to Italy is rife with organized crime gangs that have created a highly successful trafficking operation. As part of the recruitment process, the Nigerian mafia and its operatives exploit victims by subjecting them to a traditional religious juju oath ceremony, which is an extremely effective control mechanism to silence victims and trap them in debt bondage. This study explores the psychological effects of …

Linking The Relationship Between Childhood Interpersonal Trauma And Auditory Hallucinations: Considerations For Assessment, Conceptualization, And Treatment, Amanda Pinelli

Dissertations

Abstract

A growing body of research has demonstrated a strong relationship between childhood interpersonal trauma and development of auditory hallucinations in children, adolescents, and adults. Several factors may influence whether an individual will experience auditory hallucinations after exposure to childhood interpersonal traumatic events, including the type of trauma exposure such as childhood sexual abuse or neglect, and biopsychosocial factors such as genetics or the environment. Additionally, the content of auditory hallucinations may include thematic representations of childhood interpersonal trauma. Auditory hallucinations may be perceived as commanding, threatening, and cause fear in individuals who experience them. Research suggests that dissociation may …

Exploration Of Atheism As A Diversity Issue And Its Implications For Best Practice In Psychotherapy: Trajectories And Strengths, Justin Michael Lampert

Dissertations

The conceptualization of Atheism has transformed considerably over the past century, making a transition from the taboo to a new movement of outspoken activism underlined by a strong self-identification with systemic nonbelief and sense of pride. Psychological literature has only begun to reflect the larger societal changes in perception and value over the past decade. As such, research has yet to adequately examine Atheism from a cultural perspective, creating an injustice in the psychotherapist’s ability to properly understand and treat patients in a comprehensive manner. Through the examination of trajectories leading to an Atheistic belief set, the application of a …

Factors Associated With Return To A Child Advocacy Center For A Subsequent Sexual Abuse Allegation: A Longitudinal Analysis, Jessica Pogue

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Child sexual abuse is a widespread problem impacting substantial numbers of youth (Finkelhor, Shattuck, Turner, & Hamby, 2014). There are many factors that make telling someone about sexual abuse difficult for children, which can mean disclosures are delayed and children are at-risk longer. After initial victimization, there is increased risk for children to experience subsequent sexual abuse victimization (Pittenger, Pogue, & Hansen, 2018). Using the framework of Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model, the present study examined predictors to distinguish children who are at the highest risk of returning to a Child Advocacy Center (CAC) for a subsequent sexual abuse referral. It also …