Challenges associated with poverty, limited resources, and cultural norms affect both educational and life outcomes for learners in Zambia and other African countries. Many families cannot afford school fees, uniforms, or other educational expenses or requirements. Girls often face greater barriers to education than boys, as cultural norms…

The COVID-19 pandemic had an immediate negative impact on young people worldwide. However, there is a paucity of research examining the factors associated with good mental health, and specifically the factors that contributed to longer-term positive outcomes. This study aimed to identify the protective factors among early adolescents in the United…

Being bullied is associated with anxiety, depression symptoms, and long-term negative health outcomes. The aim of this qualitative pilotstudy was to explore bullied children's experiences of support groups and how participating in a group affected the children. The sample consisted of 24 children aged 11-13 years. Four of them were bullied, while…

The alexithymia hypothesis posits that specific aspects of the autistic socio-cognitive profile, namely emotion recognition difficulties, can be explained by the increased prevalence of alexithymia in autistic populations. However, this hypothesis has largely been tested in adults. We tested whether co-occurring alexithymia could account for…

The OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES) highlights critical patterns in students' social-emotional development, particularly during early adolescence. It underscores the decline in competencies among 10- to 15-year-olds, with pronounced differences influenced by gender, socioeconomic status, and regional factors. These insights…

This study aims to investigates the design and development of Immersive Virtual Reality Systems (IVRS) to enhance social interaction and communication skills among children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Thailand. Given the challenges of limited access to specialized care, the IVRS platform offers an innovative, home-based alternative for…

Objective: Children's lifestyle behaviours significantly affect childhood obesity. The impact of a body mass index reduction intervention applied to secondary school students on their eating behaviour, physical activity, sleep quality and obesity was in the focus of this research. Method: A quasi-experimental pre-post design was employed. The…

Parent-child cohesion, peer acceptance, and teacher emotional support are critical environmental protective factors that influence bullying behavior. The present study aimed to explore the bidirectional associations between these protective factors and bullying perpetration/victimization, as well as the mediating roles of cognitive empathy and…

The purpose of the current study is to reveal the perception of group counselors regarding children's social emotional skills with a focus on art therapy. In this study, a partially mixed simultaneous equal-status design from mixed design models was used. The study group of the research consisted of 10-11-year-old students (n: 28, female: 14,…

Background: Measurement of nutrition knowledge is common in interventions targeting dietary modifications in a school-based setting. Previous research has noted a general lack of disclosure regarding the details and psychometric properties of nutrition knowledge tools, which makes uptake of previously used instruments extremely difficult. Methods:…

This case-control study compared dietary sugar exposure and oral health status between children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), aged 5-12 years (n = 136, each). Data regarding socio-demographics, child's oral hygiene practices and behavior, diet-related behavior, oral habits and dental trauma were obtained. Child's diet on the…

This study examined the effect of Pivotal response treatment (PRT) to improve verbal initiations in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, age 6-12 years old, using a Randomized Clinical Trial design. Intervention was conducted three times a week for 2 months, for a total of 24 one-hour sessions. The PRT intervention taught a variety of questions…

Math attitudes are related to achievement, yet we do not know how the brain supports changes in math attitudes. 51 children (54.9% female, 45.1% male; 37.3% White, 33.3% Black, 11.8% Latino, 5.9% Asian, 11.8% Other) solved a multiplication task inside the scanner when they were approximately 11 (time 1; T1) and 13 (time 2; T2) years old (i.e.,…

Research demonstrates strong associations between psychosocial factors (motivation, attitudes, beliefs), outside of class behavior, and second language (L2) learning, particularly reading achievement [Briggs and Walter 2016. "Read On! Extensive Reading and Young Second Language Learners' Motivation and Attitudes;" Masgoret and Gardner…

The current research was designed in order to investigate the differences in hope, gratitude and psychological well-being in mothers of children with and without hearing impairment. This is hypothesised that there is likely to be significant differences in hope, gratitude and psychological well-being in mothers of children with and without hearing…