A Thesis submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science/Educational Specialist in Mental Health Counseling. / Spring Semester, 2012. / November 19, 2011. / Homework, therapist, client reactance, administration / Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of this study was to use music to distract and relax pediatric patients during medical procedures. Procedural support via live music therapy interventions included a variety of activities such as music paired with breathing exercises, counting to music, developing sequence in song, and manipulation of musical and play objects. Because invasive and non-invasive are two radically different types of procedures, two separate experimental designs were implemented and administered to a total of 40 pediatric patients between the ages of 5 and 12, in the main area and the emergency department of a southeastern regional hospital in North Florida. Invasive procedures included intravenous starts, finger pricks, incision and draining, suturing, and removal of foreign material in the skin. Non-invasive procedures included X-rays, computed tomography scans, and breathing treatments. All subjects were randomly assigned to a control or experimental group. Demographics were collected on all pediatric patients; this information included gender, age, procedure, and length of procedure. For self-report, The Pain Intensity and Assessment Tool, modeled after the Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale, was administered pre and post treatment to measure each child's level of pain, and modified to measure each child's level of anxiety. Results indicated no significant difference in control versus experimental groups receiving either invasive or non-invasive procedures in the main hospital or emergency centers. Mean and standard deviation scores, however, showed a decrease in anxiety and pain levels when comparing pre to post procedures. A behavioral checklist was used post-intervention to record the number of times an anxiety-related behavior occurred. Regardless of procedure, groups receiving music intervention displayed fewer aversive behaviors than groups that did not. In addition, patient satisfaction with MT assistance during the medial procedures was 100%. / A Thesis Submitted to the College of Music in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Music. / Summer Semester, 2008. / April 24, 2008. / Pediatrics and Music, Music Therapy, Anxiety, Pain, Pediatrics, Medical Music Therapy, Pediatric Procedural Support, Nonpharmacological Interventions / Includes bibliographical references. / Jayne M. Standley, Professor Directing Thesis; Clifford K. Madsen, Committee Member; Dianne Gregory, Committee Member.

For many children with developmental disabilities, the everyday experiences of an inclusive preschool classroom are not enough to foster the adequate development of a tact repertoire, which consists of all the responses (tacts) that a speaker could emit in order to label environmental stimuli. The present study evaluated the effectiveness of using discrete-trial based embedded instruction for increasing the tact repertoires of four preschoolers with developmental delays and expressive language deficits. All four participants acquired tacts for common classroom items following the implementation of embedded instruction by teaching assistants. Students demonstrated acquired tacts to variable degrees during post-intervention probes. Based on student performances on probes, better learning outcomes resulted from embedding instruction into "planning" and "recall" times (small group instructional activities) than during the "worktime" (free play) period. Average percent correct on 1 wk post-intervention probes was 98% for planning items, 86% for recall items, and 63% for worktime items. Students obtained few, if any, of the control items that were not exposed to the intervention. Following training (task clarification, video modeling and criterion-based role-play), teaching assistants implemented instructional procedures with a high degree of fidelity (assistants averaged 94% correct implementation). Assistants later reported that they felt the instructional procedures were effective, easy to implement, and beneficial for this population of students. The results obtained have implications for early skill assessment, instructional design of preschool curriculums, and the professional development of educators. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Psychology in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2005. / March 25, 2005. / Verbal Behavior, Developmental Disabilities, Embedded Instruction, Preschool Education / Includes bibliographical references. / Jon Bailey, Professor Directing Dissertation; Bruce Thyer, Outside Committee Member; Joseph K. Torgesen, Committee Member; Jack Brigham, Committee Member; Mark Licht, Committee Member.

The purpose of this dissertation study was to conduct exploratory research to consider the existence of an association between adolescents' level of attachment with parents and peers and the level of perceived therapeutic alliance when the adolescent was in therapy. The sample included 89 adolescents, ages 12 – 18 years, who were participating in individual, group and family therapy at either family service agencies, private practices, or schools. The measures were self-report questionnaires. Therapeutic alliance was measured with the Individual Therapy Alliance Scale (ITAS), a subscale of the Integrative Psychotherapy Alliance Scales, and attachment was measured with the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA). Results indicated that the existence of a positive peer attachment combined with a positive mother attachment predicts 14.2% of the variance of therapeutic alliance for this sample. The significant correlation found between peer attachment and mother attachment with therapeutic alliance indicates that positive attachments are related to other relationships, specifically the relationship with one's therapist. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Family and Child Sciences in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2003. / November 6, 2003. / Therapeutic Alliance, Adolescent Development, Attachment / Includes bibliographical references. / Thomas A. Cornille, Professor Directing Dissertation; Nicholas F. Mazza, Outside Committee Member; Ann K. Mullis, Committee Member; Mary W. Hicks, Committee Member.

Repetitive and stereotyped behaviors (RSB) are an early diagnostic feature of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, few studies have systematically examined the context and functions of RSB in young children with ASD. This study examined five object placement triggers, a dichotomous regulation measure, and nine function categories of RSB demonstrated by children between 18 and 24 months of age with ASD (n = 55), compared to children with developmental delay in which ASD had been ruled out (DD; n = 22), typical development matched groupwise on chronological age (TDCA; n = 37), and typical development matched groupwise on mental age (TDMA; n = 47). Measures were coded from video recorded behavior samples during the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales Developmental Profile (Wetherby & Prizant, 2002) using Noldus Pro® Observer software. Group differences between object placement, emotional regulation, and functions of RSB were explored. Findings revealed that children with ASD demonstrated lower proportions of well regulated behavior during episodes of RSB with large effect sizes compared to children with DD, TDCA, and TDMA. Based on effect sizes, similar object placement and function profiles were demonstrated across groups, particularly between the ASD and TD groups. Occupying self was the most common function of RSB across groups. Children with ASD demonstrated more RSB for object focused functions than the TD groups and fewer RSB for functions related to the meaningful use of objects than children in the DD and TDCA groups. These findings offer a framework to assess the function of RSB that may contribute to intervention decision-making. / A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Communication Disorders in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2008. / June 5, 2008. / Autism Spectrum Disorders, Repetitive Behaviors, Early Identification / Includes bibliographical references. / Amy M. Wetherby, Professor Directing Dissertation; Chris Schatschneider, Outside Committee Member; Juliann Woods, Committee Member; Julie A. G. Stierwalt, Committee Member.

The field of psychology has produced a great deal of knowledge about the way in which eyewitness memory operates in the adult population, and several findings have remained constant over many years. One of these is the "Other-race effect" (ORE), which states that people are better able to identify and recognize people of their own race as opposed to those of other, possibly less familiar, races. However, hardly any research has examined the ORE in children. Further, even that small body of existing research has produced inconsistent results. The current study was designed to assess the accuracy of children of various ages, as well as a comparison group of college students, in recognition of adult faces. It extends the earlier work with the ORE in children and utilizes three measures of accuracy—hits, false alarms, and A' (a measure of response accuracy involving both hits and false alarms), as well as B"D, a measure of response bias. Participants included Black and White individuals in 4 grade levels (2nd, 6th, 10th, and college). College participants were recruited from an introductory psychology class, while the younger children were students from a K-12 research school associated with the University. Data were collected from a total of 151 participants, consisting of 79 White students and 72 Black students. Participants completed a standard recognition paradigm in which they viewed a series of White and Black faces. After a short break they were shown a larger series of faces and asked to decide whether they had seen those faces earlier and to rate their confidence in their response. Participants at higher grade levels were more accurate at identifying faces, but there was also an overall effect for greater accuracy with White faces. This resulted in an ORE for White participants only, and this effect remained relatively stable across grade levels. Non-college Black participants responded similarly to White participants in their accuracy rates. There was a small correlation between accuracy and confidence for both children and adults. Adults' other-race social experiences were associated with an increase in overall accuracy, but this did not hold true for children. In addition, for both children and adults, an increase in other-race social experiences was related to a decrease in own-race accuracy. Explanations for these findings were discussed, and suggestions were made regarding the direction of future research. / A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Psychology in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Science. / Fall Semester, 2004. / November 1, 2004. / Other-Race Effect, Eyewitness, Recognition Memory / Includes bibliographical references. / John C. Brigham, Professor Directing Thesis; Colleen Kelley, Committee Member; Ashby Plant, Committee Member.

"The purpose of this paper is to present some characteristic growth patterns of a group of students, chosen by individual teachers for study over a period of time, so as to give other teachers a better insight, understanding, empathetic feeling, and knowledge of guidance and guiding principles in their dealings with their students. The role of the teacher as a group-guidance instructor is especially emphasized"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "August, 1955." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: R. L. Goulding, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 26).

Researchers have explored the effects of early adverse life experiences (ACEs) on children’s developmental outcomes for decades. In this study, I explored whether ACEs in toddlerhood were associated with temperament. I tested the hypotheses that: 1) children who were determined to have a difficult temperamental profile would have higher parent-reported ACE scores than children with an easy temperamental profile, and 2) children’s temperament types would have stronger associations with abuse and neglect ACE scores than with household dysfunction ACE scores. Parents of 94 toddlers, who were between 14 and 36 months of age, completed online surveys on behalf of their toddlers, including a modified version of the original ACEs survey and the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (ECBQ; Putnam, Gartstein, & Rothbart, 2006). Results supported the first hypothesis that children with a difficult temperament profile would have higher ACE scores than children with an easy temperament profile. However, the second hypothesis was not supported. Exploratory analyses were conducted to investigate correlations between individual ACE items and two temperament superdimensions: negative affectivity and effortful control. This is one of the first investigations to explore the prevalence of ACEs in toddlers via parental report and one of the first to document an association between adverse childhood experiences and temperament in very early childhood. Future attempts at replicating these ACEs-temperament associations in very early childhood, in additional and more diverse samples, can help shed light on their validity.

Apparatus for study of the phenomenon of rotation consisted of two rotating turntables constructed to receive disks for presenting varied visual stimuli. Turntables were graduated into 360 degrees for measurement of angular discrepancy in the task of visually matching rotational positions. Subjects from ages four through eleven attempted to match six compass positions for each of three designs--a boxlike house, a straight line, and Bender-Gestalt Figure No. 3. Errors of rotation were classed as either transpositional or nontranspositional, Transpositional error, involving reversal or mirroring of the directional aspect of the designs, largely disappeared by age six. Non-transpositional error declined rapidly between ages four and six, leveled off, then showed another significant decline at age nine. The three designs were readily conceptualized as to direction, showing no differences for inducing rotation. The error scores were minimally related to IQ and achievement. No correlation was found with rotation as measured by the Minnesota Percepto-Diagnostic Test. Groups at ages four, six, and eight were retested after one week, disclosing low reliabilities for non-transpositional error, though mean rotation error and standard deviation for the groups remained stable. Sixty-seven percent of four year olds showed instances of transposition, and as this source of error was scored as limited to fifty degrees and included in the composite score, the reliability for age four was raised from .52 to .96. A second study of children at ages four and five was conducted to verify the possibility of obtaining high reliability by combining both types of error. Utilizing some variations in methodology and designs, test-retest correlations over a two-week interval yielded a reliability of .82 for age four and .93 for age five. It was concluded that the method was applicable in assessing rotational error occurring on a perceptual-intuitive level, and that personal characteristics associated with perceptual-intuitive operations could be reliably measured at ages four and five.

Modified versions of the Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (CMAS) and Marlow·-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS) were administered to 40 normal and 29 retarded elementary school children to determine the effects of response sets upon CMAS scores. The results of the research indicated that CMAS scores obtained from retarded subjects reflect the use of acquiescence and denial response sets. Acquiescence response set did not affect the CMAS scores of normal children although there was a negative relationship between their CMAS scores and social desirability. The higher anxiety scores obtained by normal girls was felt to reflect their lower use of social desirability as compared to boys. Normal boys obtained higher social desirability scores which seemed to account for their lower anxiety scores.