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Whenever I enter a new environment, be it academic or otherwise, my initial objective is to seek out those individuals who will be personally compatible, most supportive of my endeavor, and respectful of my aspirations. I found precisely that in my committee members. I thank Ronnie Janoff-Bulman for her valuable suggestions and contributions in the development of this thesis. My special thanks goes to Howard Gadlin, my adviser, who is always there to stimulate my ideas and to offer his support. I am particularly grateful to Castellano Turner, my chairperson, for the time, support and concern that he has consistently exhibited throughout the completion of this project; most of all for his quiet understanding and respect when I needed to be left alone. I would also like to thank the staff and clients of Children's Aid and Family Service, Franklin/Hampshire Community Mental Health Center, Hampshire Day House, and Sojourn, Inc. who took the time out to participate in this study.

This dissertation examined the relationship between the predictor variables of adolescent refusal self-efficacy, social capital, and the common liability to addiction and the outcome variable of continuing care choices. Using a sample of 71 adolescents who had attended The CASTLE, High Point treatment center’s adolescent center in 2011, evidence was found to support the relationship between refusal self-efficacy, social capital and these outcomes. Following the results of preliminary analyses, family history of drug use was included in the list of predictor variables examined, in relation to the outcome of adolescent continuing care choices. It was determined that refusal selfefficacy and social capital were related to outcome choices of adolescents during treatment. Furthermore, including the independent variables of family history of drug use and common liability to addiction provided a more robust display of the directions adolescents moved towards.

Introduction: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries are the most common ligamentous injury in the adolescent knee, resulting in long-term health consequences including early onset knee osteoarthritis and a high predominance of re-injury. The current ACL rehabilitation measures need improvement, in particular for adolescents. Information surrounding energy absorption strategies during demanding tasks may provide important insight into functional capacity and movement quality and could be a variable that is considered in ACL rehabilitation programs. The purpose of this thesis was therefore to evaluate energy absorption strategies in adolescent males and females with and without ACL injuries. Specifically, to first identify sex and injury status differences in lower extremity kinematics and kinetics in adolescent males and females with and without an ACL injury, and then secondly, determine if there is a generalizable relationship between strength and energy absorption strategies within these populations during drop-vertical jumps. Methods: Fifty-two ACL injured (17 males) and 68 control adolescent (34 males) males and females between the ages of 10 and 18 performed five trials of a lunge and drop vertical jump (DVJ) task. Ankle plantarflexion, and knee extension and flexion maximum voluntary isometric contractions (MVIC) were collected, along with 3D kinematics and kinetics including joint angles, joint moments, and energy absorption at the hip, knee, and ankle joint. Two-way analyses of variance (ANOVA), statistical non-parametric mapping (SnPM), and multiple linear regressions were used to determine statistically significant differences and relationships in joint kinematics, kinetics, and MVIC's between the male and female ACL injured and control individuals. Results: Males displayed greater knee extension torque compared to females, while controls displayed greater knee extension and ankle plantarflexion torque compared to ACL injured. There were no energy absorption differences found during the DVJ, however, during the lunge male controls display greater energy absorption compared to females. Furthermore, small effect sizes were found in the hip, knee, and ankle joint energy absorption for knee strength (knee extension or knee flexion), sex, and injury status. However, sex, injury status, and knee strength did not significantly add to the prediction of energy absorption. Conclusion: These findings indicate that isometric strength might be an important variable to be considered in ACL injury rehabilitation and injury prevention programs with injured individuals displaying weaker knee extension and ankle plantarflexion torques. However, energy absorption may not be as important of a variable to consider as there were limited statistically significant differences between injury status and sex at the hip, knee, and ankle joints. Additionally, there does not appear to be a generalizable relationship between hip, knee, and ankle energy absorption and knee flexion and extension isometric strength in male and female control and ACL injured individuals. Injured individuals absorb similar energy levels at each joint compared to controls, with isometric strength showing a weak relationship with energy absorption. Therefore, it is possible that there is not a specific energy absorption or muscular strength strategy that can be used to improve adolescent ACL rehabilitation measures.

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