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Effects and Mediation of Child-centered Play Therapy on Young Children Who Are Anxious (open access)

Effects and Mediation of Child-centered Play Therapy on Young Children Who Are Anxious

Anxiety is one of the most pervasive childhood disorders, with a poor prognosis if left untreated. Traditional methods of treating anxiety have been less effective with young children. Based on theoretical assumptions regarding the potential effectiveness of child-centered play therapy (CCPT) as a treatment approach, I sought to explore the effects and mediating factors of CCPT on young children with symptoms of anxiety. Fifty-three participants between the ages of 6 to 8 years old were recruited from four elementary schools, including 36 males and 17 females. Of participants, 11 were African American, 24 were Caucasian, 10 were Hispanic/Latino, one was Asian, and seven were biracial. Twenty-five participants were randomly assigned to an experimental group receiving a mean of 15 sessions of individual CCPT, and 28 participants were assigned to an 8-session active control group. Five factorial analyses of variance (ANOVA) were conducted applying an alpha level of .05 for interpretation of statistical significance and Cohen’s d to assess practical significance. ANOVA results indicated a statistically significant interaction with a large effect size on Total Anxiety score of the Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale-2nd edition (p = .013, d = .715). Subscale ANOVA results indicated a statistically significant interaction effect with …
Date: May 2014
Creator: Stulmaker, Hayley L.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Dance: a Training Package Utilizing Videotaped Self-observation to Teach Parents to Enhance Social Interactions with Children At-risk for a Developmental Delay (open access)

Dance: a Training Package Utilizing Videotaped Self-observation to Teach Parents to Enhance Social Interactions with Children At-risk for a Developmental Delay

Previous research has demonstrated the effectiveness of programs that include a videotaped self-observation component. The self-observation protocols, however, have not been clearly specified within programs that teach and report parents’ use of general teaching strategies. The current study investigates the effects of a training package with a self-observation component to teach parents to improve teaching interactions with their children at-risk for a developmental delay using an AB design replicated across participants. Data were collected across play interactions to assess the number of parent teaching episodes, child target responses, and various parent and child relationship qualities. Relationship quality measures included parent and child affect and engagement, parent directives, parent confidence and stress, and parent and child interest. The results of this study suggest that the training package was effective in that parents engaged in higher rates of teaching, their children engaged in more desired responding, and certain aspects of the parent-child interaction were enhanced. These results are discussed in terms of the effects on the parent-child teaching interaction and implications for future use of parent self-observation techniques.
Date: May 2014
Creator: Townley-Cochran, Donna
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Parental Perceptions of Marketing to Young Children: a Feminist Poststructural Perspective (open access)

Parental Perceptions of Marketing to Young Children: a Feminist Poststructural Perspective

This study examined parental perceptions of marketing to young children using a feminist post-structural theoretical framework to specifically examine the following questions, 1) To what extent are parents aware of the marketing tactics being directed toward young children? 2) How do power/knowledge relations and practices produce parent’s multiple subjectivities as they parent their children in regards to commercial culture? 3) How can early childhood educators adapt pedagogy and practice in order to meet the needs of children growing up within the context of a commercialized childhood? In-depth unstructured interviews revealed that parents within this study tend to view themselves as solely responsible for their children and do not support governmental regulation of the advertising industry. In most cases, the parents in the study empathized with marketers trying to sell their products to children. Furthermore, while participants in this study were concerned about how consumer culture influences children’s subjectivities, they were more concerned about “adult content” than corporate access to children. Many of the parental perceptions uncovered mirror neoliberal discourses including an emphasis on individual responsibility, the belief that government regulation is censorship and the privileging of economic rationale by systematically representing children as sources of profit. This study utilized Deleuzean …
Date: May 2014
Creator: Wolff, Kenya E.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Child-Centered Play Therapy Parent Services: a Q-Methodological Investigation (open access)

Child-Centered Play Therapy Parent Services: a Q-Methodological Investigation

Child-centered play therapy (CCPT) is an empirically supported and developmentally appropriate counseling intervention for young children. Despite the clinical effectiveness of CCPT with children, no known study has been conducted in which parents were surveyed or interviewed regarding the services they have received as a part of their children’s participation in CCPT. Therefore, this study was designed to gain a better understanding of parents’ reported needs and expectations in CCPT. This study utilized Q-methodology in which participants completed a Q-sort by actively sorting 40 items on a continuum of least important to most important. Items included services and processes regarded by CCPT scholars and child therapy practitioners as being important to working with parents. Data was collected from 19 parents of children receiving CCPT services in a community-based counseling clinic. Participants included 16 females and 3 males; 15 Caucasian and 4 Hispanic; and 14 biological parents, 2 adoptive parents, and 3 other biological caregivers. Data was analyzed using centroid factor analysis, and results revealed a one factor solution representing 18 of the 19 participants. Eighteen parents reported similar beliefs regarding the processes they consider most and least important to their experience in working with child-centered play therapists. In general, parents’ …
Date: December 2014
Creator: Lee, Kasie R.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
House and Senate Floor and Committee Action to Reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 1966 to Present (open access)

House and Senate Floor and Committee Action to Reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 1966 to Present

The report provides vote information on comprehensive Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization bills that have been considered in the committees of jurisdiction or on the House or Senate floors since the enactment of No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB).
Date: October 22, 2014
Creator: Skinner, Rebecca R. & Loane, Shannon S.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Child Welfare: Federal Agencies Can Better Support State Efforts to Prevent and Respond to Sexual Abuse by School Personnel (open access)

Child Welfare: Federal Agencies Can Better Support State Efforts to Prevent and Respond to Sexual Abuse by School Personnel

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To help prevent the sexual abuse of students in public K-12 schools, 46 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia surveyed by GAO required background checks of applicants--such as teachers or bus drivers--seeking public school employment; however, the methods and sources varied widely. Forty-two states established professional standards or codes of conduct for school personnel, and 22 of those included information on appropriate boundaries between personnel and students. Although experts view awareness and prevention training on sexual abuse and misconduct as another key prevention tool, only 18 states reported in the survey that they require school districts to provide this training. However, two of six districts GAO visited provided training to school personnel, volunteers, and students in response to prior allegations of sexual misconduct by school personnel. These trainings covered a variety of topics, including recognizing the signs of abuse and misconduct."
Date: January 27, 2014
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA): Background and Funding (open access)

Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA): Background and Funding

The focus of this report is on the federal response to domestic violence under the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA). "Domestic violence" is used in the report to describe violence among intimate partners, including those involved in dating relationships.
Date: February 25, 2014
Creator: Fernandes-Alcantara, Adrienne L.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Perceptions of Family Vacation and Family Cohesion and the Moderating Effects of Parenting Style (open access)

Perceptions of Family Vacation and Family Cohesion and the Moderating Effects of Parenting Style

Family cohesion, or emotional bonding, is important to family functioning. Shared activities such as family vacations offer opportunities for strengthening the family unit which can improve cohesion. Additionally, parenting style has direct influence on the family unit and family cohesion. This study’s purpose was to assess to what extent the perception of the family vacation experience predicted the perception of family cohesion and whether that relationship was moderated by parenting style. An online survey was conducted, resulting in 97 adult participants responding to items regarding their last family vacation, family cohesion, and parenting style. Using hierarchical multiple regression, a medium effect size was found for the predictive ability of a participant’s perception of their last family vacation on family cohesion. Findings also indicated a negative correlation between an authoritarian parenting style and perception of family cohesion, but a positive relationship between the interaction of family vacation experience and authoritarian parenting to family cohesion. Stronger predictive abilities were found for those with children in the 3-11 age group. Results may encourage parent and family educators to use family vacation as a tool in assisting families with the processes of building strong and cohesive families.
Date: May 2014
Creator: Kruenegel-Farr, Debbie S.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Uncovering Gendered Teaching Practices in the Early Childhood Classroom (open access)

Uncovering Gendered Teaching Practices in the Early Childhood Classroom

For many early childhood teachers, interacting with children about issues concerning gender and sexuality is fraught with feelings of uneasiness and anxiety. For others, familiarity with research on these topics has resulted in rethinking their approaches to sex, gender, and sexuality in their early childhood classrooms. This inquiry examined the tensions associated with the researcher’s attempts to rethink gendered narratives and childhood sexuality in her own classroom. The study took place over the course of 4 months and involved a traditional public kindergarten classroom. Queer theory and feminist poststructuralism, along with a multi-voiced poststructural autoethnography were used to demonstrate the researcher’s shifting identities and the cultural context that shaped the researcher’s behaviors and perspective. Multivocal autoethnographic narratives were written to illustrate the researcher’s journey between trying on, being in, and becoming a feminist poststructural educator who uncovers and troubles gendered teaching practices in her own early childhood classroom. The following insights resulted from this study: young children actively and knowingly talk about gender and sexuality and do have a considerable amount of sexual knowledge; heterosexuality plays an integral part in children’s everyday experiences; and a lack of equity and inclusion associated with family diversity or queer identities exists in the …
Date: August 2014
Creator: Larremore, April, 1972-
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Children’s Experiences in the Therapeutic Relationship: Development and Validation of a Self-report Measure (open access)

Children’s Experiences in the Therapeutic Relationship: Development and Validation of a Self-report Measure

Most counselors agree that the therapeutic relationship is essential in counseling. However, the current evidence-based treatment movement has resulted in a focus on treatment protocols and techniques in outcome research. Researchers have called for the inclusion of relationship variables in future outcome research. Child-centered play therapy (CCPT) is an empirically-supported, developmentally responsive intervention for children that emphasizes building a therapeutic relationship based on the philosophy of person-centered theory. Exploring the impact of the relationship on CCPT outcomes would be beneficial, but no current quantitative measure exists for obtaining the child’s view of the therapeutic relationship. The purpose of this study was to create a developmentally appropriate instrument to measure children’s perceptions of the therapeutic relationship. Established instrument development procedures were followed to create the Relationship Inventory for Children (RIC), a 15-item instrument for use in outcome research that measures the child’s perspective of the therapeutic relationship. Participants were 33 child experts who participated in interviews and preliminary testing of the instrument as well as 100 children whose scores on the 31-item pilot instrument were submitted to exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Children (62% male) ranged in age from 6 to 9 years (M = 6.92) and 53% identified as Caucasian, 14% …
Date: August 2014
Creator: Purswell, Katherine E.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Sunset Commission Staff Report: Department of Family and Protective Services (open access)

Sunset Commission Staff Report: Department of Family and Protective Services

Report from the Sunset Advisory Commission regarding the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, including background information, issues and recommendations, and supplementary documentation.
Date: May 2014
Creator: Tripp, Amy; Nash, Carissa; Rencher, Faye; Simmons, Joel; Wood, Janet & Walraven, Joe
Object Type: Report
System: The Portal to Texas History
Shall We Dance? Teaching Parents the Communication Dance to Enhance Generalized Communication in Their Children (open access)

Shall We Dance? Teaching Parents the Communication Dance to Enhance Generalized Communication in Their Children

Children diagnosed with autism exhibit deficits in communication that impact their ability to control their immediate environment. Recent research on mand training has been criticized for producing a limited number of mand topographies over a long span of time with limited generalization to novel environments. There is a body of research, however, that successfully establishes larger repertoires. Training parents as change agents may mediate generalization by teaching under naturally maintaining contingencies. Additional effects of parent training may reduce parent reports of stress, increase favorable quality of parent-child interactions, and increase reports of parental self-efficacy. The current study evaluated the effects of a generalized training framework to teach parents how to target generalized mands and expand their child’s communicative topographies. The effects of the training were evaluated using a non-concurrent multiple baseline across participants and skills. Results indicated that parents were able to effectively teach their child to mand for a variety of items and events and to substantially increase the number of different mand topographies and expand the topographies the child emitted. Parents were observed to have higher overall confidence and lower overall stress following intervention. The current study builds on previous research on generalized teaching strategies for parents that …
Date: May 2014
Creator: Baker, Jacqueline R.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Social Security Disability Programs: SSA Could Take Steps to Improve Its Assessment of Continued Eligibility (open access)

Social Security Disability Programs: SSA Could Take Steps to Improve Its Assessment of Continued Eligibility

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Social Security Administration (SSA) reported in January 2014 that it is behind schedule in assessing the continued eligibility of recipients in its two disability programs, Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI),and has accumulated a backlog of 1.3 million continuing disability reviews (CDRs). From fiscal years 2000 to 2011, the numbers of adult and child CDRs conducted fell about 70 percent. Children make up about one fifth of all SSI recipients, and GAO reported in 2012 that many of their CDRs were overdue. For example, more than 24,000 CDRs for children with mental impairments were overdue by 6 or more years, including over 6,000 CDRs for children who were expected to medically improve within 6 to 18 months of their initial determination. GAO also identified several cases which exceeded their scheduled review date by 13 years or more. When CDRs are not conducted as scheduled, the potential for improper payments increases as some recipients receive benefits for which they are no longer eligible. In September 2011, SSA's Office of the Inspector General estimated that SSA had paid about $1.4 billion in SSI benefits to children who …
Date: April 9, 2014
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
Douglas Campbell: American Horn Pedagogue and Performer (open access)

Douglas Campbell: American Horn Pedagogue and Performer

While the word “pedagogue” may evoke a vision of an instructor who is dogmatic and set in his own ways, the word descends from Greek origins: ped “child” + agogos “leader.” A pedagogue is, by definition, literally the servant who escorts the child to and from school – the “pedagogue” accompanies the student on the journey for knowledge. True to this definition, Douglas Campbell is model pedagogue – one who gently guided his countless students throughout their musical journeys. As Professor of Music (Horn) at Michigan State University for 45 years, and Horn Instructor at Interlochen Arts Camp for 25 years, Campbell was a significant influence on many developing hornists. Following their study with him, Campbell's students eventually won orchestral and college teaching positions across the United States and throughout the world. Having influenced an extraordinary number of horn students during his tenures at Michigan State University and Interlochen Arts Camp, Douglas Campbell's life and career serve as an excellent example of contemporary horn pedagogy in the United States. This dissertation provides a detailed biography of Douglas Campbell and provides evidence of his contributions to American horn pedagogy, while documenting Campbell’s performing career with the Richards Quintet, which toured the …
Date: May 2014
Creator: Suchodolski, Heather Blase
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Low-Income Assistance Programs: Trends in Federal Spending (open access)

Low-Income Assistance Programs: Trends in Federal Spending

This report examines the spending trends of 10 major need-tested benefit programs or groups of programs: (1) health care from Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP); (2) the refundable portion of the health insurance tax credit enacted in the 2010 health care reform law; (3) the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); (4) assisted housing; (5) financial assistance for post-secondary students (Pell Grants); (6) compensatory education grants to school districts; (7) the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC); (8) the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC); (9) Supplemental Security Income (SSI); and (10) Family Support Payments.
Date: May 7, 2014
Creator: Falk, Gene
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Unaccompanied Alien Children: Potential Factors Contributing to Recent Immigration (open access)

Unaccompanied Alien Children: Potential Factors Contributing to Recent Immigration

This report begins by describing the recent surge in unaccompanied child apprehensions. It discusses several factors widely associated with out-migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The report then discusses three broad factors that may be attracting migrants to the United States: economic and educational opportunity, family reunification, and U.S. immigration policies. It concludes with caveats on the attribution of causes to this situation.
Date: July 3, 2014
Creator: Kandel, William A.; Bruno, Andorra; Meyer, Peter J.; Seelke, Clare Ribando; Taft-Morales, Maureen & Wasem, Ruth Ellen
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Ten Spurs, Volume 8, 2014 (open access)

Ten Spurs, Volume 8, 2014

Annual publication of The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference held by the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism. This volume includes the ten literary non-fiction pieces selected from the conference submissions as well as illustrations, author biographies, and additional commentary about the inspiration behind each of the stories.
Date: 2014
Creator: Getschow, George
Object Type: Journal/Magazine/Newsletter
System: The UNT Digital Library
Texas International Law Journal, Volume 49, Number 3, Summer 2014 (open access)

Texas International Law Journal, Volume 49, Number 3, Summer 2014

Journal containing "academic articles, essays, and student notes in the areas of public and private international law, international legal theory, the law of international organizations, comparative and foreign law, and domestic laws with significant international implications" (p. ii). This issue covers Investment Treaty Arbitration, English Commercial Law, ambiguous International Law, external equity investments, medical tourism, ICSID Convention, and International Child Abduction.
Date: Summer 2014
Creator: University of Texas at Austin. School of Law.
Object Type: Journal/Magazine/Newsletter
System: The Portal to Texas History
Texas WIC News, Volume 23, Number 4, July/August 2014 (open access)

Texas WIC News, Volume 23, Number 4, July/August 2014

Bimonthly newsletter of the Texas Department of State Health Services about topics related to the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. WIC is a nutritional program that provides education and councelling, nutritious foods, and help accessing health care to low-income women, infants, and children.
Date: July 2014
Creator: Texas. Bureau of WIC Nutrition.
Object Type: Journal/Magazine/Newsletter
System: The Portal to Texas History

Oral History Interview with Exie Jean Alaman Morne'y, February 26, 2014

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Interview with Exie Jean Alaman Morne'y, a teacher from Fort Worth, Texas, who lived during the end of the Jim Crow era. Morne'y discusses her family background, attending grade school in Fort Worth, experiences with segregation and discrimination in the 1950s and 60s, attending North Texas State College, working at Parkland Hospital, her marriages and children, moving to California and back to Texas, her career with Fort Worth ISD, church activities and faith, thoughts on child education, and various related stories. In appendix are photos of her high school yearbook and her family, a petition from the Como neighborhood for utilities services in 1924, and her typed family history.
Date: February 26, 2014
Creator: Travis, Sarah & Alaman Morne'y, Exie Jean
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Oral History Interview with John Buchanan, July 6, 2014 (open access)

Oral History Interview with John Buchanan, July 6, 2014

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with John Buchanan. Buchanan entered the workforce as a child and was not treated well by employers, but he felt for African-Americans workers who seemed to have it even worse. After joining the Navy in 1939, he attended diesel engine school. Buchanan was then assigned to the USS Cachalot (SS-170), working his way up to chief motor machinist's mate. On 7 December 1941, his submarine was docked, with its engine removed for repairs. It took 21 days to reassemble it and embark on their first patrol. Off Truk, a hollow tank vital to their surfacing ability was struck by a bomb. Buchanan became an expert in fuel-management, sustaining a 73-day patrol. After supporting the Battle of Midway, their final patrol was in the Aleutians. On the way home, the engine seized and Buchanan carefully studied blueprints to find a solution. After the war, his sub was converted to a teaching ship. When it was discovered a few years later that he could no longer hear due to his exposure to engines, Buchanan was discharged into the reserves.
Date: July 6, 2014
Creator: Buchanan, John
Object Type: Text
System: The Portal to Texas History
The (Mis)representation of the Middle East and Its People in K-8 Social Studies Textbooks: A Postcolonial Analysis (open access)

The (Mis)representation of the Middle East and Its People in K-8 Social Studies Textbooks: A Postcolonial Analysis

Critical examinations of cultural groups and the ways in which they are presented in schools are missing from current elementary and middle school curricula. Issues of this nature often fall under the umbrella of “multicultural education” or “cultural pedagogy,” but this rhetoric is dismissive in nature. Constructing the non-Western child as “culturally deprived,” “culturally disadvantaged,” or “at-risk” perpetuates an “us/colonizer” versus “them/colonized” mentality. The purpose of this study was to examine critically how the Middle East and its people are represented in U.S. social studies textbooks. Through the use of qualitative content analysis, 10 elementary and middle school social studies books from Florida, Texas, and Virginia were analyzed. Drawing largely from the postcolonial Orientalist work of Edward Said (1978/2003), this study unveiled the ways in which American public schools other children, specifically children of Middle Eastern or Arab descent. Othering occurs anytime an institution in power constructs a certain reality for a marginalized group of people.
Date: May 2014
Creator: Salman, Rania Camille
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Small Town America in World War II: War Stories From Wrightsville, Pennsylvania

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Historians acknowledge that World War II touched every man, woman, and child in the United States. In Small Town America in World War II, Ronald E. Marcello uses oral history interviews with civilians and veterans to explore how the citizens of Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, responded to the war effort. Interviews with citizens and veterans are organized in sections on the home front; the North African-Italian, European, and Pacific theatres; stateside military service; and occupation in Germany. Throughout Marcello provides introductions and contextual narrative on World War II as well as annotations for events and military terms. Overseas the citizens of Wrightsville turned into soldiers. A veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, Edward Reisinger, remembered, “Replacements had little chance of surviving. They were sent to the front one day, and the next day they were coming back with mattress covers over them.” Tanker Mervin Haugh recalls, “The next thing we knew, the German tanks attacked us. They knocked out five of our tanks quickly, and they all burned up in flames.”
Date: April 2014
Creator: Marcello, Ronald E.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Oral History Interview with John Buchanan, July 6, 2014 transcript

Oral History Interview with John Buchanan, July 6, 2014

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with John Buchanan. Buchanan entered the workforce as a child and was not treated well by employers, but he felt for African-Americans workers who seemed to have it even worse. After joining the Navy in 1939, he attended diesel engine school. Buchanan was then assigned to the USS Cachalot (SS-170), working his way up to chief motor machinist's mate. On 7 December 1941, his submarine was docked, with its engine removed for repairs. It took 21 days to reassemble it and embark on their first patrol. Off Truk, a hollow tank vital to their surfacing ability was struck by a bomb. Buchanan became an expert in fuel-management, sustaining a 73-day patrol. After supporting the Battle of Midway, their final patrol was in the Aleutians. On the way home, the engine seized and Buchanan carefully studied blueprints to find a solution. After the war, his sub was converted to a teaching ship. When it was discovered a few years later that he could no longer hear due to his exposure to engines, Buchanan was discharged into the reserves.
Date: July 6, 2014
Creator: Buchanan, John
Object Type: Sound
System: The Portal to Texas History