Mental Health Outcomes for Adolescents with a History of Developmental Language Disorder: An Exploration of Risk Factors

This research investigated mental health outcomes for adolescents with and without a history of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), which affects approximately seven percent of the population, and is characterised by persistent difficulties in understanding and expressing language. The findings indicated that language difficulties and bullying victimisation worked together to increase emotional problems. These findings reinforce the importance of monitoring psychosocial wellbeing and vulnerability to bullying victimisation for adolescents with DLD

Psychic Collapse and Traumatic Defense: How the Mind Mediates Trauma Living in the Body

The aim of this exploratory study was to link psychoanalytic theories of trauma and its impact on the mind with psychobiological research of how trauma lives in the body. The study has expanded on prior research (Cramer, 2003) to evidence that defense mechanisms do in fact moderate the relationship between stress and physiological response, and that there are likely individual differences in physiological response to traumatic stress. This study goes further to identify the psychological concomitants of these individual differences within an adult population exposed to potentially traumatic events (PTEs), and their proclivity for using different defense mechanisms. Defense use was measured simultaneously with autonomic reactivity during a stress-response task for adults with no onset of PTEs (n=14), early onset of PTEs (n=14), and late onset of PTEs (n=15). Findings suggest that there may be distinct, dissociative-like processes that differentiate the use of Projection and Identification for individuals who endorse early onset of PTEs. Results: Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that symptomatic adults who had been exposed to PTEs prior to age 14 (early onset), and who tended to use Projection as their main defense (over Denial and Identification), demonstrated significantly lower physiological arousal than adults with late onset of PTEs. Those with early onset PTEs that used Identification as their main defense, evidenced higher physiological arousal. These findings support the idea that working with trauma populations warrants careful attention to patients\u27 often variable, subjective experiences of stress, their own active/passive coping strategies, as well as baseline physiological reactivity, as potentially impacted by early exposure to PTEs. Altogether, this study further evidenced the multi-determined nature of posttraumatic response. Early exposure to PTEs may recalibrate defense use and bodily stress response systems, and thus must be viewed within a developmental psychopathology framework. Keywords: posttraumatic stress disorder, complex trauma, skin conductance, defense mechanisms, TAT, dissociatio

"Tied together like a woven hat:" Protective pathways to Alaska native sobriety

BACKGROUND: The People Awakening Project (1RO1 AA 11446-03) had two purposes, completed in Phase I and Phase II of the project. The purpose of Phase I was to complete a qualitative study; the research objective was discovery oriented with the specific aim of identification of protective and recovery factors in Alaska Native sobriety. Results were used to develop a heuristic model of protective and recovery factors, and measures based on these factors. The research objective of Phase II was to pilot these measures and provide initial validity data. METHODS: Phase I utilized a life history methodology. People Awakening interviewed a convenience sample of 101 Alaska Natives who had either recovered from alcoholism (n = 58) or never had a drinking problem (n = 43). This later group included both lifetime abstainers (LAs) and non-problem drinkers (NPs). Life histories were transcribed and analyzed using grounded theory and consensual data analytic procedures within a participatory action research framework. Analyses were utilized to generate heuristic models of protection and recovery from alcohol abuse among Alaska Natives. RESULTS: Analyses generated a heuristic model of protective factors from alcohol abuse. The resulting multilevel and multi-factorial model describes interactive and reciprocal influences of (a) individual, family, and community characteristics; (b) trauma and the individual and contextual response to trauma, (c) experimental substance use and the person's social environment; and (d) reflective processes associated with a turning point, or a life decision regarding sobriety. The importance of cultural factors mediating all these protective processes is emphasized. For NPs, the resilience process drew from personal stores of self-confidence, self-efficacy, and self-mastery that derived from ability to successfully maneuver within stressful or potentially traumatizing environments. In contrast, for many LAs, efficacy was instead described in more socially embedded terms better understood as communal mastery. One style of mastery is more associated with individualistic orientations, the other with more collectivistic. Future research is needed regarding the generalizeability of this group difference. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that preventative interventions should focus on intervening simultaneously at the community, family, and individual levels to build resilience and protective factors at each level. Of particular importance is the building of reflexivity along with other cognitive processes that allow the individual to think through problems and to reach a life decision to not abuse alcohol

An examination of key variables influencing physical activity behaviour in adolescent girls during the transition from primary to secondary school

Research has suggested that the decline in physical activity (PA) levels for adolescent girls is most marked during the transition from primary school to secondary school. However, this decline in PA for adolescent girls is also coincident with the onset of maturation and as such, maturation and the physical changes associated with maturation (e.g., increased body fat and development of secondary sexual characteristics) may have a direct influence on PA. In addition, these physical changes may indirectly influence perceptions of competence and body attractiveness and subsequently influence PA behaviour. Therefore the aim of this thesis was to further explore this decline in PA during this transitional period. Study one involved a longitudinal examination of the relationship between maturation, physical self-perceptions and PA in adolescent girls over 12 months during the transition from primary to secondary school. At Phase 1 (primary school) 208 adolescent girls participated (mean age = 11.83 ± 0.39 years) and were tracked into secondary school (Phase 2) where 156 girls participated (mean age = 12.79 ± 0.31 years). PA was assessed using the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Children; maturation was assessed using the self-report Pubertal Development Scale; physical characteristics of body mass, waist circumference and sum of skinfolds were measured and physical self perceptions were assessed using the Children and Youth‟s Physical Self-Perception Profile. Cross-sectional findings at both Phase 1 and Phase 2 highlighted that maturation and physical characteristics were not significantly related to PA and there were no significant differences in PA between maturation stages. Results also indicated that physical self-perceptions were all significant moderate positive correlates of PA at both primary and secondary school. Longitudinal findings examining the change in variables over the 12 months highlighted a significant decrease in PA from primary to secondary school. Furthermore, this decrease was evident during break-times, lunch-times and after-school yet PA significantly increased in PE lessons between schools. Maturation had a limited influence on PA behaviour; however the increase in body mass was related to perceptions of body attractiveness and physical self-worth becoming less positive. In addition, decreases in physical self perceptions partially accounted for the decrease in PA over the 12 months. It was apparent from the quantitative findings of study one that further research was needed to explore the influence of additional variables on PA. The aim of study two was to explore the decrease in PA evident during the school transition using a narrative approach. A purposive sampling technique was used and one-to-one narrative interviews were conducted (n = 14; age 13.6 ± 0.3 years). Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to identify the „whats‟ (i.e. content) of the girls‟ PA stories and structural analysis was used to identify „how‟ the girls told their PA stories. Findings suggest that the PA environment had an impact on their sense of self with regards to levels of enjoyment, perceived competence, confidence and self-presentation issues. These findings support the current research trend towards a focus on the environment the individual is experiencing rather on the individual. Overall the findings suggested that the decrease in PA behaviour in early adolescent girls may depend more on perceptions of competence and ability in a particular environment rather than the possible influence of the physical changes accompanying maturation

Traumatized Girlhood and The Uncanny: Studies in Embodied Life Writing

This dissertation explores the work of specific female autobiographers or memoirists who have written about their endured emotional or physical wounds inflicted by trauma. Throughout history, women’s writings and experiences have been commonly devalued or excluded from those autobiographical texts within the traditional canon. Further, traumatized women have traditionally been regarded as pathologically divided victims who suffer holes in their psyches. Their stories about traumatized childhood and adolescence are thus treated as insignificant or dangerous and are easily silenced. As a result, life stories of traumatized women have been commonly considered as unfit texts for students to read in class (especially because of concerns about possibilities of (re)traumatizing readers), and thus are commonly omitted from the English curriculum. Considering that the literary world still is dominated by white male writers, this study examines not only traumatized women writers but also women writers who represent “difference” as well as have suffered trauma. This dissertation’s analyzed authors and texts include: Marguerite Duras’s The Lover, Rigoberta Menchú's I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. These women writers variously demonstrate, through their embodied trauma writings, how easily a seemingly integrated/unitary self can be shattered, how unexpectedly the status quo can be destabilized by certain events in their life-writings, and how subversively the history of the female body can be rewritten. The life-writings by these women, who are non-heterosexual, non-white, and from the lower class, and/or who have lived with disabilities/illnesses, are far from that typical autobiographical writing that emphasizes tests of manhood, or beautifies the linear development of the masculine subject. In other words, they never emphasize their triumph over trauma, do not celebrate selfsufficiency or self-reliance, and are not interested in claiming any authority of their own personal experiences. Rather, they highlight the understanding of their own incompleteness, fragmentation, and self-contradiction, which serves to uncover the fictiveness or myths of self-control or self-mastery typically found in narratives by male and often white-only writers. In their life writings, the traumatized adolescent selves are continuously reshaped and discursively constructed, not as helpless victims of terrifying events, as is frequently assumed, but as those with rebellious, transgressive, and uncanny power, who can disturb patriarchal social norms or regulations in their life writing and come to terms with trauma in their own ways: Duras’s eroticizing trauma in The Lover, Menchú politicizing trauma in I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, Kaysen’s depathologizing trauma in Girl, Interrupted, Satrapi’s and Bechdel’s visualizing unrepresentable trauma in The Complete Persepolis and Fun Home. This study employs poststructural theories that “challenge the unity and coherence of the intact and fully conscious ‘self’ of Western autobiographical practices and the limits of its representations” (J. Miller, 49) to examine traumatized girlhood. In particular, based on feminist poststructural critiques of modernist, Enlightenment assumptions about autobiographical perspectives and voices, the following questions are examined in this dissertation: What words or images do this study’s examined authors utilize as a way to (re- )construct a self out of trauma? What understandings or insights do these authors achieve — or not achieve — while working to come terms with their traumas? In what ways might — or might not — these authors’ memoirs or life writings serve or disrupt a palliative/therapeutic role in what often is termed the healing process? What places, if any, might such autobiographical works focused on women’s experiences of trauma have in the English curriculum within the secondary classroom? And lastly, what and who constitutes the English literature canon, and what debates continue to characterize efforts to expand this canon to include voices of the marginalized

Socialization Trajectories of Civic Development: Examining Variation Among Children in Black Immigrant and African American Families

Little is known about how developmental experiences spanning early childhood through adolescence prepare children and youth to engage with society (Astuto & Ruck, 2017), and even less so for ethnically diverse Black children and youth (Jagers, Lozada, Rivas-Drake, & Guillame, 2017). Building from work linking positive youth development (PYD) to civic engagement (Lerner et al., 2006), this study examined how socialization trajectories from early childhood through adolescence in concert with early childhood experiences and contexts related to adolescent civic development. Civic development was measured by the PYD outcomes of competence, confidence, connection to school and peers, caring, and character; these domains have positively accounted for civic engagement across ethnically and racially diverse youth (Wray-Lake, Rote, Gupta, Godfrey, & Sirin, 2015). Results suggest that diversity in socialization experiences, sociocultural background, and context result in differential outcomes for civic development. This finding builds on previous civic engagement work by affirming the importance of parental perceptions, civic participation (White & Mistry, 2016), socialization practices (Evans et al., 2012), and context (Flanagan & Faison, 2001). Moreover, this work highlights the importance of considering intra-group variability among Black families in civic development and suggests that being from an immigrant family is associated with differential civic outcomes relative to their non-immigrant counterparts

Down memory lane : a mixed method investigation of the reminiscence bump in the dynamics of autobiographical memory

Research into the reminiscence bump aims to improve our understanding of how the memories formed during our adolescence and early adulthood subsequently influence our autobiographical recollections later in life. The purpose of this study was to investigate the temporal dynamics of autobiographical memory in a sample involving two different age groups of adult South African participants. The main objective of the research was to explore the participants’ memories for salient events and to determine whether these memories exhibit the typical reminiscence bump that has been found in autobiographical memory research. This sample consisted of two sets of cohorts, totalling 48 research participants. The first group comprised participants ranging between the ages of 40 and 59 years, and the second group involved participants ranging between the ages of 60 to 79 years. A convergent parallel mixed method approach was adopted in this study. Both quantitative and qualitative data, on the distribution, valence and life domain importance of the reminiscence bump, were collected through the lifeline interview method. The results confirmed that reminiscence bumps are reflected in the memories of both age groups between the ages of 10 and 30 years. Most life events recalled were of positive affect thus confirming the positivity bias in older adults. The family and home life domains were indicated as the most important life domains in the autobiographical memories of both groups. The main conclusion drawn from the study was that there was not a significant difference in the dynamics of the autobiographical memories between the two groups, as reflected in the temporal characteristics of their reminiscence bumps. Future research could further explore the patterns of memories, and researchers could in particular investigate the semantic and affective aspects of these autobiographical memories in more depth.PsychologyM.A. (Psychology

The possibility conditions of narrative identity.

The focus of this dissertation is narrative identity theory, i.e. the proposition that our sense of self is structured like a story. The imputed advantage of narrativity identity is that it enables great coherence and guidance to our complex lives composed of multiple and often conflicting inner impulses and social demands. The manner in which this is accomplished is that narrativity functions metaphorically as a tacit, formative operation, which transfers the intelligibility inherent in the familiar domain of stories to the more elusive domain of personal identity. Narrativity is an epistemically efficient kind of discourse which can synthesize a multitude of elements into a unity called plot. A plot gives unity to the whole of a story and confers significance to its parts. Both narrativity and metaphoricity are the more recognizable products of an underlying mechanism both share, i.e. productive imagination. This faculty pervasively and continually configures the whole field of our experience, accentuating the relevant structures of our physical, social or inner, affective-mental environment (context) and projects the path through this environment towards a physical destiny, social accomplishment or resolution (direction). With the tools of classic Husserlian phenomenology and its radicalization in Heideggerian existential hermeneutics the main concepts of narrativity, metaphoricity and productive imagination can be further clarified and connected. This will enable a discussion about the question whether the ontological status of narrative identity can be construed such that either 1) personal identity merely has narrative cognition available as a pervasive, tacit tool to cope with life, or 2) whether our personal identity is nothing but the product of the productive The focus of this dissertation is narrative identity theory, i.e. the proposition that our sense of self is structured like a story. The imputed advantage of narrativity identity is that it enables great coherence and guidance to our complex lives composed of multiple and often conflicting inner impulses and social demands. The manner in which this is accomplished is that narrativity functions metaphorically as a tacit, formative operation, which transfers the intelligibility inherent in the familiar domain of stories to the more elusive domain of personal identity. Narrativity is an epistemically efficient kind of discourse which can synthesize a multitude of elements into a unity called plot. A plot gives unity to the whole of a story and confers significance to its parts. Both narrativity and metaphoricity are the more recognizable products of an underlying mechanism both share, i.e. productive imagination. This faculty pervasively and continually configures the whole field of our experience, accentuating the relevant structures of our physical, social or inner, affective-mental environment (context) and projects the path through this environment towards a physical destiny, social accomplishment or resolution (direction). With the tools of classic Husserlian phenomenology and its radicalization in Heideggerian existential hermeneutics the main concepts of narrativity, metaphoricity and productive imagination can be further clarified and connected. This will enable a discussion about the question whether the ontological status of narrative identity can be construed such that either 1) personal identity merely has narrative cognition available as a pervasive, tacit tool to cope with life, or 2) whether our personal identity is nothing but the product of the productive The focus of this dissertation is narrative identity theory, i.e. the proposition that our sense of self is structured like a story. The imputed advantage of narrativity identity is that it enables great coherence and guidance to our complex lives composed of multiple and often conflicting inner impulses and social demands. The manner in which this is accomplished is that narrativity functions metaphorically as a tacit, formative operation, which transfers the intelligibility inherent in the familiar domain of stories to the more elusive domain of personal identity. Narrativity is an epistemically efficient kind of discourse which can synthesize a multitude of elements into a unity called plot. A plot gives unity to the whole of a story and confers significance to its parts. Both narrativity and metaphoricity are the more recognizable products of an underlying mechanism both share, i.e. productive imagination. This faculty pervasively and continually configures the whole field of our experience, accentuating the relevant structures of our physical, social or inner, affective-mental environment (context) and projects the path through this environment towards a physical destiny, social accomplishment or resolution (direction). With the tools of classic Husserlian phenomenology and its radicalization in Heideggerian existential hermeneutics the main concepts of narrativity, metaphoricity and productive imagination can be further clarified and connected. This will enable a discussion about the question whether the ontological status of narrative identity can be construed such that either 1) personal identity merely has narrative cognition available as a pervasive, tacit tool to cope with life, or 2) whether our personamagination operating through narrativityl identity is nothing but the product of the productiv

Parent Resources of Adolescents with ADHD: analysis of the narrative

Wydział Studiów EdukacyjnychDo realizacji badania, którego głównym celem było zrozumienie doświadczenia rodziców młodzieży z ADHD , wybrano jakościowy model badań. W niniejszym badaniu zebrano dane, uzyskane podczas zajęć grupowych dla rodziców, przy czym w każdej grupie uczestniczyło około siedmiorga rodziców. Każda grupa odbyła dziesięć spotkań, raz na dwa tygodnie, przy czym przed spotkaniami grupowymi przeprowadzono wywiady z rodzicami. Wyniki badań potwierdzają to, co dotąd opisano w literaturze przedmiotu, poświęconej rodzicielskim problemom dotyczącym radzenia sobie z pierwotnymi i wtórnymi objawami ADHD u dzieci, a także tym wynikającym z trudności w relacjach w rodzinie, także dalszej i szerzej rozumianej społeczności. Owo zmaganie się z problemami wpływa negatywnie na poczucie skuteczności rodziców. Miewają oni poczucie bycia ocenianymi przez społeczeństwo jako „niewystarczająco dobrzy rodzice”. W niniejszych badaniach akcent położono na określenie i wydobycie psychicznych zasobów rodziców, które mogłyby stanowić swoistą przeciwwagę i remedium na wspomniane powyżej trudności. Wnioski, jakie nasunęły się po przeprowadzeniu badań, wskazują, że rodzice adolescentów z ADHD niejednokrotnie odczuwają izolację społeczną i emocjonalną, ponieważ mają do czynienia z zaburzeniem, która jest niemożliwe do prostego zaobserwowania- można o nim jedynie wnioskować.This research is done in a qualitative methodology. The aim of the study was to examine the resources of parents of adolescents with ADHD, to describe their parenting experience, to identify the causes of their children's ADHD, and to examine the contribution of the parent care group. The data in the study were collected from 3 parent groups who shared the parenting experiences to adolescents with ADHD, their difficulties, and ways of coping. During narrative analysis, 4 main themes were found that indicate: parents 'experiences and understanding of the parental role, parents' perception of the abilities and difficulties of adolescents with ADHD, coping with the various relationships in the family and community, and intervention. The group's contribution to parental capacity. The conclusions of the study were aimed at a better understanding of the experience of parents dealing with an adolescent with attention deficit disorder and drew attention to the role of the various social systems in providing support to the adolescent and his or her parents. It has also been found that parents can make changes and improve their parenting when there is an empowering framework that offers them a way to learn their parental role, develop insights and take responsibility for their children’s behavior. Thus, there is room to allocate resources and implement support groups for parent counseling for children with ADH

An Observational Assessment of Peer Group Contributions to Adolescent Identity Development

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that interaction-based peer groups play an important role in adolescents’ identity development. Peer group members’ current identity development and peer group interaction processes were examined as predictors of teens’ later identity exploration and commitment. Participants (n = 1070; 522 girls; Mage = 15.45 years) reported on their identity development and a subset of participants took part in an interactive group decision task within peer triads (n = 258; 86 triads). Task-related interactions were coded for support (openness to opinions) or discouragement (teasing of opinions and controlling behaviours) of group members\u27 individuality. Nineteen to 22 months later, 103 participants from 59 triads completed a second measure of identity development. As expected, hierarchical linear modelling revealed that the most conducive peer groups for teens’ later identity development had members who had yet to secure personal identity commitments and who supported each others’ individuality (high in openness to others’ opinions and low in controlling behaviours). Unexpectedly, opinion-related teasing in groups also related positively to later identity exploration. For adolescents who had yet to engage in identity processes, membership in committed and controlling groups led to greater identity commitment without exploration (i.e., identification with others’ identity choices). These findings provide evidence that interaction-based peer groups may contribute importantly to identity development in mid-adolescence