Previous research conducted with currently enrolled college students has suggested a relationship between secure attachment style, greater stress coping abilities, and academic success. However, there is an absence of research examining these variables as predictors of college graduation. Attachment theory was used as a theoretical framework to address this gap. The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a relationship between adult attachment style, stress coping skills, and college graduation. This logistic regression study included 81 individuals who either withdrew or graduated from college within the last 4 years. Participants provided demographic information, completed the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R) to measure attachment anxiety and avoidance, and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) to measure level of perceived stress. A significant Wald statistic between attachment anxiety and college graduation indicated that as attachment anxiety increased, participants were less likely to graduate. However, there was not a significant relationship between attachment avoidance and college graduation. A significant Wald statistic between stress coping skills and graduation indicated that as the level of perceived stress increased, participants were less likely to graduate. When the predictor variables of attachment anxiety and stress coping skills were paired together, neither variable added uniquely to the prediction of graduation. Social change implications could include the development of educational, counseling, and stress reduction programs for students who are at risk of withdrawing from college, which may help increase college retention.

<p> In the United States, approximately 400,000 children reside in foster care, and most have been exposed to caregiver abuse, neglect, or abandonment. A majority of foster children suffer the effects of damaging circumstances including poverty, violence, inferior health care, and substandard housing. Consequently, young foster youth frequently struggle to accomplish developmental tasks such as establishing secure attachment relationships, cultivating pre-academic skills, and acquiring social-emotional competence. The purpose of this research was to determine the impact of Peace4Kids, a nonprofit community-based organization, on young foster youths&rsquo; social-emotional development and pre-academic skills. Data collected from parents, teachers, and administrators during semi-structured interviews documented children&rsquo;s experiences as they attended the organization&rsquo;s Saturday Core Program. Participants noted that as foster children participated in a variety of curricular and co-curricular experiences at Peace4Kids, their social, emotional, and academic development were positively impacted. Parents, teachers, and administrators reported that the organization&rsquo;s culture of consistency, trust, and accountability promoted secure attachment relationships among foster youth, staff members, and peers at the Saturday Core Program. Participants iterated that secure relationships provided a foundation for foster children to subsequently acquire social and emotional capacities, including persistence, conflict resolution, self-regulation, and autonomy. As youth in foster care developed social-emotional competencies, pre-academic skills such as literacy and numeracy emerged. This study&rsquo;s findings indicate that a comprehensive approach is necessary to address the unique needs of foster children who have experienced prior trauma. Additionally, this research study contributes to a growing body of work that explores the role of attachment relationships in group and organizational settings.</p>

<p> Research on Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) is minimal and is limited primarily to describing its nosology and clinical treatment practices. This qualitative, multi-case, case study identified school-based academic and emotional&ndash;behavioral interventions and factors which contribute to or hinder progress by conducting open-ended, semistructured interviews with high school students with a diagnosis of RAD and with school personnel who worked directly with them. Participants were from two neighboring school districts in a relatively large western state. Participants included five high school students with a diagnosis of RAD and four school personnel who worked directly them. One staff member had two students who participated in the study and thus interviewed specifically regarding both students. Data is reported holistically, as well as in paired student-staff responses to demonstrate the similarities and differences in the perceptions in relation to interventions and factors which contributed to or hindered student academic and emotional-behavioral progress. Five themes emerged in this study which led to specific implications for professional best practice including: 1) necessity for additional training, 2) development of support systems in the school setting, 3) providing a &ldquo;go-to&rdquo; person, 4) provide direct instruction in why and how emotional-behavioral progress will be monitored, and 5) provide direct instruction in how to build and maintain trust. As not all of these practices are currently implemented or intuitive it led to the development of a new theoretical explanation: <i>RAD Teaching Practice.</i></p>

<p> Since the reauthorization of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1997 and then later, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act in 2004, students that display behaviors that impede learning require that a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) be conducted for the development of a behavior plan that is focused on Positive Behavior Support (PBS) strategies. The traditional FBA measures and analyzes environmental variables that trigger problem behaviors; however, it does not measure adaptive academic behavior skills that are needed for academic success in the classroom environment. This study&rsquo;s literature review examines the reasons for incorporating a strength-based model for measuring academic behaviors for a more comprehensive analysis of a student&rsquo;s strengths as well as deficits. Adaptive/academic behavior skill measurements are also appropriate for identifying and teaching replacement skills. This study examined an academic behavior tool that helps educators to identify both the student&rsquo;s adaptive academic behavior strengths as well as behavior deficits during the FBA process. In addition, psychometric properties for the statistical relationships between behavior variables were measured for consistency, standardization, and better overall assistance for the classroom educator. </p><p> The findings of this analysis support that the psychometrics properties of the academic behavior assessment tool meets the measurements for a reliable and valid tool. The Alpha Cronbach Reliability test measured .96. The principle components factor analysis with a varimax rotation was measured. The factor analysis identified the connections between the studies demographic variables, and the relationship that existed amongst the 25 survey items of the tool. The eigenvalues greater than 1.0 resulted in a four-factor solution that accounted for 69.81% of the variance. Given that the first factor was six times or more times larger than any other factor, a decision to retain only one factor and retain all 25 items to create a total score. </p><p> Based on the psychometric measurements of this study, this academic behavior assessment tool possibly will help classroom educators address problem behaviors by identifying the appropriate replacement skills needed for the development of the BIP, interventions, and the FBA process. Additional findings suggest that, used as a screening tool, it may identify skill deficits with preschool-aged children, primary students, special education, and the RtI model, to connect both the academic and behavioral components needed to be taught for academic success.</p>

<p> Emerging adulthood is recognized as a growing developmental stage that varies within and across cultures. Existing research generally characterizes this period as one of identity exploration, instability, self-reflection, and optimism. For many in this cohort, life events that were once organized into a stable sequence such as entering the workforce, marriage, and having children are increasingly a highly individualized and somewhat unstructured trajectory. This lack of structure provides opportunities and potential challenges to those transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. To this end, experiential acceptance may be an important target skill for intervention in guiding emerging adults through this tumultuous period. </p><p> Experiential acceptance is multiply defined in the literature, but is generally understood to be a present-focused approach that encourages a willingness to engage with one&rsquo;s moment-to-moment experience, nonjudgment of moment-to-moment experiencing, and nonattachment to thoughts or feelings. This focus may be useful for both therapists to use as an intervention tool in helping clients to form an integrated sense of self; a developmental task that is predictive of mental health in young adults. Despite the apparent fit between experiential acceptance and the emerging adult age range, no studies to date have explored experiential acceptance as an intervention with this population. </p><p> Accordingly, the purpose of the current study was to qualitatively explore how therapists facilitate experiential acceptance with emerging adult clients. A sample of 5 client-therapist pairs from community counseling centers was selected, and two videotaped therapy sessions for each participant pair were analyzed. Inductive content analysis was employed, using open coding and abstraction methodology to create a hierarchy of themes. Results indicated that experiential acceptance, overall, was rarely employed by trainee therapists in psychotherapy sessions with emerging adults. The one parent theme that emerged across participants was termed Increasing Awareness. Comments aimed at increasing flexibility in thinking were also observed, but not across participants. It is hoped that this study will provide foundational information on experiential acceptance use in psychotherapy with emerging adults, which could be used to promote more attention to skill and theory integration in clinical training and spur future research on experiential acceptance use in therapy-as-usual.</p>

Thesis (M.I.T.)--The Evergreen State College, 2007. / Title from title screen viewed (4/10/2008). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 132-138).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1967. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

<p> This qualitative study contributes to the very limited body of literature available on the identity development of undocumented students. Specifically, this study focused on the experiences and identity development of Latina/o undocumented students enrolled in California community colleges. From the voices of 21 students, a three-position identity development framework emerged: (a) discovering difference, (b) making meaning of difference, and (c) coming to terms with being undocumented. The identity development process for Latina/o undocumented students is one that is directly linked to the degree of inclusion and acceptance that is present in their environment. A political context was evident in all three of the positions demonstrating that there is a larger policy context that is important in the identity development of this student population. Recommendations for practice and policy are offered. </p>

<p> Over 50% of mental disorders have an onset in childhood, and mental health issues during adolescence impact adult psychological, social, and occupational functioning. Parents serve as the primary gatekeepers to child mental health resources, and as such factors that influence parental help-seeking were discussed, and a manualized psychoeducational program for parents was developed with the aim of addressing these barriers. The program was developed based on the need for evidenced-supported school-based programs that target parental knowledge, competence, and access to community resources while simultaneously decreasing stigma toward children with mental health difficulties. A quantitative pilot study was conducted as a means to examine change in parent perception of knowledge of social skills in youth before and after receiving the preventative program. It was hypothesized that parent perception of their knowledge post-presentation would be negatively correlated with parental age, and positively correlated with education and household income. Bivariate correlations indicated that parent age, ethnicity and sex, as well as highest level of education were not significantly associated with perceived knowledge of social skills post-presentation. The implications for program development, including the possibility of adding manual versions based on parental education level were considered, and study limitations were discussed. </p><p>

<p> <i>Skin tone bias or colorism</i> is &ldquo;the tendency to perceive or behave toward members of a racial category based on the lightness or darkness of their skin tone&rdquo; (Maddox &amp; Gray, 2002, p. 250). It is &ldquo;the prejudicial treatment of individuals falling within the same racial group on the basis of skin color&rdquo; (Thompson &amp; Keith, 2004, p. 46) and &ldquo;the allocation of privilege and disadvantage according to the lightness or darkness of one&rsquo;s skin&rdquo; (Burke &amp; Embrick, 2008, p. 17). Skin tone bias/colorism is a form of discrimination based on skin tone that typically privileges lighter-skinned individuals and penalizes darker-skinned individuals within and across racial and ethnic groups (Hunter, 2007; Jones, 2000). For my study, I focused my investigation of skin tone bias/colorism in relation to Blacks in the United States of America. </p><p> I conducted semi-structured face-to-face individual interviews with 30 Black undergraduate students (15 men and 15 women) at the University of Pennsylvania using purposive sampling. To triangulate data for this study, participants&rsquo; skin color was determined by two self-report assessments: the Skin Color Satisfaction Scale (SCSS) (Bond &amp; Cash, 1992; Falconer &amp; Neville, 2000) and the Skin Color Assessment Procedure (SCAP) (Bond &amp; Cash, 1992; Coard, Breland, &amp; Raskin, 2001). These assessments were administered prior to the interview. </p><p> Contrary to societal myth, Blacks are not a monolithic group. The impetus for my dissertation was to develop a qualitative study that necessitates the acknowledgment of the heterogeneity of Black students&rsquo; backgrounds and experiences with college, to ultimately shed light on the potential challenges faced by varying Black students in college based on skin tone, and to provide recommendations for Black students to effectively navigate highly selective institutions of higher education &ndash; with hopes to increase their persistence and success in college. Recommendations for higher education institutions, faculty, and student affairs administrators to better support Black students are also provided. </p><p> My research questions were as follows: How do the academic, personal, and social experiences of lighter-skinned Black students at a highly selective higher education institution vary compared with the experiences of darker-skinned Black students? How does this variation in experiences between lighter and darker-skinned Black students matter within the higher education context? </p><p>