Depression has increased among adolescents and adults over the last decade. Effective treatments and techniques to improve personal well being and disorders like depression are much needed. Mindfulness is a psychological technique that involves actively paying attention to one's awareness of the present moment with nonjudgmental acceptance (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). While the effectiveness of mindfulness interventions has been widely studied, relatively little research has been done on the effects of mindfulness interventions on depression using neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or electroencephalography (EEG). This systematic review includes four studies that investigates the effectiveness of mindfulness interventions on depression measured by fMRI or EEG and different rating scales measuring depression. The results from this systematic review shows that mindfulness interventions may have an effect on depression. Two of the studies (Ferri et al., (2017); Yang et al., (2016), found significant differences in the rating scales for depression. The studies also suggest that mindfulness interventions can impact the brain regions involved in negative emotional processing in individuals with depression, such as the default mode network (DMN) and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC).

This research investigation examined the effects of GO Solve Word Problems math intervention on problem-solving skills of struggling 5th grade students. In a randomized controlled study, 16 5th grade students were given a 12-week intervention of GO Solve, a computer-based program designed to teach schema-based instruction strategies (SBI's) to solve math word problems and 16 control students continued with the standard school-based mathematics curriculum. A subset of items from the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) as well as the Group Mathematics Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation (GMADE) was used to measure student test performance. Examiner-made probes were given to both the treatment and control groups every other week to measure student progress. Results indicate that the mean difference scores of the experimental and control groups were statistically significant on a subtest of MCAS problems and a large effect size was reported. However, no statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups was found on the on the Process and Application subtest of the GMADE. On examiner-made probes, there was a statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups. Limitations of this study as well as implications for practice will be discussed.

Evidence-based interventions address a specific context, and because of this narrowed specificity, there may not be sufficient research to determine whether it will work in a specific context or with a specific population of students. This is a limitation of the empirically supported interventions in the field of special education. Compared to other fields (e.g., health care), research in the field of special education is still emerging. Some areas are researched far more than others. As an example, this issue is focused specifically on arts and education. Although many would argue this is an important topic that should be addressed in schools and a content area students with disabilities should have access to, there is limited research in this area. On the other hand, other academic interventions to support students with disabilities, such as reading strategies, are well researched [...]

The project is an investigation in how architecture can support the sense of home and the spatial understanding in care homes for people with dementia.Many of the existing care homes from the mid-20th century need to be renovated and often have a more institutional design. In the project a typical care home from the 1970s, with long corridors, a complex layout and environments with little variety is being renovated to became more suitable for people with dementia. The building’s flexible structure of columns and beams is used as a great asset as it can open for different apartment types and a varied environment. The focus in the project has been to transform the building from being institutional to homely. During the 1970s care homes were usually built with a rational structure with a focus on individual apartments, but often with a lack of social spaces. The interventions in the building have been to open up the building and to create a more easily layout with more social areas. To enhance the feeling of accessibility in the building, and to better include the building in its surrounding context, the middle part of the building has been opened to the public.

Perfectionism is a transdiagnostic process implicated in several disorders, and is defined in the literature as having standards of performance that are excessively high and often unrealistic, rigidly pursuing these standards, and subsequently measuring one’s own self-worth on their ability to meet these self-set standards (Egan et al., 2011). Perfectionism is related to many negative outcomes for physical and mental health, warranting the need to identify effective treatments that are accessible to individuals experiencing clinical perfectionism. There is a growing need for discrete, single session therapeutic interventions, and research has found that patients who were provided with a brief intervention exhibited accelerated rates of change, compared to patients whose treatment was longer (Baldwin et al., 2009; Kroska, 2018). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a 90-minute, single-session ACT intervention targeting psychological flexibility for perfectionistic beliefs and behaviors on perfectionism, psychological distress, and well-being utilizing a multiple baseline across participants experimental design. Four individuals completed the following self-report measures at each time point: the Personalized Psychological Flexibility Inventory (PPFI), the Multidimensional Psychological Flexibility Inventory (MPFI), the Frost Multi-Dimensional Perfectionism Scale (FMPS), the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS), the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 item (DASS-21), and the Flourishing Scale (FS). These measures were completed once per week for the five-week baseline period. After baseline, participant engaged in a 90-minute single-session ACT intervention targeting the development of psychological flexibility. For follow-up, participants completed the same measures twice a week for four weeks. Researchers hypothesized that the intervention would increase psychological flexibility, flourishing, self-compassion, and progress towards an idiographic goal, and decrease perfectionism, psychological inflexibility, and psychological distress post-intervention compared to the baseline assessment. A TAR trend analysis was conducted, and Bayes Factors were computed for each individual for each outcome variable to examine within-participant results. A between-case standardized mean difference effect size for SCED was calculated for each outcome variable to examine the results across participants, resulting in a d-statistic. Within participants, while two individuals completed the study with perfectionistic concerns scores below cut offs, this outcome did not change significantly from baseline, with greater evidence for a null effect on this outcome variable for most participants. However, there was evidence for treatment effects for decreasing perfectionistic strivings, psychological distress, and psychological inflexibility and increasing psychological flexibility and flourishing. Across participants, the intervention demonstrated small to large effect sizes. There were small effects on perfectionistic concerns, perfectionistic strivings, psychological distress, and psychological flexibility towards an individual goal. There were medium effects for psychological flexibility and flourishing. Large effects were demonstrated for psychological inflexibility and self-compassion. Overall, the results demonstrate promising evidence for increasing well-being within the context of clinical perfectionism using a single session intervention.

Down syndrome is the most common chromosomal disorder, occurring in 1 out of every 700 births in the United States (Skotko et al., 2009). After receiving the initial Down syndrome diagnosis, the majority of mothers reported feeling frightened and anxious, and very few rated the experience as positive. Parents reported feeling that their physicians focused on the negative aspects of Down syndrome and rarely provided enough resources (Skotko, 2005). The purpose of this literature review was to identify current community resources for families of children with Down syndrome and identify the most effective ways for medical professionals to support parents through the diagnosis process. A comprehensive literature review was performed using research articles from 2012 to 2022, exploring community resources for children with Down syndrome and coping mechanisms for parental stress in families with Down syndrome. Ten articles met the inclusion criteria. Six themes were identified; coping process and skills, resiliency, coping process for fathers, religion, community support systems and services, and support from the medical community. It was found that parents lack knowledge about available resources and need more education focusing on early interventions for their child and support services for the parents.

No description available.

The project is an investigation in how architecture can support the sense of home and the spatial understanding in care homes for people with dementia.Many of the existing care homes from the mid-20th century need to be renovated and often have a more institutional design. In the project a typical care home from the 1970s, with long corridors, a complex layout and environments with little variety is being renovated to became more suitable for people with dementia. The building’s flexible structure of columns and beams is used as a great asset as it can open for different apartment types and a varied environment. The focus in the project has been to transform the building from being institutional to homely. During the 1970s care homes were usually built with a rational structure with a focus on individual apartments, but often with a lack of social spaces. The interventions in the building have been to open up the building and to create a more easily layout with more social areas. To enhance the feeling of accessibility in the building, and to better include the building in its surrounding context, the middle part of the building has been opened to the public.

As the world is quickly aging, the prevalence of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and other dementias is also rapidly growing. AD is a neurodegenerative disease that gradually destroys one’s ability to learn, reason, and carry out daily activities. Memory impairment is the most prominent cognitive symptom of AD and can influence individuals' ability to live independently from the early stages of the disease. Compounding this, despite many promising advances made in the pharmacological treatment of AD, there is yet no treatment that can halt the disease. Non-pharmacological interventions are powerful solutions to help manage cognitive and functional symptoms of AD. However, there are still many challenges to the development of effective strategies. Firstly, little is known about the influence of distinct types of memory symptoms, such as false memories, on the daily life function of AD patients. Secondly, easy-to-use in-vivo biomarkers to detect AD and map disease progression patterns are still lacking making it challenging to implement strategies early on and target the stage of disease and pattern of cognitive impairment. In this dissertation, I will explore current advances made in AD research and outline some of the work done on the influence of false memories on the daily life of patients with AD. I will also investigate the use of Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) to help the diagnosis and characterization of AD. I will examine the feasibility and effectiveness of two behavioral interventions to sustain memory and cognition in AD patients: remote social interactions and a digital home-based cognitive training program. The results of this dissertation will shed light on how behavioral interventions can help sustain daily life function in AD patients, and they will bring forth novel research approaches that can be used to maximize the effectiveness of behavioral strategies. / 2026-02-20T00:00:00Z

Mobbning är ett kränkningsproblem som sprider sig över skolor i hela världen, inklusive Sverige. Lärarens roll är väldigt essentiellt vid granskning av mobbningen. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka lärarens erfarenheter och upplevelser vid mobbningshantering i skolan, samt vilka utmaningar och förbättringsmöjligheter lärarna ser i denna hantering. Det genomfördes tio semistrukturerade intervjuer med legitimerade lärare från två olika län inom Sverige. Intervjuernaanalyserades utifrån en tematisk analysmetod som identifierade tre teman centrala för hur lärare hanterar mobbning: att få båda sidor av berättelsen, samarbete och delad lärande samt empati och lyhördhet som verktyg. Analysen identifierade även sex teman centrala för utmaningar och förbättringsmöjligheter som råder vid denna hantering: ett neutralt förhållningssätt, känslomässig belastning, att uppmärksamma och bryta tystnaden, balansera konfidientialitet och kommunikation, kompetensutveckling samt relationsfrämjande insatser. Resultatet visade att deltagarna använder sig av olika metoder och strategier vid hantering av mobbning, samt möter både utmaningar och förbättringsmöjligheter vid mobbningshantering.