Overview of a Life Skills Coaching Program for Adults on the Autism Spectrum: Coaches' Perspectives.

There is considerable need to identify effective service provision models to support adults on the autism spectrum as they seek to lead independent lives. This study outlines an individualized life skills coaching program for adults with autism, "LifeMAP", and the experiences and perspectives of the coaches. Responses on a tailored questionnaire provided detailed insight into how the coaches were performing their job, the strategies they utilized, reasons for client success and difficulty, challenges faced by the coaches, and ways they were supported by program staff. Coaches' job self-efficacy and satisfaction were also examined. This study serves as a preliminary examination of individualized coaching for adults with autism from the coaches' perspective.

Development of the Resistance and Empowerment Against Racism (REAR) Scale.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to develop and validate the Resistance and Empowerment Against Racism (REAR) scale. METHOD: Fifty items developed through processes adapted from Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) were administered to a sample of 723 women and 230 men of color (Asian Americans, Black Americans, Latinx, and Native Americans). We employed exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using stratified subsamples; examined construct validity of the final REAR scale and subscales; and evaluated 2-week test-retest reliability with a subsample. RESULTS: Analyses supported a four-factor model, including Awareness and Relational Resistance; Participation in Resistance Activities and Organizations; Interpersonal Confrontation; and Leadership for Resistance. The REAR demonstrated good test-retest and internal reliability and construct validity. CONCLUSIONS: Use of the REAR may enable researchers and clinicians to examine how people of color proactively respond to racism through empowered action to challenge racism, and how these responses may moderate the negative effects of racism on psychological well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

College Students' Knowledge and Attitudes Towards Students on the Autism Spectrum.

Young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are attending university in increasing numbers. The importance of acceptance from peers and integration into the university have been recognized as key factors for success. We examined university students' knowledge and attitudes towards students with ASD, underlying factors that contributed to such attitudes, and whether attitudes changed across two cohorts 5-years apart. The later cohort demonstrated greater knowledge and more positive attitudes toward students with ASD compared to students in the first cohort. However, knowledge was not found to be a significant predictor of attitudes and many students who were knowledgeable about ASD still reported negative attitudes toward participating in university and classroom based activities with students with ASD.

Family homework and school-based sex education: delaying early adolescents' sexual behavior.

BACKGROUND: Early sexual activity can undermine adolescents' future school success and health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to assess the role of a family homework component of a comprehensive sex education intervention in delaying sexual initiation for early adolescents and to explore what social and contextual factors prevent adolescents from completing these family homework activities. METHODS: This mixed methods study included 6th- and 7th-grade survey responses from 706 students at 11 middle school schools receiving a sex education intervention, as well as interviews from a subset of 33, 7th-grade students from the larger sample. RESULTS: Adolescents who completed more family homework assignments were less likely to have vaginal intercourse in 7th grade than those who completed fewer assignments, after controlling for self-reports of having had vaginal intercourse in 6th grade and demographic variables. Participants' explanations for not completing assignments included personal, curriculum, and family-based reasons. CONCLUSIONS: Family homework activities designed to increase family communication about sexual issues can delay sex among early adolescents and contribute to school-based sex education programs. Successful sex education programs must identify and address barriers to family homework completion.

Youth Top Problems: using idiographic, consumer-guided assessment to identify treatment needs and to track change during psychotherapy.

OBJECTIVE: To complement standardized measurement of symptoms, we developed and tested an efficient strategy for identifying (before treatment) and repeatedly assessing (during treatment) the problems identified as most important by caregivers and youths in psychotherapy. METHOD: A total of 178 outpatient-referred youths, 7-13 years of age, and their caregivers separately identified the 3 problems of greatest concern to them at pretreatment and then rated the severity of those problems weekly during treatment. The Top Problems measure thus formed was evaluated for (a) whether it added to the information obtained through empirically derived standardized measures (e.g., the Child Behavior Checklist [CBCL; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001] and the Youth Self-Report [YSR; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001]) and (b) whether it met conventional psychometric standards. RESULTS: The problems identified were significant and clinically relevant; most matched CBCL/YSR items while adding specificity. The top problems also complemented the information yield of the CBCL/YSR; for example, for 41% of caregivers and 79% of youths, the identified top problems did not correspond to any items of any narrowband scales in the clinical range. Evidence on test-retest reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, sensitivity to change, slope reliability, and the association of Top Problems slopes with standardized measure slopes supported the psychometric strength of the measure. CONCLUSIONS: The Top Problems measure appears to be a psychometrically sound, client-guided approach that complements empirically derived standardized assessment; the approach can help focus attention and treatment planning on the problems that youths and caregivers consider most important and can generate evidence on trajectories of change in those problems during treatment.

Stages of change and the group treatment of batterers: a randomized clinical trial.

A stages-of-change motivational interviewing (SOCMI) treatment approach was compared with a standard cognitive behavioral therapy gender reeducation (CBTGR) approach in a sample of 528 English-speaking and Spanish-speaking male batterers who were randomly assigned to 49 26-week groups in either condition. Blind ratings of therapist adherence differentiated the two conditions. Language spoken neither predicted outcome nor interacted with treatment. The SOCMI curriculum led to significant reductions in female partners' reports of physical aggression at follow-up, but not to changes in self-reported aggression. Men who were initially less ready to change benefited more from the SOCMI approach while men who were more ready to change benefited more from the CBTGR approach. Results suggest the importance of tailoring abuser intervention programs to individuals' initial readiness to change.

The relations among maternal depression, maternal criticism, and adolescents' externalizing and internalizing symptoms.

This study examined the relations between maternal criticism and externalizing and internalizing symptoms in adolescents who varied in their risk for psychopathology. Both maternal-effects and child-effects models were examined. The sample consisted of 194 adolescents (mean age = 11.8 years) and their mothers; 146 mothers had a history of depressive disorders and 48 did not. When adolescents were in 6th and 8th grade, maternal criticism was measured with the five-minute speech sample and adolescents' symptoms were assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist. Maternal criticism was significantly associated with both adolescents' externalizing and internalizing symptoms, beyond the contribution of the chronicity/severity of mothers' depression history. Maternal criticism did not mediate the relation between maternal depression and adolescent symptoms. In contrast, adolescent externalizing behaviors mediated the relation between chronicity/severity of maternal depression history and maternal criticism in 6th grade. Prospective analyses showed that adolescents' externalizing symptoms in 6th grade significantly predicted maternal criticism in 8th grade, controlling for maternal depression history and prior maternal criticism. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of examining child-effects models in studies of maternal criticism.