Jody S Nicholson

University of North Florida | UNF · Department of Psychology

Family mealtimes are associated with benefits for children, including healthy eating, fewer behavior problems, and healthy psychological well-being. However, the interactions during family mealtimes, and the parent and child characteristics, which may affect both the family mealtime environment and the associated benefits in children are not fully...

Background To address the rising prevalence of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, effective interventions that can be widely disseminated are warranted. The Preventing Alzheimer's with Cognitive Training study (PACT) investigates a commercially available computerized cognitive training program targeting improved Useful Field of View Trainin...

The Caregiver's Feeding Styles Questionnaire (CFSQ) is a well-established measure which uses scores along two dimensions of demandingness and responsiveness to classify low-income parents into one of four feeding style typologies (authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and uninvolved; Hughes, et al., 2005). The measure is widely used by researche...

Despite the demonstrated benefits of computerized cognitive training for older adults, little is known about the determinants of training behavior. We developed and tested scales to quantify expectations about such training, examine whether expectations predicted training adherence, and explore if training expectations changed from pre- to post-tra...

For decades, researchers across disciplines in the social and health sciences have sought to create theories of health behavior change that can be used to promote healthful change and inform intervention design and implementation. And although theory and research have made great progress in elucidating the predictors and processes affecting positiv...

Rooted in the work of community – school collaborations, this text focuses on connecting the rigors of the classroom with the ambiguity of lived community experience. Community-Based Transformational Learning (CBTL) draws on the increasing evidence that course-learning conducted in an applied, community setting, can positively transform students’ p...

Rooted in the work of community – school collaborations, this text focuses on connecting the rigors of the classroom with the ambiguity of lived community experience. Community-Based Transformational Learning (CBTL) draws on the increasing evidence that course-learning conducted in an applied, community setting, can positively transform students’ p...

Rooted in the work of community – school collaborations, this text focuses on connecting the rigors of the classroom with the ambiguity of lived community experience. Community-Based Transformational Learning (CBTL) draws on the increasing evidence that course-learning conducted in an applied, community setting, can positively transform students’ p...

Objective: To investigate whether preschoolers are able to identify and categorize foods, and whether their ability to classify food as healthy predicts their hypothetical food choice. Design: Structured interviews and body measurements with preschoolers, and teacher reports of classroom performance. Setting: Six Head Start centers in a large...

The current study examines variations in obesity classifications in two at-risk samples collected through Women, Infants, and Children and Head Start.

Introduction: In 2012, the Center for Disease Control announced children’s blood lead levels (BLLs) above 5 μg/dL should be provided assistance, as no level of lead exposure is safe. Method: A community-based randomized controlled trial targeting children from low-income families (BLLs: 3–9.9 μg/dL) was implemented utilizing educational and environ...

Children (n = 235) at several southeastern Head Start preschools were assessed at the end of the 2014-2015 school year, after completing a year-long nutrition curriculum. Children were able to identify unhealthy foods more often than healthy foods, could identify healthy foods correctly about half the time, and only chose to eat the healthy snacks...

The current study presents a brief-version of an existing Community-Service Attitudes Scale (CSAS; Shiarella, McCarthy, & Tucker, 2000) that is theoretically-grounded, psychometrically-sound, and empirically validated. Students (n = 544) participating in courses which required a service-learning component were administered the original CSAS and val...

Inherent in applied developmental sciences is the threat to validity and generalizability due to missing data as a result of participant dropout. The current paper provides an overview of how attrition should be reported, which tests can examine the potential of bias due to attrition (e.g., t-tests, logistic regression, Little’s MCAR test, sensitiv...

Matching theories about growth, development, and change to appropriate statistical models can present a challenge, which can result in misuse, misinterpretation, and underutilization of different analytical approaches. We discuss the use of derivatives: the change of a construct with respect to the change in another construct. Derivatives provide a...

Pediatric lead screener questions have previously been evaluated for their ability to identify children whose blood lead levels (BLLs) are greater than 10 µg/dL. Based on recent policy changes stressing that there is no safe BLL for children, the current study reevaluates the screener questions for their ability to identify children with BLLs less...

Introduction and Objectives: Research questions in the psychological sciences demand intensive longitudinal data collection, often spanning across childhood, across developmental periods, or even across the lifespan. Consequently, attrition is “virtually ubiquitous” in longitudinal studies (Graham, 2009, pg. 567), which could influence interpretati...

Teaching students about theorists, and conveying their importance, is difficult. Students find learning about theories dry, may not understand their true importance in our science, and fail to see the application to everyday topics. Professors have attempted to highlight the relevance of theories, and improve student engagement, through activate le...

Youth may be particularly attuned to social evaluation during the teen years with implications for physical and mental health. Negative attitudes and stereotypes constitute an important type of social evaluative threat. Pregnant and parenting teens not only encounter challenges associated with their early transition to parenthood, but also are conf...

Introduction: The current study examined home and full (i.e., home plus car) smoking ban adoption as secondary outcomes to a randomized controlled trial targeting reduced secondhand smoke exposure (SHSe) for children under treatment for cancer. Methods: Families with at least 1 adult smoker who reported SHSe for their children (n = 119) were ran...

Introduction Adolescents with cancer are susceptible to the health consequences associated with secondhand smoke exposure (SHSE) and tobacco use. The present study compared tobacco use, exposure, and risk factors between patients and population peers. Method Self-reported data on tobacco use, SHSE, and tobacco-related risk factors were drawn from...

Whether glamorised or stigmatised, teenage parenthood is all too often used to stand for a host of social problems, and empirical research results ignored. Identifying core controversies surrounding teen pregnancy and parenting, this book resolves misperceptions using findings from large-scale, longitudinal, and qualitative research studies from th...

Introduction: Pregnant and parenting teens have been perceived by practitioners, policymakers, the media, and even researchers as possessing characteristics that constrain their future potential and the development of their children. These stereotyped misperceptions may lead to more generalized beliefs or “cultural myths.” Using a systems perspecti...

Few studies have examined adolescent reporting accuracy for secondhand smoke exposure (SHSe), and never for youth with cancer. SHSe reporting from adolescents being treated for cancer (M age=14.92 years, SD=1.67) was examined against parent/guardian reports and urine cotinine among 42 adolescent-parent dyads. Number of days in hospital-based lodgin...

This randomized controlled trial tested the efficacy of parent-based behavioral counseling for reducing secondhand smoke exposure (SHSe) among children with cancer. It also examined predictors of smoking and SHSe outcomes. Participants were 135 parents or guardians of nonsmoking children with cancer, <18 years, at least 30 days postdiagnosis, and l...

Many applied statistical problems address how the change in one variable is related to change in another variable. While the change of one variable with respect to another is the very definition of a derivative, the language of derivatives is not commonplace among social scientists. In this chapter we present derivatives as a language framework tha...

Children with cancer are at greater risk for the negative consequences of secondhand smoke exposure, making the identification of predictors of exposure critical. The current study investigated the impact of parents' psychosocial variables (perceived stress and vulnerability, self-efficacy), as well as health-related and demographic variables, on c...

This study assessed the secondary effects of a parent training intervention program on maternal adjustment, with a focus on understanding ways in which program efficacy differed for participants as a function of whether or not their children had behavior problems. Mothers (N = 99) of toddlers (2-3 years of age) were randomly assigned to receive one...

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and conduct disorder are the most common forms of psychopathology seen among community youth. This study investigated prospective symptomatology of these disruptive behavior disorders from ages 5 though 14 in an at-risk community-based sample of 170 boys and girls born to adol...

The present study investigated reciprocal relationships between adolescent mothers and their children's well-being through an analysis of the coupling relationship of mothers' depressive symptomatology and children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Unlike studies using discrete time analyses, the present study used dynamical systems to m...

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In this paper, we propose that basic and applied research in the areas of intelligence, education, and cognition can be significantly advanced by a focus on executive functioning (EF). We present our perspective on the nature of EF, show its centrality in understanding applied cognition, and develop a research agenda that would advance the scope of...