Throughout growing literature, contemplative practices have been identified as effective approaches to promote wellness in adolescence and young adulthood, with calls to incorporate contemplative approaches in the school setting. One type of contemplative practice called loving-kindness meditation (LKM) offers practitioners with a method for…

A lack of response to voices, and a great interest for music are part of the behavioral expressions, commonly (self-)reported in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). These atypical interests for vocal and musical sounds could be attributable to different levels of acoustical noise, quantified in the harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR). No previous study has…

Little is known about the development of self-regulation processes during the preschool period in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). How parental characteristics such as the broader autism phenotype (BAP) relate to children's self-regulation is not well understood. Preschool-aged children with (n = 24) and without ASD (n = 21) completed an inhibitory…

Understanding the experiences of Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHPI) students in science courses can help us foster inclusivity and belonging for these often excluded and unacknowledged students. Using social influence theory as a framework, we investigated the intersection between ethnic-racial identity and science identity in NHPI…

Caregivers of a child with a neurodevelopmental disability are more vulnerable to mental health difficulties. These difficulties are influenced by the child's challenging behaviours, and the caregiver's coping strategies; factors impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. An online mixed methods survey was conducted on caregivers of children with…

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine how children's book format influences parent-child book reading engagement. The extant literature suggests that there are at least two potential mechanisms that might moderate children's engagement with and learning from books: (1) the format and features of the book itself and (2) how parents and…

The seventh phase of this longitudinal study investigated whether children born through third-party assisted reproduction experienced psychological problems, or difficulties in their relationship with their mothers, in early adulthood. The impact of disclosure of their biological origins, and quality of mother-child relationships from age 3…

This current study explored outcomes of SEL competencies including self-efficacy toward classroom performance, emotion regulation, stress, and the use of breathing and mindfulness strategies after implementing SEL-based yoga programming among youth Grades 3 through 5 (N=403). Findings indicate that SEL-based yoga programs support stress reduction…

The complex set of challenges that middle-aged adults encounter emphasizes a need for mental health interventions that promote resilience and positive outcomes. The present study evaluated whether an online, self-guided social intelligence training (SIT) program (8 h) improved midlife adults' daily well-being and emotion regulation in the context…

Colleges across the United States are now placing most or all students directly into college-level courses and providing supplementary, aligned academic support alongside the courses, also known as "corequisite remediation." Developmental education reforms like corequisite remediation could advance racial and ethnic equity in…

I Can Succeed-Elementary School (ICS-ES) is the first social-emotional learning (SEL) program based on interpersonal psychotherapy for adolescents (IPT-A). We hypothesized that fourth graders participating in ICS-ES over two school years would show improvements in interpersonal/social, emotional, and academic functioning. 419 fourth-grade students…

Violent discipline in schools infringes on children's rights and is associated with harmful developmental consequences for students. This calls for effective intervention programs, particularly in countries with high prevalence of violent discipline in schools. This study tested the effectiveness of the preventative intervention "Interaction…

This study examined whether the association between cybervictimization and internalizing symptoms was moderated by adolescents' emotional connectedness to their social media. Participants were 288 adolescents (54.9% male participants) with (n = 151) and without (n = 137) attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) between the ages of 13 and 15…