Counseling, Higher Education & Special Education Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2757
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Item The Maternal Role in Promoting Emotional Competence: Predicting Head Start Mothers' Expressiveness, Perceived Role, and Receptivity to Support(2010) Edwards, Nicole Megan; Lieber, Joan A.; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Guided by Bioecological Systems Theory and Schema Theory, I investigated mothers' perceptions regarding the emotional development of their preschool children. Researchers acknowledge mothers' contributing role in influencing children's behavioral displays of emotion, but there is a dearth in the literature on mothers' emotion-related behaviors, beliefs, and needs. In my quantitative study, I collected self-report data from a mid-Atlantic, low-income, urban sample of Head Start mothers (n = 114) and assessed which child, mother, and/or community-based factors may predict the probability of mothers being high in negative expressiveness, low in positive expressiveness, not strongly supportive of the literature in their perceived role in emotional development, and not highly receptive to parent-focused support. I pretested my devised Perceived Role and Receptivity to Support measure and conducted interviewer-administered interviews (using my devised measure, the Parenting Stress Scale, the Early Childhood Behavior Problem Screening Scale, and the Self-Expressiveness in the Family Questionnaire). Results supported only a few instances of group uniformity, with mostly group variability in Head Start mothers' emotion-related behaviors, beliefs and needs. Further, logistic regression analyses suggested: (1) mothers are likely to be high in negative expressiveness when raising a preschooler with a combination of internalizing and externalizing behaviors, high in parenting stress, and obtaining at least an Associate's degree; (2) mothers are predicted to be less positive in expressiveness when raising a preschooler with a delay, not having had any child in the family receive specialized services, raising only one child, dropping out of high school, and not having received advice from Head Start staff; (3) mothers are predicted to be less supportive of the purported role of mothers in the literature when raising only one child and not having received behavior advice from Head Start staff; (4) mothers are predicted to be lower in receptiveness to parent-focused support when raising a preschooler with no perceived behavior concerns, anticipating maladaptive behaviors to improve with age, raising only one child, dropping out of high school, and having had fewer outreach efforts in the past. I discuss implications for research and practice, including how results may inform early screening and parenting intervention initiatives.Item The Emotion Comprehension Test: Selected Psychometric Properties of a New Measure of Emotion Understanding for Preschoolers(2009) Gustafson, Emily Anne; Teglasi, Hedwig; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examines the psychometric properties, including internal consistency and item difficulty of a new measure of emotion understanding through quantitative analysis. Intercorrelations between the three subtest of the measure, correlations with age and gender, and response patterns were also examined. Emotion understanding is the ability to identify the emotions of others from facial expressions and behaviors and to understand what emotions are likely to be elicited by common social situations. Emotion understanding begins to emerge in the preschool years and serves as the foundation for social competence. The Emotion Comprehension Test (ECT) is a new measure of emotion understanding for preschoolers, which uses photographs of real children to depict natural emotional facial expressions to assess emotion identification. The measure also uses puppets to act out social situations associated with common emotions and behaviors associated with emotions. Internal consistency of the three subtests were found to be r = .699 for the Emotion Identification subtest, r = .805 for the Emotion - Situations subtest, and r = .614 for the Emotion - Behaviors subtest.Item Treatment Effectiveness in Preschool Education- A Look at Affective Variables(2009) Tsakiris, Elizabeth Ann; Strein, William O; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Autism now occurs in 1 out of 150 births in the United States (Centers for Disease Control, 2008). Increasing numbers and complexity of the disorder make the need for identifying effective interventions critical. DSM-IVTR identifies core characteristics of autism as significant deficits in communication, social interaction, and symbolic play. Neither intellectual ability nor academic achievement, two variables frequently used for measuring intervention effectiveness, are included as diagnostic criteria. Yet IQ scores are often used as entry criteria for treatment studies (Tsakiris, 2000). Therefore, intervention effectiveness has utilized variables other than the primary deficits and cannot be applied to the wider range (and truer representation) of children with autism.. From 1980 to 1999, Applied Behavior Analysis (Lovaas, 1987) and the Developmental-Individual Differences Relationship model (Greenspan & Wieder, 1998) were associated with improvement for children with autism; they remain the foundation for most current interventions. While researchers have examined gains in language and academic skills for these models, few empirical studies have examined improvement in the core deficits for autism. This study examined the core affect variables for 28 children with autism who had undergone a minimum of two years of intensive intervention. This study used a retrospective descriptive design to examine treatment effectiveness in development of social interaction, play, and communication competencies. Assessment instruments measured these skills in young children, incorporating both quantitative behavioral data and qualitative psychodynamic interpretation. Results were analyzed to determine relationships between social interaction, communication, and play with the intervention. Parent interviews and record reviews were used to examine child characteristics that might differentiate the presence or lack of relationship to the selected therapies, including age at symptom onset and treatment initiation, self-stimulation levels, echolalia, motor planning and language skills, and biomedical factors. No differences were seen between treatment programs on all outcome measures. The individual characteristics of the children played the more significant role in determining social interaction and communication improvements regardless of the child's intellectual functioning level. The results have important implications for determining which treatments may have better potential for addressing the core deficits of autism and identifying skill trajectories that warrant more attention.Item The Intentionality and Social Information Processing Patterns Associated with Ethnic Minority Children's Aggression(2009) Simcox, April Guzy; Teglasi-Golubcow, Hedwig; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)According to Dodge and colleagues' social information processing model (e.g. Crick and Dodge, 1994) when faced with social situations, children engage in five components of decision making. In previous research using the model and corresponding social information processing (SIP) instruments, deficiencies in different components corresponded with childhood aggression. In particular, a tendency to interpret others' intentions as hostile is associated with aggression. Dodge and his colleagues cite schemas, or mental structures, as responsible for SIP deficiencies. However, the relationship between schemas and childhood aggression has not been systematically examined. This study investigated the social information processing patterns and schemas of ethnic minority children in relation to reactive and proactive aggression, as rated by teacher, peer, and self informants. The SIP instrument measured participants' social information processing patterns and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) assessed schemas underlying aggression using portions of Teglasi's coding system (2001) and coding procedures developed to capture SIP components. The TAT and SIP instruments were not correlated with one another and each correlated with different aspects of aggression. The SIP correlated primarily with teacher rated reactive aggression whereas the TAT correlated primarily with both peer and teacher rated proactive aggression. Prior research using the SIP instrument which found relationships between intentionality and aggression were not replicated. The TAT showed that among second and third grade children, most do not spontaneously consider the intentionality behind a provocation (intent attribution) but do consider the intention behind their response to a provocation (goal formation). Older age--within the two year span, significantly correlated with improved performance on some aspects of the SIP and TAT. On the SIP, girls were more likely than boys to select aggressive responses to a hypothetical situation, but expressed these in proactive ways while boys expressed more reactive aggression. Gender differences on the TAT were not present. Overall the TAT was a better predictor of both aggression types than the SIP and this was true for all informants. The use of multiple measures and multiple informants to capture various aspects of aggression is discussed along with implications for theory and practice, and directions for future research.Item Communication Patterns of Undergraduate Students and their Parents(2007-05-29) Yip, Christine; Guenzler-Stevens, Marsha A.; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this thesis was to examine the student-parent relationship by understanding communication patterns of undergraduate students and their parents. Topics discussed, frequency, initiation, methods of communication, and student satisfaction were investigated and analyzed across race, gender, and age. There were 539 usable respondents (females n = 331, males n = 182) between the ages of 18 and 24 from a Mid-Atlantic university. Students most frequently discussed physical health issues, career planning, living situations, friends, and current financial situations with their parents. More than two-thirds of respondents did not discuss the topics of alcohol and sex. Students and parents both initiated communication an average of five times a week, and cell phone was the most common method of communication. Regarding satisfaction, more than two-thirds of respondents were "satisfied" or "strongly satisfied" with the frequency, methods used by parents, frequency of parent-initiated communication, quality of advice, and level of sharing.Item "Putting My Man Face On": A Grounded Theory of College Men's Gender Identity Development(2007-04-26) Edwards, Keith E.; Jones, Susan R; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this grounded theory study was to explore the process of college men's gender identity development. Conducted from a social constructivist epistemological paradigm, through a social justice theoretical lens, and using a constructivist grounded theory methodology, the following research questions guided this study: (a) how do college men come to understand themselves as men; (b) how does this understanding of what it means to be a man change over time, if at all; and (c) what are the critical influences on this process? Three interviews with 10 college men from a large East Coast university were conducted. The theory that emerged from this study is grounded in the participants' experiences and depicts gender identity as developed through constant interaction with society's expectations of them as men. In order to try to meet these expectations and be seen as men, participants described putting on a performance that was like wearing a mask or "putting my man face on." This process included learning societal expectations of them as men, as well as specific cultural group expectations. The men in this study were all aware that they did not neatly fit behind the mask, either as a result of personal characteristics or social identities. Their resulting insecurities led them to wearing the mask both consciously and unconsciously so that they would be seen as men by society. Wearing the mask had consequences for the women in their lives, their relationships with other men, and themselves as they were also denying or masking their true selves. Although none of the men in this study had been able to completely take off the mask, they were able to identify critical influences in their lives that had helped each of them begin to remove the mask in certain circumstances and begin moving towards being their own man. This theory of college men's gender identity development has implications relevant to theory development, research, student affairs practice, and social justice.Item The influence of maternal sensitivity and maternal stimulation on later development of executive functioning via structural equation modeling(2007-04-25) Emick, Jessica; Strein, William; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study investigated the relations between early maternal behaviors, maternal sensitivity and maternal stimulation, and the later development of executive function. It was hypothesized that maternal behaviors could influence the development of executive function either directly or indirectly by influencing a child's language or attentional abilities. This study attempted to model these relationships using archival data from phase I and phase II from the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD). Structural equation modeling was used with data from 470 participants on measures of SES, maternal sensitivity, maternal stimulation, language, attention, and executive function. From existing literature three nested models were proposed to examine how maternal behaviors influenced the later development of executive function. While there were significant differences between the three proposed models it is important to recognize the overall poor fit of the models. The differences between the models suggest that maternal sensitivity and maternal stimulation do not directly influence executive functioning in the 1st grade but instead influence the development of executive functioning through assisting the child in development of attention and language skills. Interestingly, the model also indicated verbal ability played an important role in the development of executive function. Secondly the study attempted to examine multi-group differences in the proposed models (Caucasian and African American). While small sample size precluded this analysis, examining the effect size differences between the two groups indicated that within the current sample ethnicity, language ability, and SES are deeply entangled. The results of the current study highlight the potential role of language ability in the development of executive function and the need for cleaner measures of executive function that are developmentally appropriate.Item THE RELATIONSHIPS OF RACIAL IDENTITY AND GENDER-ROLE CONFLICT TO SELF-ESTEEM OF ASIAN AMERICAN UNDERGRADUATE MEN(2005-05-27) Shek, Yen Ling; McEwen, Marylu K; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this quantitative, correlational, online study was to examine the relationships of racial identity and gender-role conflict to self-esteem of Asian American undergraduate men (N = 173). Instruments included the People of Color Racial Identity Attitude Scale, Gender-Role Conflict Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and a demographic questionnaire. Random samples were drawn from two large public research institutions on the East and West coasts. The two samples were combined because there were no significant differences in self-esteem by location of institution. Through blocked, hierarchical multiple regression analysis, 36.8% of the variance in self-esteem (p < .001) was explained by gender-role conflict subscales and racial identity statuses. Three subscales were found to be significant (p<.05) predictors of self-esteem: Restrictive Emotionality, Dissonance, and Internalization. Implications were that mature racial identity development and critical analysis of traditional gender-roles were important for the development of self-esteem of Asian American undergraduate men.Item Preschoolers' Emotional Understanding of Others Who Are Ethnically the Same or Different(2004-11-22) Mende, Linda; Strein, William; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)According to Mayer and Salovey (1997), emotional understanding is the ability to "label emotions and recognize relations among the words and the emotions themselves". While children at an early age are aware of racial differences, do children understand emotions differently for others of another ethnic group? This study considered the potential impact of race on understanding the emotions of others, by focusing on children's accuracy in inferring story characters' emotional response during emotion-eliciting situations. The cultural component involved the racial match between the participant and the story character. Study findings indicate that preschoolers understood others' emotions similarly, regardless of racial background. Study results also examined children's overall accuracy and assignment of emotional intensity. Similar to previous emotional understanding results, preschoolers found happy emotions the most easily identifiable and the most intense. In contrast, angry emotions were the most difficult to identify and the least intense emotion.Item PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH MENTAL RETARDATION: COPING MECHANISMS AND SUPPORT NEEDS(2004-10-22) Bauman, Samuel; Hershenson, David; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this research was to explore the subjective experiences of families of children with mental retardation, specifically the sources of stress and coping for these families. Interviews were conducted with families to shed light on their subjective experiences of coping and stress. In an effort to increase understanding of the worldview of these families, issues in theory, practice, and future research are briefly discussed. Social support and empowerment oriented professional practice were found to have a mediating effect on family stress.