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Bridging the Gap: Equipping Caregivers with Skills to Promote Development
Get PDFThis doctoral capstone project was completed through a partnership with Alverson Pediatric Therapy, a private, community-based pediatric practice. Alverson Pediatric Therapy aims not only to meet the child’s needs, but also to equip all parents with the skills and confidence to help their child reach the next stage of development. The primary focus of this project was to develop accessible caregiver education on various occupation-based and developmentally appropriate topics. These topics included developmental milestones, emotional regulation, sensory processing, dressing, and so forth. Outcomes of the project included fourteen weeks of social media programming and four, in-depth video module scripts with supplemental handouts
Supporting Adolescent Parents Involved in YoungLives
Get PDFThis doctoral capstone project focused on creating educational tools and resources for adolescent caregivers, volunteer mentors, and staff associates involved in YoungLives. YoungLives is a branch of the non-profit outreach organization YoungLife, that supports adolescent/teen parents and expecting mothers worldwide. The goal of this project was to supply accessible and user-friendly resources for the population to gain knowledge on pediatric topics such as child development, age appropriate milestones, sensory processing, as well as activities to promote occupational skills. The project outcomes resulted in a guidebook and deliverables for education and training purposes, a social media platform for nationwide connection and communication, as well as training and coaching lessons provided with those involved in YoungLives. These resources will be used by YoungLives staff members to train volunteer mentors and adolescent parents for increased insight in pediatric focused topics
Creation of Educational Resources and Program Development for the Empower Me Center
Get PDFThis doctoral capstone project was completed with the Empower Me Center, a multi-faceted non-profit organization based in Lebanon, Tennessee. They serve individuals with special needs through activities and opportunities for growth while providing community education on disabilities and inclusiveness. Educational content and disability awareness programming was created for teachers, clinicians, parents/caregivers, etc. to meet the needs of community education and disability awareness. Using an occupational therapy perspective, multiple presentations for future medical and educational conferences were created. In addition, Ryan’s Recess is a disability awareness program that was further developed to increase knowledge in an inclusive environment by offering exposure and awareness to a variety of disabilities and differences to elementary aged students
Promoting Mental Health and Well-being Among Undergraduate Nursing Students: A Practice Guideline
Get PDFPoor mental health and well-being among undergraduate nursing students negatively affects social dynamics, communication, decision making, and stress management, thus compromising the quality of healthcare delivery and patient care outcomes. It is imperative that nursing programs support students to develop positive self-care, resilience, and mental health skills while in school to foster their well-being, enhance their academic success, and to promote high-quality, patient-centered care in their future practice. The purpose of this Doctor of Nurse Practice (DNP) project was to develop a mental health and well-being practice guideline with a comprehensive set of evidence-based interventions for academic nursing programs to use to support the mental health and well-being of undergraduate nursing students. The Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II (AGREE-II) framework was utilized to develop and appraise the practice guideline, which introduced two evidence-based recommendations: (1) Implementing a peer-mentoring program for nursing students and (2) Embedding mental health and well-being promotion within the nursing curriculum. An expert panel of five evaluators, including three nursing program deans and two mental health professionals, appraised the practice guideline providing qualitative and quantitative feedback. All expert panel members provided positive feedback, highlighting the guideline’s organization, evidence support, consistency, clarity, quality, feasibility, applicability, and suitability for guiding practice to support undergraduate nursing students’ mental health and well-being. All nursing programs who seek to prioritize the mental health and well-being of their nursing students are encouraged to adopt the practice guideline
Auditory feedback decreases timing variability for discontinuous and continuous motor tasks in autistic adults
Get PDFIntroduction: Autistic individuals demonstrate greater variability and timing error in their motor performance than neurotypical individuals, likely due at least in part to atypical cerebellar characteristics and connectivity. These motor difficulties may differentially affect discrete as opposed to continuous movements in autistic individuals. Augmented auditory feedback has the potential to aid motor timing and variability due to intact auditory-motor pathways in autism and high sensitivity in autistic individuals to auditory stimuli. Methods: This experiment investigated whether there were differences in timing accuracy and variability in autistic adults as a function of task (discontinuous vs. continuous movements) and condition (augmented auditory feedback vs. no auditory feedback) in a synchronization-continuation paradigm. Ten autistic young adults aged 17–27 years of age completed the within-subjects study that involved drawing circles at 800 milliseconds intervals on a touch screen. In the discontinuous task, participants traced a series of discrete circles and paused at the top of each circle for at least 60 milliseconds. In the continuous task, participants traced the circles without pausing. Participants traced circles in either a non-auditory condition, or an auditory condition in which they heard a tone each time that they completed a circle drawing. Results: Participants had significantly better timing accuracy on the continuous timing task as opposed to the discontinuous task. Timing consistency was significantly higher for tasks performed with auditory feedback. Discussion: This research reveals that motor difficulties in autistic individuals affect discrete timing tasks more than continuous tasks, and provides evidence that augmented auditory feedback may be able to mitigate some of the timing variability present in autistic persons’ movements. These results provide support for future investigation on the use of music-based therapies involving auditory feedback to address motor dysfunction in autistic individuals
Too Young To Suspend: Ending Early Grade School Exclusion By Applying Lessons From The Fight To Increase The Minimum Age Of Juvenile Court Jurisdiction
Get PDFIn many respects, the evolution of juvenile court reform and school discipline reform follow similar trajectories. This Article begins by tracking those respective evolutions. Part I outlines the evolution of the juvenile court system in the United States and focuses on the fledgling system’s distinction of children from adults and its “rehabilitative ideal” that children could outgrow challenging behavior if given the right treatment and services. After a long period of “adultification” of the juvenile court in response to rising crime rates, more recent reform efforts have focused on returning to the early court’s rehabilitative model, including policies that would keep young children out of juvenile court altogether.
With the context of the juvenile court’s evolution in mind, Part II tracks the history of exclusionary school discipline, which is defined as any school disciplinary action, typically a suspension or expulsion, that removes a student from his or her typical education setting. Many of the same rationales for the “adultification” of juvenile court, including the myth of the juvenile superpredator and the rise of a zero-tolerance approach to discipline, led to a sharp increase in the use of exclusionary discipline throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. However, with a growing body of research showing the harm and inefficacy of exclusionary discipline, advocates for discipline reform have pushed to decrease its use, which has included proposals to ban or limit exclusionary discipline for young students.
The efforts to protect young children from both juvenile court intervention and exclusionary discipline are explored respectively in Parts III and IV. Part III describes the movement to “Raise the Minimum Age” of juvenile court jurisdiction as an avenue to bar court processing for young children. Notably, Part III outlines the variety of rationales that have been used to support raising the minimum age and charts the success of the movement in the last decade.
Against this backdrop, Part IV turns to the movement to end exclusionary discipline for young children. Although important differences between the juvenile court and school discipline exist, many of the same rationales that support keeping young children out of juvenile court also apply to protecting young children from exclusionary discipline. Despite these similar rationales, which are explored in Part IV, the movement to end exclusionary discipline for young children has had less success, with fewer states adopting these measures. Further, most states that have passed laws limiting school exclusion for young students still allow exclusions to move forward in many circumstances. Part IV tracks existing statewide efforts to limit exclusionary discipline for young children and describes some of the challenges faced by these reform efforts.
Despite the challenges, there are also opportunities. Part V highlights lessons learned from the “Raise the Minimum Age” movement to make recommendations for building momentum for states to end exclusionary discipline for young children. Given the willingness in many states to protect young children from juvenile court intervention, there is hope that similar arguments and advocacy strategies can be utilized to advance statewide policies that will protect those same young children from the harm of exclusionary discipline
The Effects of Binaural Beats on Fatigue using Eye Movement
Get PDFThis study aims to investigate the effects of binaural beats on fatigue through various eye metrics. The effects of fatigue are well known, with plenty of research focused on how fatigue decreases alertness and increases reaction time. One possible intervention for managing fatigue is through acoustics like binaural beats, an auditory illusion where a person perceives a unique frequency equal to the difference between two unique frequencies played simultaneously in each ear. Binaural beats within the beta range (16-Hz and 24-Hz) yield better performance on vigilant tasks and can maintain performance even in a mentally fatigued state. Eye movements allow for the interpretation of fatigue as fatigued individuals show increased blink rates and reduced saccade velocity and amplitude. Very few studies have investigated the effects of binaural beats intervention while inducing fatigue, and almost no studies have examined the relationship between binaural beats and eye movement. Various Belmont undergraduate students completed a visual search task while listening to either white noise or 16-Hz binaural beats. Fatigue measures were obtained through subjective questionnaires, a performance-based Posner Cueing Task, and various eye metrics captured during a visual search task. We hypothesized that individuals who listened to binaural beats would experience less fatigue during the visual search and cueing task. We expect individuals who listen to binaural beats to show smaller reductions in saccade frequency, velocity, duration, and amplitude and shorter response time on the visual search task. We also expect those same individuals to show smaller reductions in task performance from the first to the second cueing task. With the massive gap in the literature on how binaural beats affect eye movement and fatigue, these results could provide insight into better interventions for sustained focus and attention when mentally fatigued
The Gay Agenda: How the Gay Issue Stopped being an Issue
No full textThis study examines the rapid shift in public opinion on the issue of gay marriage in recent times. The research question explores why public support for gay marriage has changed so quickly. This affects millions of Americans on both personal and political levels. The main thesis posits that corporations have likely played a major role in this societal shift, as growing awareness and acceptance of LGBTQ+ people has led corporations to increasingly align their support with evolving social values and the expanding LGBTQ+ consumer base. Two hypotheses are proposed: 1) Corporate support has reinforced and accelerated the change in public opinion, and 2) Corporations have reacted to and capitalized on the independent societal shift towards greater LGBTQ+ acceptance, rather than driving it. The methodology involves a case study approach, utilizing survey data from Pew Research Center, Gallup, and other sources to conduct statistical analysis through linear regression. Potential limitations include multicollinearity and personal bias. The results indicate a strong correlation between corporate-backed LGBTQ+ representation in media/pop culture and the rise in public support for gay marriage. These findings suggest the need for further research on the influence of corporations on societal norms, laws, and the political landscape. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the complex interplay between corporate interests, social values, and the rapid transformation of public opinion on the issue of gay marriage in the United States
