Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) is a training program designed to help adults working with children and adolescents identify and respond to youth who are experiencing mental health problems or are in crisis. YMHFA is being implemented in a number of educational, child welfare, and juvenile justice settings across the country with little…

Outdoor activities can be an important complement to classroom learning, especially for children/young people excluded, or at risk of exclusion, from mainstream schooling. The current research explored the impact of a 12-week surfing programme among such a group in the UK. Pre-post data on physiological health (heart rate (HR)/blood pressure),…

The purpose of this study was to validate a procedure for sufficient exemplar training that can potentially lead to generalized responding. Based on this procedure, we taught four children with autism, generalized use of regular past tense verbs. We applied a non-concurrent multiple baseline design across the participants. The dependent variable…

Sociopolitical consciousness refers to an individual's ability to critically analyze the political, economic, and social forces shaping society and one's status in it. A growing body of scholarship reports that high levels of sociopolitical consciousness are predictive in marginalized adolescents of a number of key outcomes including resilience…

The current study examined the effectiveness of a social skills treatment (PEERS) for improving socio-emotional competencies in a sample of high-functioning adolescents with ASD. Neuropsychological and self- and parent-report measures assessing social, emotional, and behavioral functioning were administered before and after treatment. Following…

The goal of this study is to gain insight into the effects of context on educational game experience. Using a quasi-experimental setup, it compares the playing and learning experiences of adolescent players of the awareness-raising game PING in a domestic (N=135) and a school (N=121) context. Results indicate that both gaming (identification,…

Both scientists and policy-makers emphasize the importance of education for influencing pro-environmental behavior and minimizing the effects of climate change on biological and physical systems. Education has the potential to impact students' system knowledge--their understanding of the variables that affect the climate system--and action…

With roots in experiential education and Outward Bound, wilderness therapy (WT) is a growing field of mental health care for youth. WT uses outdoor modalities combined with therapeutic interventions to assist youth to promote clinical changes. Previous research has shown it to be effective in improving the mental health of clients; however, little…

There is a need for psychometrically sound measures of youth experiences of community/home leisure activity settings. The 22-item Self-Reported Experiences of Activity Settings (SEAS) captures the following experiences of youth with a Grade 3 level of language comprehension or more: Personal Growth, Psychological Engagement, Social Belonging,…

This two-study report investigates achievement goal theory in the social domain to gain greater understanding of how the social climate of outdoor courses relates to peer interactions. In Study 1, we used mixed methods to examine how adolescents experienced the social climate of weeklong outdoor courses and how those perceptions related to peer…

Using an interdisciplinary approach to water resource education, 4-H Youth Development and Environmental Extension agents enlisted 4-H teens to connect local watershed education with social action. Teens participated in a dynamic service learning project that included learning about nonpoint source pollution; constructing, decorating, and teaching…

Individuals with High Functioning ASD's (HFA) often have difficulties with adaptive functioning. Due to these deficits in independent functioning, many individuals with High-Functioning ASD's have limitations in adulthood. This study investigated if individuals with HFA would have a greater likelihood of learning independent adaptive daily living…

The aim of this study was to assess the outcome of a zoo visit in terms of learning and retention of knowledge concerning the adaptations and behavior of vertebrate species. Basis of the work was the concept of implementing zoo visits as an out-of-school setting for formal, curriculum based learning. Our theoretical framework centers on the…

Academic underachievement, a syndrome affecting nearly 50% of gifted adolescents across gender, race, and socioeconomic strata, has fueled research for decades, in an attempt to identify its antecedents, characteristics, and consequences on the individual and on society. The research bridges fields of inquiry that converge in the area of human…

The inability to navigate independently and interact with the wider world is one of the most significant handicaps that can be caused by blindness, second only to the inability to communicate through reading and writing. Many difficulties are encountered when visually impaired people (VIP) need to visit new and unknown places. Current speech or…