The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of a homework intervention program designed to include children with ADHD. Children participated in a 5-week homework skills class, with their parents attending a one time homework training session. In conjunction with this class, parents were attending a 10-week behavioral parenting program. Participants included 11 children (4 diagnosed with ADHD) from 1st through 6th grade who were randomly assigned to start the homework skills class during the first or second 5 weeks of the program. Homework skills taught in the class included organization, learning styles, homework routines, time-management, goal-setting, self-management, and increasing motivation. Parent reports on the Homework Problem Checklist showed no significant treatment effects; however, trends showed a decrease in homework problems at post-treatment and follow-up, specifically for children with more severe homework problems. This is a potentially effective homework intervention for children who have severe homework problems with or without an ADHD diagnosis. Implications, limitations, and future research are discussed.

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Early life stress is a prevalent problem affecting many worldwide and can be experienced in a variety of ways, including limited access to resources as in many low socioeconomic status households. In humans, exposure to stress early in life is linked to various psychiatric conditions such as substance use disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and gambling. One characteristic that these disorders share is elevated impulsivity. Impulsivity is a multifaceted construct and often behaviors are classified as either an impulsive choice (e.g., inability to delay gratification) or an impulsive action (e.g., inability to inhibit premature responses). In the first set of experiments presented here, we characterize the limited bedding and nesting model (LBN) of early life adversity in rodents, in which rat dams and their pups are housed in a limited resource environment from postnatal day (PND) 2 through 9. This model works by inducing stress in the dams, which alters their maternal care behaviors towards pups. As a result, this altered care can be stressful for the developing pups. We have found that LBN exposure promoted resilience to addiction-related phenotypes in adult male, but not female rats. Specifically, LBN reduced impulsive choice, morphine self-administration, and nucleus accumbens (NAc) glutamate transmission in males, effects not seen in females. Additionally, changes in NAc gene transcription unique to LBN males may contribute to resilience. We build on these findings in the second set of experiments, which explores whether LBN alters impulsive action, risky decision-making, and the gene transcriptome of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). We found that LBN increased impulsive action in males. Additionally, we found LBN exposure in rats across sex reduces risky choice. These changes in behavior were accompanied by highly specific changes in gene transcription in the OFC, which is a brain region that mediates both impulsive and risky decision-making behaviors. The identification of genes and signaling pathways that are altered by LBN in the male OFC lays the groundwork for future studies investigating the mechanisms by which early life stress alters addiction-related phenotypes. / Psychology

The level of diversity among colleges and universities is at its greatest level. This level of diversity has proven to be beneficial in several key areas for all students. With this increase in diversity, there have been other consequences as well. One form of bullying, cyberbullying, has been on the rise due to greater use of technology, increase of social media platforms, accessibility of smartphones and a shift from in-person instruction to virtual instruction. Although copious amounts of research can be conducted on cyberbullying on adolescents, there is a deficiency of information on whether cyberbullying exists within higher education as well as the impact it may have on students. This was a mixed methods study which included a survey of the undergraduate population within a university on the east coast of the United States. There were a total of 148 survey respondents and four interviews conducted. The findings indicate that that cyberbullying does, in fact, exist within colleges and universities at the undergraduate level. In addition, different groups of people experience cyberbullying at different levels and frequencies. Also, it has been noted that cyberbullying impacts these different groups in a variety of different ways. Some groups were not impacted at all, while others were impacted a great deal. The implications from this study demonstrate that there is the need for improvement in a couple of key areas pertaining to policy and practice. Those areas are the training for faculty staff and administration, support services and additional programming available for students. / Educational Leadership

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Violent physical behavior incidents were collected from a sample of 81 out-patient mental health charts from 1972-1992, the purpose of which was to determine if an association existed between violent behaviors in intact biological families and intact stepfamilies. A chi square test $\chi\sp2$ = 1.89 with a significance level of.388 showed no difference in the incidence of violent behavior in biological and stepfamilies. Biological families accounted for a larger percentage of violent behaviors (63.2%) and total number of current perpetrators (44%) than stepfamilies (36.8%) and current stepfamily perpetrators (26%). Victims were overwhelmingly children (89.5%) clustering between the ages of 9-18 (84.2%). Of these, 63% were male and 37% were female. Slapping accounted for the most prevalent and repeatedly reoccuring type of violent behavior (80%) perpetrated of all violent behaviors across all ages and in both family types.

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