<p> The present study investigated the effects of various fluency aims on the emergence of derived relational responding for various populations. Derived relational responding is a skill needed to develop complex language. Determining fluency aims to ensure derived relations can impact how we teach language and other complex skills. A parametric analysis of various fluency aims was completed using a multiple treatments design with ongoing probes of derived relational responding. Participants&rsquo; performance during accuracy and fluency tasks was assessed using a computer program designed for this study and presented on a tablet computer. The computer program recorded correct responses per minute and number of correct responses out of a total number of responses. A fluency aim could be experimentally verified if participants met criterion during tests of derived relational responding at an initial aim, that aim could be replicated with a novel symbol set, the participant met criterion during a test probe after performing at a higher frequency and failed to meet criterion during a test probe after performing at a lower frequency. Across all populations recruited for this study, a fluency aim that was empirically verified was not found. Participants performance did not match the performance described above and in some cases, performance was opposite, meaning participants passed a test probe after performing at a lower aim and failed the test probe after performing at a higher aim.</p><p>

<p> Medicare Part B is one of the federal health insurance programs available to senior citizens in the United States. Unlike Medicare Part A, Part B enrollment is not automatic, and those missing their initial enrollment period are assessed a 10% or more penalty in addition to their monthly premium rate for the rest of their lives. This problematic enrollment policy has impacted senior citizens who have missed Part B enrollment windows, creating for them an added financial burden when many are transitioning to fixed incomes. Guided by social construction theory and using a nonprobability, convenience sampling approach, the likelihood coefficient values associated with Medicare Part B enrollee awareness, stress, and income of 112 residents of a suburban city in a northeastern state who were 65 years and older were examined. Sequential <i>Forward: LR</i> methodology yielded a significant, negative (<i>b</i> = &ndash;1.21, Wald <i>_X</i>²(1) = 7.56, <i>OR</i> = .298, <i>p</i> = .006, CI [.126, .707]) and a significant, positive (<i>b</i> = 2.16, Wald <i>_X</i>²(1) = 6.29, <i>OR</i> = 8.678, <i>p</i> = .012, CI [1.60, 46.99]) likelihood of predicting Medicare Part B late enrollment penalties for awareness and stress; income was not a significant model predictor. Participants who reported higher stress levels were 8.7 times more likely to be classified in the Medicare Part B late enrollment penalty than those reporting lower stress. Participants who were aware of enrollment needs were 3.4 times more likely to have no late enrollment penalties than those who were unaware. Positive social change centers on increasing Medicare Part B consumer awareness, reducing stress of enrollment deadlines, and providing information to federal policy makers to simplify enrollment policies to reduce or end late enrollment penalties.</p><p>

<p> Viewing motivation to volunteer through an attachment theory perspective may enhance understanding of volunteering motivations. A questionnaire was administered to (N=155) emerging adult college students using a Lykert-type scale (1 - 7) to assess attachment (Bartholomew &amp; Horowitz, 1991) and motivation to volunteer (Omoto &amp; Snyder, 1994). Five forward linear regression analyses were conducted to identify significant predictors of attachment style on motivation to volunteer. For each analysis, one of the five motivations to volunteer variables (values, understanding, esteem enhancement, personal development, community concern) was regressed on the combination of four attachment style variables (secure, avoidant, anxious ambivalent, dismissing avoidant). Findings indicate that Secure significantly predicted Values, Understanding, and Community Concern; Anxious Ambivalent predicted Understanding, Personal Development, Community Concern, and Esteem Enhancement; and Dismissing Avoidant predicted Understanding. These findings partially support the hypothesized notion that securely individuals would likely report selfless motivations; whereas, insecure individuals would likely report self-serving motivations. </p>

<p> This dissertation sheds light on two important aspects of Arabic morphology: the status and representation of roots and that of templates (or word patterns). The main purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the role of these controversial word constituents in the representation and processing of the non-linear morphological structure of words in two varieties of Arabic: Emirati Arabic (EA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). </p><p> Chapter 2 presents a linguistic investigation of the verbal morphological system of EA, with some focus on how it compares to the MSA system and in light of the main claims made by Doron (2003) in her account of Hebrew verbal templates. In this chapter, I provide arguments for separating the verbal root from templates and affixes in the analysis of Arabic and, by extension, Semitic morphology. Specifically, I argue that verbal meaning is a combination of at least two syntactic heads: Voice and little v, and a lexical head: the consonantal root. I further show that the interaction of the semantics and argument structure of the root with little v and Voice within a unified syntactic structure captures the regularities as well as the exceptions in the interpretation of the verb forms of EA. </p><p> Chapter 3 presents experiments using the subliminal speech priming technique, as developed by Kouider and Dupoux (2005) and used by Schluter (2013), and magnetoencephalography (MEG), as applied to auditory morphological processing (Ettinger, Linzen, &amp; Marantz, 2013). Both these techniques are relatively new and are applied to EA for the first time. The subliminal speech priming technique has the advantage of tapping into the earliest stages of auditory word recognition, allowing an investigation of the relevance of the consonantal root in the processing of the EA verbal forms. The results of this study suggest that the discontinuous consonantal root in EA is an independent lexical unit, a finding consistent with root-based models of Semitic morphology. The results also point to the effectiveness of the subliminal speech priming technique as a promising way to explore unwritten dialects of Arabic such as Emirati Arabic. </p><p> In Chapter 4, I exploited a standard visual lexical decision task with concurrent MEG recordings to explore the neural correlates of morphological decomposition in MSA by examining the early stages of visual word recognition in this language. The results obtained show that words in MSA go through the same stages of word recognition, beginning with extraction of the consonantal root, in a manner completely parallel to the decomposition of words into stems and affixes in concatenative languages like English, arguing for the obligatory decomposition model of word recognition in Arabic non-linear morphology. The results of this study also hold significant implications for the long-lasting debate surrounding the status of the consonantal roots in Arabic and morphological theory in general. </p><p> The behavioural and MEG studies reported in this dissertation support the hypothesis that morphological decomposition in language processing is the same across non-linear and affixal languages, ratifying the linguistic analysis of non-concatenative morphology as essentially affixal. Additionally, the general results of this dissertation adds new and original support for the claims that the Arabic consonantal root is an essential cognitive unit in representations and processing.</p>

<p> Individuals who are victimized by bullying during adolescence demonstrate an increased incidence of psychiatric disorders both acutely and later in life. Many of these disorders are characterized by deficits in complex cognitive functions that are mediated by the mesocortical dopamine system. The substantial maturation of the mesocortical dopamine system during adolescence may render it particularly vulnerable to insult from psychosocial stressors such as bullying. Using a rodent model of adolescent social defeat to replicate the imbalance of power inherent in teenage bullying, it was previously demonstrated that defeated rats exhibit various behavioral and neurochemical indications of mesocortical dopamine hypofunction in adulthood. The experimental chapters of this dissertation aim to further understand the consequences of victimization stress during adolescence by 1) evaluating the effects of adolescent social defeat on dopamine dependent cognitive processes and 2) investigating the potential mechanisms by which adolescent social defeat results in mesocortical dopamine hypofunction. Adult rats defeated in adolescence and their controls were initially tested on two separate tasks of working memory known to be dependent on mesocortical dopamine activity, the delayed alternating T-maze task and the delayed win-shift task. Results found a direct link between adolescent social defeat and adult working memory deficits, with previously defeated rats demonstrating impaired performance in the maintenance and utilization of information following delays of 90 seconds and 5 minutes on the T-maze and win-shift tasks respectively. In a separate experiment, quantitative autoradiography revealed increased expression of the dopamine transporter (DAT) in the infralimbic region of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of adult rats defeated in adolescence. Further investigation of mPFC DAT function utilizing <i>in vivo</i> chronoamperometry demonstrated that previously defeated rats exhibit decreased dopamine accumulation in response to pharmacological DAT inhibition, indicating enhanced DAT function that may increase clearance of dopamine in the mPFC. Combined, these results suggest that increased functional expression of DAT in the mPFC following adolescent social defeat leads to enhanced clearance of dopamine, contributing to deficits in mPFC dopamine activity and associated cognitive processes. Having identified a putative mechanism by which adolescent social defeat causes mesocortical dopamine hypofunction, the results of these experiments can assist in directing the clinical application of novel and existing pharmacotherapies to counteract the deleterious effects of adolescent stress.</p>

<p> This study was designed to examine if a correlation exists between regular school attendance and academic success. As an outcome of concern for educational expectations in American schools, the government of the United States increased accountability for schools through the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, requiring schools improve student achievement levels in designated core academic areas (Tyre, Feuerborn, &amp; Pierce, 2011). Unlike the findings of Robert Balfanz and Vaughan Byrnes (2012) of Johns Hopkins University, which found most educational agencies do not keep detailed statistics regarding student attendance, Missouri public school districts do have an accountability structure in place. Core Data and Missouri Student Information System (MOSIS) data collection systems are used by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (2014) to monitor attendance among Missouri&rsquo;s school children. Using data collected from Core Data and MOSIS, this study was designed to correlate variables in relation to student performance on Missouri end-of-year standardized tests to the students&rsquo; annual attendance rates within a specific school district. Results were supportive of the research hypotheses; a correlation exists between chronic absenteeism and basic or below basic performance on the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) grade-level assessments for students in the sample. These findings were generally consistent with previous research. Recommendations for future research are suggested.</p>

<p> This study examined the relationship between social-emotional intelligence and risky sexual behaviors in adolescence. Despite the introduction of sex education in public schools, there continue to be high rates of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases in the teenage population. Researchers have demonstrated numerous positive life outcomes for individuals with greater levels of social and emotional abilities. However, studies have failed to examine the precise relationship between such abilities and sexual behavior. In the current study, data was collected from 49 high school students in New York State. Using the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory Youth Version and a researcher-designed questionnaire on risky sexual behavior, teenagers with higher Interpersonal Emotional Intelligence reported less sexual risk taking. A significant relationship was also demonstrated between Risky Sexual Behaviors and a control variable, Delinquency. Due to limited participation and a homogeneous sample, the results of this study cannot be meaningfully generalized to the greater population. Therefore, these findings support the need for further research to clarify the relationships among these variables and validate the importance of teaching explicit social-emotional training in sex education curricula.</p>

<p> Depression affects about 20% of the U.S. population at some point in their lifespan (Gotlib &amp; Hammen, 2002). One symptom of depression is impairment in cognitive functioning. Extensive research has previously identified a link between depressed mood and memory difficulties (Burt, Zembar, &amp; Niederehe, 1995; O'Conner, Pollitt, Roth, Brook, &amp; Reiss, 1990; Watkins &amp; Teasdale, 2004). The purpose of the current study is to better understand the relationship between negative affect and memory impairment. I hypothesized that rumination would moderate the relationship between negative affect and working memory such that individuals who respond to negative affect with rumination would be particularly likely to show impairment in working memory. This was a single time point study in which participants were randomly assigned to one of two possible conditions. In each condition, participants were given a stressor task, the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT). This was followed by either failure feedback or success feedback. 146 undergraduate students, ages 18 to 30 were recruited and randomly assigned to one of the two conditions. The sample was approximately 79% female and 78% Caucasian and had a mean age of 18.77 (SD = 1.36). Participants completed measures of current depressive symptoms, trait rumination, affective state pre and post stressor task, and working memory. This study's findings lend support to previous research in that these results yielded a significant main effect of both the failure condition (F (1, 143) = 124.20, p = .00, partial &eegr;² = .47) and self-reported negative mood (F (3, 145) = 14.59, p = .00, R² = .22) on lower working memory scores. Greater rumination appeared to have a main effect of lower working memory scores (F (2, 139) = 12.59, p = .00, partial &eegr;² = .15) with rumination accounting for approximately 4% of the difference in working memory scores. However, results did not find support for a moderated model (F (2, 139) = .02, p = .98, partial &eegr;² = .00). Although negative affect and rumination predicted working memory scores, rumination did not moderate the relationship suggesting that a different model may explain the cognitive effects of depression.</p>

<p> While the notion that sugar consumption leads to hyperactivity has repeatedly been unsupported in the literature, little research has attended to the effects of accepting the widely held belief. The present study aimed to investigate how one's perception of a child's behavior is affected when the individual believes in the sugar-hyperactivity myth and is provided information regarding the child's sugar consumption prior to observing behavior. Findings indicated that participants who were informed that the children ingested sugar prior to the observation rated the male child's and the female child's hyperactivity significantly higher than participants who were told that the children had ingested a sugar-free product.</p>

<p> Wilderness therapy camps have been found to be effective for treating a number of youth issues and for generally improving youth functioning. In addition, wilderness therapy camps appear to address current treatment needs of reducing stigma in treatment and providing other benefits, such as physical and social health benefits. However, currently wilderness therapy camps lack systematic training for staff that has been deemed efficacious, utilizing evidence-based techniques. Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is an evidence-based therapy (EBT) for use with children with a variety of issues and backgrounds and in diverse settings, useful for reducing child problematic behaviors. Efforts have been made to expand the use of PCIT in a variety of settings, with promising results. </p><p> This dissertation proposes to describe how PCIT might be adapted to train wilderness therapy camp staff in evidence-based methods for working with youth, especially those with mental health needs, such as behavioral issues. The literature concerning PCIT and wilderness therapy camps is reviewed. A needs assessment was conducted, consisting of interviews with key informants, experts in the field of wilderness therapy, PCIT, and training methods. Based on information obtained, a full program for training camp staff, called Counselor-Camper Interaction Training (CCIT) is proposed. Finally a proposal to evaluate the efficacy of this program is put forth. As part of the proposed evaluation, a financial assessment was conducted on the program, with the results presented. </p>