This study captured the experiences of 35 autistic adolescents and their parents after completing a 16-session variant of social skills group training KONTAKT® (ACTRN12617001117303). Semi-structured interviews explored participants' and relatives' perceptions of KONTAKT® and associated social outcomes. Adolescents were classified as either high…

Background: Self-harm usually begins during adolescence and adolescents that self-harm most commonly confide in friends, yet to date, there is little research from the friend's perspective. Objective: This qualitative study explores adolescents' experiences of what it is like to have a friend who self-harms by cutting and what this experience…

Public media has the potential to play a powerful role in the media landscape for tweens and teens. With the By/With/For Youth: Inspiring Next Gen Public Media Audiences project, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center conducted focus group interviews with tweens and teens across the country in order to better understand how young people are engaging with…

In the late 20th century, an interesting phenomenon appeared on the landscape of western education: parents chose to educate their children at home rather than send them to school. Numerous studies were published on the subject in recent decades. However, most of them examine home schooling from the parents' perspective. This study is unique as it…

The prevailing cultural narrative about middle school is that those years are extremely difficult, and the best students can hope for is to endure them until finding relief in high school. Nancy Deutsch argues that these years are, in fact, a time of great potential if schools can abandon their stereotypes about young adolescents and create school…

Background: Adolescence is associated with a rise in the incidence of mental health issues. Thus, the factors, processes, and contexts that protect and promote positive mental health in adolescence are of key interest to policymakers. Objective: Our aim was twofold: First, to explore the coping strategies and sources of support that adolescents…

Based on the third-person effect hypothesis--people's belief that the media influences others more than it influences themselves--we administered a questionnaire to Chinese teens (N = 1,538) to discover the impacts of exposure to internet pornography on perceptions of pornography and attitudes toward censorship of pornography. The results…

Life storytelling is a key method for developing the self, and family storytelling is an important setting for parents and adolescents to jointly make sense of adolescent experiences. Early adolescence is a key time for building a clearer sense of self. We studied mother scaffolding and adolescent meaning-making as adolescents recounted turning…

This study employed semi-structured interviews and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to explore experiences of on-time maturation in nine adolescent ballet dancers from across three vocational ballet schools in the United Kingdom. Two themes were identified as central to their experiences: 'A right and a wrong way to grow', and fitting in…

This study examines the idea that youth's perceptions of their political interactions with important others are influenced by their own political interest to a greater extent than the perceived political interactions that influence youth's political interest. Hence, it was proposed that youth's perceptions of important others' (parents',…

In this study, we examined how technology impacts adolescents' perceptions of, and affective responses to solitude, as well as how adolescents' own motivations for solitude (shyness, affinity for aloneness) were related to these reactions. Participants were N = 437 adolescents (297 girls; M[subscript age] = 16.15 years, standard deviation (SD) =…

As a term, "connective literacies" refers to the reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and critical thinking skills necessary for students to engage and interact meaningfully, productively, and safely in a variety of digitally connected spaces. Using a critical literacies approach to honor the voices of adolescents as producers…

This study examines whether youth's goals for their future societal engagement affect their future political activities. We hypothesized, first, that youth's political interest would be a central predictor of their future political activities and, second, that their goals for future societal engagement would moderate their political interest. The…

This study investigates the psychometric properties of the Adoption Communication Openness (ACO) Scale. Following a multi-informant approach, the study considered four versions of the ACO Scale to assess the child's perception of adoption communication openness with both mother and father and the mother's and father's perceptions of communication…

The aim of this study was to better understand the role of school bathrooms in shaping the menstrual experiences of adolescents in the U.S.A. The participants were Black and Latina, low-income adolescent girls (15-19) and adults interacting closely with youth in three U.S.A. cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City). Data collection methods…