Social media, as a favored platform for autistic adults, provides numerous opportunities to socialize and develop close relationships. However, autistic adults may have social skill difficulties that carry over to this platform. Further, social media-related risks pose additional concerns. This study taught four autistic adults social…

Fruitful ministry is the result of a lifetime of learning and an intentional pursuit of wisdom. The opposite of fruitful is barren, which leads to frustration. Frustrations are caused by a multitude of reasons. Rarely is that level of frustration that leads to quitting due to a lack of doctrinal understanding, improper communicative abilities, or…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine how lived experiences of Title 1 teachers affect social-emotional connections with their at-risk students. Because of the influence teachers have on their students, it is important to understand the life experiences and how they carry an abundance of vitality in teachers' decisions in the…

Adult learners, or undergraduate students aged 24 years or older, represent one third of the undergraduate student population in the United States. The purpose of this study was to explore the pathways to thriving for undergraduate adult learners, taking into consideration their entering characteristics and life circumstances. Thriving has been…

This study investigates the impact of mindfulness meditation practices on the mental health and well-being of a specific community college population. Inspired by studies on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), the focus of this research is on participants who attended the free "Just…

The purpose of the study was to investigate how grade retention affects Black males' perspectives about education and social-emotional skills during and after their K-12 educational journey. As a result of the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been increased discourse about our nation's current reality regarding the status of Black…

This study aimed to analyze the lack of emotional intelligence in school-age children and how it affected them socially and academically in the school setting. Students with low EI could not recognize their emotions and how to deal with them properly, which caused social skill delays and low academic performance. The participants in the study were…

Many children with autism struggle with emotion processing, which affects their ability to respond in a social situation appropriately. Interventions for emotion recognition typically require the individual to tact or match photos of static facial expressions without teaching the emotion's facial or body language stimulus characteristics.…

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, social and emotional learning and the safety of students were a concern for educational leaders (DeArmond, 2021). The Department of Education introduced metrics under the Every Student Succeeds Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2015), and social and emotional learning initiatives rose to the top of districts'…

Social and emotional competence (SEC) is critical in determining college preparedness and student outcomes. College students need more than just academic knowledge to succeed. SEC encompasses a range of skills, including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. These skills are…

As students' online learning opportunities continue to increase in higher education, students are choosing not to come back to campus in-person for a variety of personal, health, safety, and financial reasons. The growing use of video conferencing technology during the COVID-19 pandemic allowed classes to continue, but students reported a sense of…

Belonging and shame find themselves on a spectrum. Shame is on one end belonging the other. In the university setting belonging is widely researched. However, it is not known how shame resilience effects a college's students sense of belonging. This study tapped into shame resilience theory and self-authorship to start the conversation about shame…

A teacher's behavior management style has particular implications for those students who encounter difficulties due to social-emotional concerns. This study explored the relationship between teacher candidates' perceived psychological wellness, behavior management skills, and mental health literacy. Four previously developed surveys were used to…

Previous research has suggested that relationship education (RE) courses, whose curricula are intended to develop learners' emotional faculties, could raise participants' skills related to recognizing, managing, and empathizing with emotions, known as emotional competence (EC), but this relationship has not been ascertained to exist for…

Music mentoring is a phenomenon that has been found to be increasingly significant with regards to counseling. It behooves counselors, educators, behavioral health coordinators, and researchers to examine this methodology more closely because of its propensity to perpetuate a child's connectivity to school and learning. This research project…