What Are We Missing? How Language Impacts Trauma Narratives.

The potential for the development of psychopathology in aolescent refugees and asylees is high due to the trauma inherent in their experience. Yet, psychopathology rooted in trauma has proven amenable to treatment. Nonetheless, as most clinicians are monolingual, the language difference between clinician and client may be a barrier of desensitization and processing typically characteristic of trauma therapy. Thus, this study aimed to describe qualitative differences in speech production among native and non-native narratives using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) processing software (Pennebaker et al. 2015) to understand if the current best practice will function similarly in these populations. We compared 10 adolescent immigrants (50% male) who narrated events that provoked their migration to the U.S. in their second language (L2; i.e., English) to 10 age- and gender-matched adolescents narrating in their first language (L1; i.e., Spanish). Results revealed L1 narratives were significantly higher in their use of/talk about anger, cognitive processes, discrepancy, tentativeness, perceptual processes, ingestion, relativity, time, work, and home. L2 narratives were higher in their use of/talk about positive emotions, death, causation, health, motion, space, and fillers. Findings have implications for the efficacy of treatments using discourse to ameliorate symptoms related to trauma in non-native languages.

Contribution of schools to mental health and resilience in recently immigrated youth.

Given the high risk of psychopathology among recently immigrated Central American adolescents, the aim of this study was to examine several putative protective factors: parental attachment, peer attachment, and school engagement. Based on prior research with other immigrant groups, parental and peer attachment were expected to correlate with reduced mental health problems, increased prosocial behavior, and increased resilience. However, the current study sought to add to existing data regarding putative protective factors by testing the incremental contribution of school engagement over and above existing support from parents and peers. The present study included 78 recently immigrated adolescents from Central America who were enrolled at a public high school for recent immigrants. Findings revealed that school engagement made a significant, positive contribution to mental health and resilience for youth above and beyond the effects of parental and peer attachment. Specifically, school engagement (i.e., subscales Behavioral Engagement, Emotional Disaffection, and Active Behavioral Disaffection) uniquely contributed to models predicting externalizing psychopathology, prosocial behavior, and resilience. In sum, the findings of this study preliminarily suggest that fostering school engagement may have protective effects for recently immigrated youth above and beyond traditional (i.e., peer, family) supports. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).