Myra F. Taylor

A Comparison of Teachers' and Parents' Knowledge and Beliefs About Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

The Knowledge about Attention Deficit Disorder Questionnaire (KADD-Q) was administered to 256 teachers and 92 parents. Statistical analysis revealed the KADD-Q to be an internally consistent measure of teachers’ and parents’ knowledge of ADHD. Findings demonstrated that the levels of teachers’ and parents’ knowledge about the causes of ADHD was significantly higher than their knowledge of the characteristics of ADHD, which in turn was significantly higher than their knowledge about treatment. When the total scores of teachers and parents were compared, the latter scored significantly higher. Although there were no significant differences in teachers’ and parents’ levels of knowledge about the Characteristics of ADHD, parents scored significantly higher than teachers on the Causes and Treatment subscales of the KADD-Q. The findings also revealed that misconceptions about ADHD are evident among parents and teachers, but that professional development is significant in increasing knowledge.

To Medicate or Not to Medicate? The Decision-making Process of Western Australian Parents Following Their Child's Diagnosis with an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

This article examines the decision‐making processes that Western Australian parents utilise when deciding whether to medicate or not to medicate their child diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Thirty‐three parents (five fathers and 28 mothers) from a wide range of socio‐economic status suburbs in Perth, Western Australia were interviewed. A grounded theory of “doing right by my child” emerged from the data. In seeking to be doing right by their child, parents move through the three distinct stages of grieving, cynicism, and proactive parenting. During the grieving process, parents come to terms with their child’s diagnosis. The grieving process comprises seven sub‐stages—those of denying the diagnosis, seeking alternative treatments, venting anger, experiencing emotional turmoil, expressing remorse, feeling depressed, and reaching a guarded acceptance. Although their ease of traverse through each of these first six sub‐stages is largely dependent on the level of support they receive, the majority of parents eventually reach a guarded acceptance of their child’s diagnosis and confront the issue of whether or not to medicate their child. In Stage 2 parents express their cynicism about society’s dichotomous attitude towards ADHD and the use of medication as a treatment option, and in Stage 3 they adopt a proactive approach to their parenting.

Lifting the Domestic Violence Cloak of Silence: Resilient Australian Women’s Reflected Memories of their Childhood Experiences of Witnessing Domestic Violence

Recognition is growing that childhood witnessing of domestic violence is tantamount to child abuse due to the damage the experience may have on the witnessing child’s long-term emotional and social wellbeing. This paper helps to lift the cloak of silence that surrounds the child witnessing phenomenon by presenting the recollected adult memories of six female former child witnesses. Utilizing a mixed case-study and consensual qualitative research design, the study’s findings reveal that the potential threat to a child witness’s immediate and long-term wellbeing can be mediated through the progressive development of a range of adaptive coping strategies. Of these, the strategy of establishing a safe place and a supportive relationship outside of the abusive nuclear family home seems pivotal to the witnessing child’s resilient ability to move on and lead a ‘rewarding’ adult life. The paper closes with a discussion on how the research findings can be progressed.

Addicted to the Risk, Recognition and Respect that the Graffiti Lifestyle Provides: Towards an Understanding of the Reasons for Graffiti Engagement

This paper, details from an educational perspective the reasons graffitists give for their involvement in graffiti. Data gathered from interviews, web-blogs and newspaper reports were analysed within the grounded theory tradition allowing the core category of, addicted to the risk, recognition and respect that the graffiti lifestyle provides to emerge. In this regard, adolescent graffiti-writers contend that sustained involvement in graffiti-writing provides a rush experience, which over time becomes addictive as it rewards them with a non-conforming social identity, recognitional status, and the highly-prized graffiti-writer reputation. However, as they move out of adolescence into early adulthood, the addictive rushes previously gained from engagement in illegal high-risk acts of graffiti tagging, they claim, morphs into an obsessive desire for obtaining community respect. Thus, the outcome of the study suggests that the issue of graffiti-proliferation goes beyond the confines of educational/criminological research and enters the sphere of mental health, opening up different treatment options for recidivist graffiti-writers.

Responding to Interpersonal and Physically Provoking Situations in Classrooms: Emotional intensity in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

The present research investigated the emotional functioning of children with and without Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), in order to examine the relationships between emotional intensity and classroom‐based responses to physically and interpersonally provoking situations. Seventy children (35 with ADHD and 35 without ADHD) in Years 3–8 participated and were matched on age, gender, grade, and school class. Each child was observed individually in the classroom over two 20‐min periods. The Responses to Interpersonal and Physically Provoking Situations Observation Schedule was used to record the frequency and severity of responses and the triggers for these during the observational periods. Children later rated their emotional intensity in response to hypothetical scenarios on the Emotional Intensity Scale for Children. Results revealed children with ADHD displayed significantly more frequent and severe challenging and solitary off‐task behaviours, and significantly more frequent vocalisations and severe interactional off‐task behaviours. For triggers, environmental and teacher‐initiated distractions were significantly more frequently observed in children with ADHD. There were no differences in ratings of emotional intensity between children with and without ADHD, although a number of significant and meaningful correlations were observed between positive emotional intensity scores and responses and triggers.

Skate-park builds, teenaphobia and the adolescent need for hang-out spaces: the social utility and functionality of urban skate parks

This paper details perspectives of skateboarders on the utility and functionality of skate-parks in Western Australia. To this end, skateboarder interview data and skate-park audit data are triangulated in a mixed-method research design. The studys findings reveal that skateboarders believe adults view them as being anti-social deviant youth and their leisure pursuit of skateboarding as an undesirable pastime that requires regulation. Skateboarders also contend that as urban skate-parks double up as youth hang-out spaces, vocal adult opponents of skate-park builds often petition for them to be situated in places that do not offend public sensibilities. It is hypothesized that this social marginalization of skateboarders within the community underpins the current poor provisioning of skateboarding facilities.

Responses to Interpersonal and Physically Provoking Situations : The utility and application of an observation schedule for school-aged students with and without attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder

The present research describes the development and pilot testing of a new instrument, the Responses to Interpersonal and Physically Provoking Situations Schedule (RIPPS), designed to measure the reactivity of students with and without attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) in the naturalistic setting of the classroom. For this study, 29 pre‐service teachers from one university graduate school of education conducted structured observations on two students each, one clinically diagnosed student with AD/HD and the other with no diagnosed disorder, resulting in 58 Year 8–11 students (aged 13–17 years) participating in the study. Each student pair was observed for 40 minutes, with alternating observational blocks of two minutes per student. Observational data in the form of responses to emotionally provoking events and the triggers to the responses were clustered together and systematically coded, resulting in four distinct categories for responses and four distinct categories for triggers. Students with AD/HD exhibited significantly more solitary off‐task behaviours, interactional off‐task behaviours, and challenging behaviours than their non‐AD/HD peers. There were no differences between the students in the perceived severity of responses. For triggers, failure to begin assigned tasks and peer‐initiated triggers were the most common, with nearly half of the solitary off‐task behaviours being attributed to environmental distractions and over a quarter attributed to teacher behaviours. While the RIPPS is a relatively new instrument, important data have been gathered in ecologically valid contexts and provide the framework for further development of an instrument of this nature.

Treating Comorbid Anxiety in Adolescents With ADHD Using a Cognitive Behavior Therapy Program Approach

Objective: To evaluate an 8-week cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) treatment specifically designed for adolescents with ADHD and comorbid anxiety. Method: Using a multiple baseline design, nine adolescents (13 years to 16 years 9 months) received a weekly CBT, which focused on four identified anxiety-arousing times. Participants self-recorded their levels of anxiety for each of the four times during baseline, intervention, and a maintenance phase. Anxiety was also assessed using the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC). Results: Paired samples t tests supported the success of the intervention. Interrupted time-series data for each participant revealed varying rates of success across the four times, however. The MASC data revealed significant reductions in Physical Symptoms of Anxiety, Social Anxiety, Separation Anxiety, Harm Avoidance, and Total Anxiety. Conclusion: The data demonstrate the efficacy of a CBT program for the treatment of comorbid anxiety in adolescents with ADHD.

To Bully or Not to Bully, that Is Not the Question: Western Australian Early Adolescents' in Search of a Reputation.

Twenty-eight early adolescent boys and girls suspended from school for bullying provided accounts of the importance of reputation in their daily lives, specifically how they initiated, promoted, and then maintained their reputation through bullying. Overall, bullying was a deliberate choice perpetrated to attain a nonconforming reputation and was initially promoted through visibility of physical bullying. These actions became more covert, particularly among girls, during the promotion phase. Sex differences were most marked in the maintenance phase. Although both boys and girls used cyber bullying to deliberately induce a sense of apprehension and fear, boys also deliberately damaged their victim’s houses and gardens outside of school hours to induce a greater sense of fear and hence maintain their nonconforming reputation.

“There's really no other option”: Italian Australians’ Experiences of Caring for a Family Member With Dementia

Dementia is a gradual and progressively degenerative disease that is accompanied by challenging changes in the affected persons emotions and presenting behaviors. Caring for an individual with dementia is globally recognized as being a considerable burden. This article employed an interpretive phenomenological analytic approach to examine the caregiving experiences of nine Italian Australian caregivers residing in Perth, Western Australia. The findings reveal that the Italian communitys familism values directly impact on the ability of predominantly female caregivers to access informal and formal dementia support care. The wider implications of this finding are discussed in relation to culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) caregivers.