Establishing Derived Equivalence Relations of Basic Geography Skills in Children with Autism

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - The present study evaluated the efficacy of a stimulus-equivalence training procedure in teaching basic geography skills to two children with autism. The...     

Promoting healthy transition to college through mindfulness training with first-year college students: Pilot randomized controlled trial

Objective: Given the importance of developmental transitions on young adults' lives and the high rates of mental health issues among U.S. college students, first-year college students can be particularly vulnerable to stress and adversity. This pilot study evaluated the effectiveness and feasibility of mindfulness training aiming to promote first-year college students' health and wellbeing. Participants: 109 freshmen were recruited from residential halls (50% Caucasian, 66% female). Data collection was completed in November 2014. Methods: A randomized control trial was conducted utilizing the Learning to BREATHE (L2B) program, a universal mindfulness program adapted to match the developmental tasks of college transition. Results: Participation in the pilot intervention was associated with significant increase in students' life satisfaction, and significant decrease in depression and anxiety. Marginally significant decrease was found for sleep issues and alcohol consequences. Conclusions: Mindfulness-based programs may be an effective strategy to enhance a healthy transition into college.     

What it means to be special: two sisters discuss their experiences

In this article, two adolescent sisters discuss and reflect upon the impact that the special education classification of one of them has had on their lives. The sisters, co-authors of this text, participated in designing the study and analyzing the data we produced; their voices are the core of this article. Issues about inclusion, the harms and benefits of special education classification, stigma, the multi-edged meanings of what it means to be “special,” and the often complicit roles of educators in perpetuating exclusionary policies all arise in the sisters’ discussions with each other, with their co-authors, and with pre-service teachers.     

“I Am Becoming More and More Like My Eldest Brother!”: The Relationship Between Older Siblings,Adolescent Gambling Severity,and the Attenuating Role of Parents in a Large-Scale Nationally Representative Survey Study

The present study examined the association between having older siblings who gamble and adolescent at-risk/problem gambling and how parents (i.e., parental knowledge of their whereabouts) and peers might moderate such effects. Data were drawn from the ESPAD^®Italia2012 survey (European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs) comprising a nationally representative Italian sample of adolescents. The analysis was carried out on a subsample of 10,063 Italian students aged 15–19 years (average age = 17.10; 55 % girls) who had at least one older sibling and who had gambled at some point in their lives. Respondents’ problem gambling severity, older gambler sibling, gambler peers, parental knowledge, and socio-demographic characteristics were individually assessed. Multinomial logistic regression analyses including two- and three-way interactions were conducted. The odds of being an at-risk/problem gambler were higher among high school students with older siblings that gambled and those with peers who gambled. Higher parental knowledge (of who the adolescent was with and where they were in their leisure time) was associated with lower rates of at-risk/problem gambling. There was also an interaction between gamblers with older siblings and parental knowledge. The combination of having siblings who gambled and a greater level of parental knowledge was associated with lower levels of problem gambling. The present study confirmed the occurrence of social risk processes (older siblings and peers who gambled) and demonstrated that gambling among older siblings and peers represents an important contextual factor for increased at-risk/problem gambling. However, parental knowledge appears to be sufficient to counterbalance the influence of older siblings.     

Self-Reported Losses Versus Actual Losses in Online Gambling: An Empirical Study

Many research findings in the gambling studies field rely on self-report data. A very small body of empirical research also suggests that when using self-report, players report their gambling losses inaccurately. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the differences between objective and subjective gambling spent data by comparing gambler’s actual behavioral tracking data with their self-report data over a 1-month period. A total of 17,742 Norwegian online gamblers were asked to participate in an online survey. Of those surveyed, 1335 gamblers answered questions relating to gambling expenditure that could be compared with their actual gambling behavior. The study found that the estimated loss self-reported by gamblers was correlated with the actual objective loss and that players with higher losses tended to have more difficulty estimating their gambling expenditure (i.e., players who spent more money gambling also appeared to have more trouble estimating their expenses accurately). Overall, the findings demonstrate that caution is warranted when using self-report data relating to amount of money spent gambling in any studies that are totally reliant on self-report data.     

Developmental Latent Patterns of Identification as Mostly Heterosexual Versus Lesbian,Gay, or Bisexual

Scant research exists on the development of mostly heterosexual identity, the largest sexual orientation minority subgroup. We used longitudinal latent class analysis to characterize the patterns of identification with lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB), or mostly heterosexual identities from ages 12 to 23 in 13,859 youth (57% female) in a U.S. national cohort. Three classes emerged: completely heterosexual (88.2%), mostly heterosexual (9.5%), and LGB (2.4%). LGB class youth generally identified with sexual minority identities by ages 12–17. In contrast, mostly heterosexual class youth identified with sexual minority identities gradually, with steady increases in endorsement starting at the age of 14. Developmental implications of these differential patterns are discussed.     

‘It’s all bollocks!’ and other critical standpoints on the UK Government’s vision of global citizenship

The UK Government’s International Citizen Service (ICS) sends volunteers abroad to ‘fight global poverty’ as ‘global citizens’. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the construction of development on the ICS programme forecloses important political and historical contexts, resulting in a model of global citizenship we might term ‘soft’. This article presents data from interviews with ICS volunteers with a specific methodological concern of recognizing the agency of young people and allowing their responses to lead discussion. The outcome is a range of themes across the data that critique the Government’s model of citizenship and, I argue, shows the volunteers to be ‘critical’ global citizens. I then ask whether we can consider this a mode of resistance. I conclude with a final data set that – the case is made – presents an imperative to allow these volunteers to have their perspectives on historical and contemporary North–South relations recognized as a critical mode of global citizenship.