Mindfulness Interventions for College Students with ADHD: A Multiple Single Case Research Design

A multiple single case research design (SCRD) was used to examine two mindfulness interventions (MBSR and Vipassana meditation). Impacted symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), psychological distress, mindfulness, and treatment satisfaction in college students were examined via single subject and group analyses. Results indicated that 57% of the seven-person sample evidenced decreases in ADHD symptoms, 72% decreased in distress, 72% increased on the trait measure of mindfulness, and treatment satisfaction was high. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.     

Clinical Anatomy and Unexpected Careers: Is There Curriculum for That?

Reduction in faculty positions in higher education and increased graduate matriculation rates represent a higher education conundrum. Planned happenstance theory (PHT) is a career development model focusing on positive outcomes resulting from unpredictable precareer events. This mixed methods study explores how PHT applies to the career paths of a clinical anatomy (CA) postgraduate cohort. It provides insight into educational practices designed to equip students for labor markets inside and outside academia. Alumni of CA (n = 12; 2014-2018) were interviewed about career-related events transpiring from graduate studies to present, allowing exploration on how PHT contextualizes their shared experiences. Planned happenstance career inventory (PHCI) enumerated planned happenstance skill (PHS) scores. Total PHS was referenced 527 times across 12 interviews. Of the PHS references, curiosity established highest incidence (154 references, 29%), optimism (132 references, 25%), flexibility (101 references, 19%), risk-taking (85 references, 16%), and persistence (55 references, 10%) and 43 distinct happenstance events were documented. In addition, social networking (52 references) arose as an emergent code and was divided into internal networking (28 references, 54%) and external networking (24 references, 46%). Application of the five-point PHCI scale revealed: curiosity (4.4 ± 0.3; mean ± SD), flexibility (3.6 ± 0.7), persistence (4.4 ± 0.3), optimism (4.3 ± 0.4), and risk-taking (4.1 ± 0.5). Curiosity had the strongest association with happenstance event incidence. Social networking was a key substituent of PHT not yet described in the literature. Educational practices incorporating PHT concepts, with emphasis on curiosity, may provide graduates novel metacognitive skills needed to develop novel career paths.     

Individualizing Student Instruction Precisely: Effects of Child × Instruction Interactions on First Graders' Literacy Development

Recent findings demonstrate that the most effective reading instruction may vary with children's language and literacy skills. These Child × Instruction interactions imply that individualizing instruction would be a potent strategy for improving students' literacy. A cluster-randomized control field trial, conducted in 10 high-moderate poverty schools, examined effects of individualizing literacy instruction. The instruction each first grader received ( n = 461 in 47 classrooms, mean age = 6.7 years) during fall, winter, and spring was recorded. Comparing intervention-recommended amounts of instruction with observed amounts revealed that intervention teachers individualized instruction more precisely than did comparison teachers. Importantly, the more precisely the children received recommended amounts of instruction, the stronger was their literacy skill growth. Results provide strong evidence of Child × Instruction interaction effects on literacy outcomes.     

Effective Classroom Instruction: Implications of Child Characteristics by Reading Instruction Interactions on First Graders' Word Reading Achievement

Too many children fail to learn how to read proficiently with serious consequences for their overall well-being and long term success in school. This may be because providing effective instruction is more complex than many of the current models of reading instruction portray; there are child characteristic by instruction (CXI) interactions. Here we present efficacy results for a randomized control field trial of the Individualizing Student Instruction (ISI) intervention, which relies on dynamic system forecasting intervention models to recommend amounts of reading instruction for each student, taking into account CXI interactions that consider his or her vocabulary and reading skills. The study, conducted in seven schools with 25 teachers and 396 first graders, revealed that students in the ISI intervention classrooms demonstrated significantly greater reading skill gains by spring than did students in control classrooms. Plus, they were more likely to receive differentiated reading instruction based on CXI interaction guided recommended amounts than were students in control classrooms. The precision with which students received the recommended amounts of each type of literacy instruction, the distance from recommendation, also predicted reading outcomes.     

Spontaneous Self‐Distancing and Adaptive Self‐Reflection Across Adolescence

Experiments performed primarily with adults show that self‐distancing facilitates adaptive self‐reflection. However, no research has investigated whether adolescents spontaneously engage in this process or whether doing so is linked to adaptive outcomes. In this study, 226 African American adolescents, aged 11–20, reflected on an anger‐related interpersonal experience. As expected, spontaneous self‐distancing during reflection predicted lower levels of emotional reactivity by leading adolescents to reconstrue (rather than recount) their experience and blame their partner less. Moreover, the inverse relation between self‐distancing and emotional reactivity strengthened with age. These findings highlight the role that self‐distancing plays in fostering adaptive self‐reflection in adolescence, and begin to elucidate the role that development plays in enhancing the benefits of engaging in this process.