The purpose of this project is to critically analyze and review parent training interventions published between the years 2000 to 2013 focused on enhancing social and communicative behaviors in young children between 3 to 10 years old with autism spectrum disorder. All studies involved a form of parent training in combination with an intervention type such as pivotal response training, milieu approach and naturalistic approaches. Overall, each study yielded positive outcomes for children with ASD, but data collection strategies, target goals, and outcome measures were variable. This review included an in-depth analysis of 16 studies of parent intervention programs evaluated based on their goals, methodology, and effectiveness of parent training on the children with ASD’s language skills. The review will present a set of guidelines for parents and professionals to use when deciding on the most effective and efficient parent training therapy for families who have children with ASD. Critically evaluating the available empirical research can help parents, therapists, and researchers more effectively consider viable options for parent training programs tailored to support the needs of children with ASD. Tables will summarize the findings to make the information more accessible. Implications for future research will follow the literature review. / text

3 pp. / Promoting the health and well-being of families during difficult times.

Family Interventions (FI) are recommended in the treatment of psychosis. This is based on the robust finding that a high rating of Expressed Emotion (EE) is predictive of poor outcome. Research has looked to attachment and attribution theories to further develop our understanding of EE. This study sought to understand how the experience of FI helped family members to develop their thinking about their attachment experiences and the appraisals made about a relative, and how these discussions helped to inform their understanding about the interactional way in which difficulties could be maintained. Six master themes were identified: ‘the significance of the therapeutic relationship’, ‘understanding relationships with significant others’, ‘developing a sense of agency’, ‘making sense of psychosis/difficulties’, ‘exploring and understanding unhelpful patterns of interaction in the family’, and the ‘mechanisms of therapy that were helpful’. The FI was experienced as helpful in bringing about changes in the way family members construed each other and psychosis. This influenced patterns of relating which allowed for an emotional climate within the family that promoted a sense of agency and was experienced as healing.

Master of Science / Food Science Institute / Randall Phebus / Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) are frequently associated with foodborne illness outbreaks, especially attributable to beef. Intervention methods, such as water washes and organic acid application, are widely implemented across the beef industry to combat this risk. This research evaluates the efficacy of intervention methods applied to chilled beef subprimal pieces and pre-rigor beef carcasses to reduce STEC contamination. Beef strip loins were inoculated (ca. 5 log CFU/cm²) with a 7-serotype STEC cocktail and sprayed with increasing concentrations of peracetic acid (200-1800 ppm; ambient temperature), lactic acid (3-10%; 55°C), or a water control before being vacuum-packaged and stored for 24 h at 4°C. Meat surface excision samples and color readings (L*, a*, and b*) were obtained from each subprimal at three sampling points: post-inoculation, 5 min post chemical spray, and post-24 h vacuum packaged chilling. Peracetic acid spray and lactic acid spray reduced STEC populations by 0.5 -1.3 log CFU/cm² and 0.2 – 0.7 log CFU/cm², respectively, across the incremental concentration increases. All concentrations of peracetic acid and lactic acid concentrations ≥3.5% reduced (P ≤ 0.05) STEC populations compared to their respective control. Application of higher concentrations of lactic acid (7-10%) decreased (P ≤ 0.05) L* and b* values compared to the control, indicating that quality attributes of the subprimals were negatively effected. Carcass intervention methods were evaluated using a three-stage commercial carcass washing cabinet (Chad Equipment). Four pre-rigor carcass sides were inoculated by electrostatically spraying with a 7-serogroup STEC cocktail (ca. 6.5 log CFU/100 cm²). Three treatments were applied, in order, to each side: ambient water wash, hot water wash (82-92°C at the nozzle head), and antimicrobial mist. Meat surface excision samples were taken from the bottom, middle, and top section of each carcass side at five sampling points: 30 min post-inoculation, post-ambient water wash, post-hot water wash, post-antimicrobial spray, and after 18 h spray chilling. The combination of the high-volume ambient water wash stage and subsequent hot water wash stage reduced STEC populations on sides by 3.5, 4.7, and 4.8 log CFU/100 cm² at the bottom, middle, and top of the carcass, respectively. Due to STEC populations declining to very low or undetectable levels after the hot water stage, minimal additional STEC reductions were observed after chemical spray application and chilling. Sequential antimicrobial treatments applied using a three-stage Chad carcass wash cabinet and a subsequent chill step reduced STEC populations on pre-rigor beef carcasses by 4.5 – 5.3 log CFU/100 cm².

Much recent discussion has highlighted the challenges posed by what have variously been called “disruptive”, “discontinuous”, “breakthrough” and “radical” innovations. Although the labelling may vary, the underlying themes appear to be consistent. In particular it is clear that under conditions in which the dominant “rules of the game” change as a result of emergent or shifting markets, major movements at the technological frontier, dislocations in the regulatory environment etc, even organizations with well-developed innovation capabilities get into difficulties. This is less a matter of particular technological, market or political stimuli than of the limitations of the repertoire of organizational responses available to the firm. This resurfaces a long-running concern with managing innovation in two different modes, namely “exploitation” and “exploration”. This thesis reports the results of exploratory research into specific aspects of the organizational culture within the Research and Development (R&D) setting of a small mature UK based company, Cerulean. In doing so it also identifies and discusses key management interventions for developing an innovation culture that facilitates radical product innovation. Cerulean designs and manufactures quality control instrumentation and has in the past been very successful with radically new products. In recent years this propensity for “radicalness” has declined and the company now wishes to regain this capability. A grounded research methodology and a participative action research approach was utilised to surface issues that clearly illustrated both the presence and intensity of aspects of organisation culture that enabled and inhibited radical product innovation. Participative analysis of the data identified nine emerging themes and key constructs of an innovation culture that was found to influence “radicalness” in new product development ventures. The interrelationships between the themes were discussed in the context of current theoretical perspectives in the field of innovation management. This led to the development of a conceptual model that incorporates two “ideal” archetypal forms of innovation culture. A composite instrument was developed based on existing evaluation tools and used to assess the innovation culture. First use of the instrument indicated areas of opportunity in developing a radical innovation culture. Further participative analysis of the emergent themes and the assessment and evaluations of the extant innovation culture, resulted in a series of management interventions to stimulate the development of a culture to facilitate radical product innovation. The design of the interventions was also informed by the literature and other organizations, part of a national Discontinuous Innovation Forum (DIF) undergoing similar ambitions. The proposed interventions comprise a series of linked management actions in the form of a plan to shift the innovation culture of the company closer to a desired radical innovation culture.

For individuals with schizophrenia and their caregivers, psychosocial interventions have been shown to significantly improve recovery and reduce relapse rates. Although this population is underserved and stigmatized, counselors have been excluded from most research into attitudes toward and interventions for these families. Using a stratified random sample survey design, researchers explored the relationships between participating U.S. Licensed Professional Counselors’ attitudes towards, recovery beliefs regarding, familiarity with, desire for social distance from, and interest in providing services to individuals with schizophrenia and their caregivers. Most of the 111 participants (11.1% response rate) identified themselves as female (83.8%) and Caucasian (86.5%). A few participants described themselves as Hispanic (6.3%) or Black or African-American (5.4%). Respondents ranged in age in years from 20’s to 60’s with the largest group in their 40’s. Descriptive statistics indicated that the majority of LPC participants reported low to moderate stigmatizing attitudes, strong beliefs in recovery, and moderate to high interest in providing interventions for people with schizophrenia and their caregivers. Furthermore, almost half of participating LPCs reported already working with individuals with schizophrenia. Bivariate correlations and hierarchical regressions indicated that high interest in providing interventions for this population was significantly correlated (p < .01) with high frequency of already working with the population (large effect), low desire for social distance (medium effect), high desire to help socially (medium effect), and strong beliefs in recovery (small effect). The results support including LPCs in all areas pertaining to interventions, research, and recovery for people with schizophrenia and their caregivers.

The object mouthing of a developmentally delayed 8-year-old girl was assessed and treated in a classroom setting. Two pretreatment assessments were conducted: A functional analysis indicated that object mouthing occurred across test conditions and persisted in the absence of social contingencies, and assessment of stimulus preference identified reinforcers to be used during treatments. Based on assessment outcomes, two treatments were implemented. Noncontingent sensory reinforcement was implemented during free-time and group activities, resulting in a 74.3% decrease in object mouthing across three settings. During one-on-one educational activities, presentation of academic task-trials at a high rate decreased object mouthing by 85.7%, relative to a condition in which tasks were presented at a slower rate.

School professionals are faced with addressing social behavioral concerns across multiple school settings with growing frequency. There is a need for efficient and effective methods to support students exhibiting challenging behavior. Tier -II interventions, such as Check-in/Check-out, can be implemented efficiently in schools with sufficient systems in place. However, these interventions are generally more effective for students whose problem behavior is more sensitive to adult attention. This study evaluated the effects of the Academic and Behavior Check-in/Check-out (ABC) intervention, a Tier-II intervention designed to provide additional support for students emitting behavior that is more sensitive to escape from academic tasks, relative to CICO using an ABAB reversal design. Functional assessment procedures corroborated that the behavior of three middle school students was in part motivated by escape from tasks. Implementation of ABC with all subjects resulted in improvements in academic engagement and reductions in problem behavior relative to CICO. Additionally, the ABC intervention was implemented with high fidelity and was rated favorably by stakeholders.

Literature Review: Background: Compassion-facilitating interventions (CFIs) seek to increase feelings of reassurance, safeness and well-being, and are suggested as a new psychotherapeutic approach to treat post-traumatic stress. Objectives: This review summarises and synthesises the literature investigating CFIs for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in clinical adult populations. Method: A systematic review of the experimental and intervention literature to date was completed using PubMed, PsycINFO, and Web of Knowledge databases. Results: CFIs show large to medium effect sizes in reducing PTSD in traumatised populations. However, many studies did not compare these interventions to active control conditions, and for the few studies that did, compassion-facilitating interventions were not better at reducing PTSD than the active control conditions. There was also not enough evidence in these studies to indicate a mechanism of change in these interventions. Conclusions: CFIs may be an effective intervention in PTSD, but more high quality research is needed to establish their efficacy over and above well established PTSD treatments. More research is also needed to identify the psychological mechanisms at work in decreasing PTSD symptoms Empirical Paper: Objective: Compassion-facilitating interventions are thought to be promising for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is theorised that inducing self compassion through a compassion-facilitating meditation task would interrupt the psychological processes that cause emotional distress and trauma-related intrusions that form post-trauma. Methods: A student sample (n = 72) was exposed to a trauma-film and then either listened to a neutral-emotion audio mediation or a compassion-facilitating meditation (CFM). Self-reported distress, self-compassion and self-criticism were measured at baseline, post-film, post-audio meditation and for seven days following the experiment. Measures of sympathetic arousal and parasympathetic activation were measured at baseline and during the trauma film and audio meditation. Trauma-related intrusions were measured for seven days following the experiment. Results: Lower self-reported distress and higher self-compassion were reported over the seven day follow-up, but not directly after the meditation. No statistical differences between conditions over time were found for any of the physiological measures but skin conductance was higher in the CFM group, contrary to predictions. There were also no statistical differences found between the two conditions in terms of sum daily intrusions following trauma-exposure. Conclusions: This research supports the hypothesis that facilitating self compassion can disrupt some of the observed processes post-trauma, namely felt distress, although only after a delay. These findings are relevant to the theoretical models of PTSD and future clinical interventions.

Connectedness has been identified as a powerful protective factor for adolescents. This study focused on the extent to which secondary students at the American International School of Utah (AISU) report perceptions of connectedness. Specifically, this work focused on school-level factors. It examined the extent to which participation in the school-wide interventions of Crew and Intensives influence perceptions of connectedness among AISU secondary students. Data collected provided insights about perceptions of connectedness within the AISU environment that may be used to inform current practices, identify additional student support needs, and improve future implementations. An Explanatory Sequential research design was used. This method included the use of quantitative measure administered and analyzed first, followed by a qualitative measure used to learn more about the quantitative results. The Hemingway Measure of Adolescent Connectedness Short Form by Michael Karcher served as the quantitative measure for this study. A semistructured interview protocol, created by the researcher, was used as the qualitative instrument. Results indicated that overall, study participants reported high-levels of connectedness on the Hemingway. Analysis of the Hemingway Subscales revealed that the Friends subscale had the highest levels of connectedness, followed by connectedness to Teacher. Connectedness to School was slightly lower than connectedness to Teachers. Connectedness to Peers showed moderate levels of connectedness. To learn more about the results of the quantitative stage of this study, semistructured interviews were conducted and analyzed using traditional deductive coding techniques. Results showed high-levels of connectedness associated with AISU as a school and with participation in Crew. Findings on the questions asking about Intensives showed that students appear to value the unique learning opportunities and ability to choose what they learn, more than they associated Intensives with connectedness.