Shannon Jarrott

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor at The Ohio State University

Co-location nursing homes with childcare services has gained recognition for fostering positive intergenerational relationships. Researchers have identified benefits to individual participants, but little attention has been paid to organizational outcomes. Using econometrics methods, we analyzed historical data of all 19,641 unique US nursing homes...

Students pursuing social sciences degrees because of a desire to improve individual, family, and community circumstances should learn how policy impacts their efforts. I offer examples of teaching, research, and service that orient students to gerontological policy at the organizational, state, and national levels. Examples illustrate fortitude of...

Cyber-Seniors (CS) is an intergenerational technology program developed to increase older adults’ digital competence and adoption through reverse-mentoring facilitated by trained students. Leveraging higher education as a platform offers mutual benefits, fostering positive attitudes toward aging among students while enhancing technology literacy am...

The Margret M. and Paul B. Baltes Award Lecture will feature an address by the 2023 Baltes Award recipient, Reuben Ng, PhD of the National University of Singapore. This session will also include the presentation of the 2024 Margret M. and Paul B. Baltes Award to recipient Nicole E. Werner, PhD, of Indiana University. The Margret M. and Paul B. Balt...

Importance: Occupational therapy is one of the most used interventions for children on the autism spectrum. There is a critical need to develop an operationalized list of key treatment components of usual-care occupational therapy practice for children on the autism spectrum. Objective: To identify and develop consensus on definitions and examples...

Self-directed ageism refers to stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination toward oneself based on age or perceived age. Self-directed ageism research is limited but growing as the conceptualization of ageism evolves and the implementation of ageism-reduction interventions increases. A scoping review was conducted to explore self-directed ageism ou...

Cyber-Seniors is an intergenerational technology program that bridges the digital divide by training younger people to assist older adults with using technology. While higher education is an ideal setting for utilizing this program for service learning or student internship opportunities, there are often challenges to implementing this program in a...

Numerous intergenerational programs support varied goals using technology. Technological competence may be the desired outcome or the means for achieving outcomes in such programs. For example, Cyber Seniors operates in many settings with digital mentors providing technology training to more than 11,000 older adults. This and other technology-suppo...

Background and objectives Approximately 60% of people living with dementia at home are unable to routinely participate in mealtime activities (e.g., eating, safe food preparation), warranting assistance to ensure people with dementia meet their health and nutritional needs. The purpose of this study was to characterize these barriers to mealtime pa...

Date Presented 04/22/2023 This study aimed to develop a preliminary list of active ingredients of standard OT for children on the autism spectrum using the Delphi method. Our results have the potential to serve as a framework for clinical research in autism. Primary Author and Speaker: Meredith Kromalic Contributing Authors: Jewel Elias Crasta, Jos...

We argue that gerontologists are products of our ageist culture and that we both perpetuate ageism and suffer from internalized ageism ourselves. We make ageist comments, deny our own age, fail to teach students to recognize and confront ageism, and use language that authorizes and categorizes older people. Gerontologists are in ideal positions to...

2. Intergenerational contact influences attitudes about aging, but measures vary in breadth, depth, and psychometrics. We developed and validated the Intergenerational Contact survey of key contact dimensions using online samples. Here, we address: how do young and older adults differ in location and ratings of intergenerational contact? Young (n=4...

Food for a Long Life (FFLL) was a five-year USDA Children, Youth and Families at Risk intergenerational community research project that sought to increase healthy food consumption, knowledge, and access among preschoolers and older adults living in food insecure communities of Ohio and Virginia. Using the community-based participatory action resear...

In this BSS Presidential Symposium, we address the conference theme of “Embracing our diversity; enriching our discipline; reimagining aging” by attending to the intersection of age and race. In our panel, speakers will address the intersection of age and race as it relates to experience of ageism and its effects on individuals’ opportunities to li...

Theory and research informed a framework of best intergenerational practice that has proven effective in the field of community programs. Reflecting a number of AFU principles, this set of proven practices can promote positive intergenerational contact in college classrooms as well. Here, we present evidence-based and promising practices salient to...

Most of the current scholarship on views on one’s aging focuses on middle and older adulthood, prompting lifespan theorists to call for studies about views on one’s aging throughout the entire lifespan (Kornadt et al., 2020). In this study, we established a factor structure to Kornadt et al.’s (2020) Domain Specific Future Selves Scale, which promp...

Objectives Adopting recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, this study addresses the value of children’s input on the architectural design of the built environment of intergenerational shared sites and the intergenerational interactions that took place there. Background Intergenerational programs bring children...

We examined whether participation in intergenerational programming would impact daily food and liquid intake for adult day service center (ADSC) participants, many of whom are at risk for malnutrition and dehydration. Data came from 75 ADSC participants who, on average, attended the center for 472.32 days between 2007 and 2018. We analyzed daily da...

Intergenerational programs have long been employed to reduce ageism and optimize youth and older adult development. Most involve in‐person meetings, which COVID‐19 arrested. Needs for safety and social contact were amplified during COVID‐19, leading to modified programming that engaged generations remotely rather than eliminating it. Our collective...

The COVID-19 pandemic has made accessing nutritious foods difficult for older adults and children living in low-income households. The evidence-based preschool nutrition education curriculum Together, We Inspire Smart Eating (WISE) can be used to encourage children to try healthy foods. Written as a single generation curriculum, inviting older adul...

Shared site intergenerational programs deliver ongoing services and shared programming to youth and older adults in a single setting. With the potential to benefit youth, older adults, families, and communities, they attract growing attention from practitioners, researchers, funders, and policy makers. Using national survey data we profile characte...

Food for a Long Life (FFLL) is a community– university–extension project that utilizes intergenerational strategies and a communitybased participatory action research approach to increase healthy food access, consumption, and education for preschoolers and older adults. As a Children, Youth, and Families at Risk sustainable community project of the...

Non-familial intergenerational programs engage younger and older people in shared programming for mutual benefit, frequently involving senior centers or adult day programs and preschools. With growing interest in the potential benefits of intergenerational strategies, it is imperative to know their effects on participant interaction during intergen...

The intergenerational ties that offer support to older adults are likely useful for resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed whether positive and negative intergenerational contact was associated with positive pandemic-related personal change. We utilized data collected from 566 adults aged 50 and older between August 2020 and January 2...

Intergenerational relationships are a predictor of greater physical, mental, and emotional well-being; they can reduce ageism and facilitate feelings of purpose and meaning, shown to be important for health and mortality. Surprisingly there are no measures of intergenerational contact (IGC) shown to be reliable and valid across age groups. Therefor...

In-person intergenerational programming focused on nutrition education and healthy food access among older adults and preschool children in care settings was abandoned last year when COVID forced center closures. Food for a Long Life (FFLL), a 5-year community-based participatory research (CBPR) project, re-oriented programming in response to heigh...

Practitioners frequently tailor programming to meet participant characteristics and logistic constraints, or to incorporate diverse participants, such as intergenerational programming. Adapted programming may be responsive but reduce impact on outcomes. With growing interest in and limited availability of intergenerational protocol, implementation...

Implementing intergenerational programming amidst the COVID-19 pandemic has required creativity, partnership, and dedication to the work. Most intergenerational programs involving in-person meetings or events are accompanied by guidelines to protect participant health and safety. Programming is routinely cancelled or postponed due to poor weather o...

Background and objectives: Intergenerational programs, those engaging youth and adults of non-adjacent generations in shared programming for mutual benefit, are attracting increasing attention from funders, policy makers, and practitioners for the range of goals they can support. The mechanisms by which these goals are achieved are rarely studied....

Although aging and migration are major global demographic trends, little attention has been given to the health and well-being of immigrants who migrate later-in-life. Drawing on the social convoy perspective, we examine the social impact of late-life migration and explore patterns of human service provision among late-life immigrants in a midweste...

Intergenerational practitioners responding to a 2018 national survey identified a need for evidence-informed evaluation tools to measure program impact. The Best Practices (BP) Checklist, a 14-item (yes/no) measure assessing the extent to which an intergenerational program session maintained effective intergenerational strategies, may help meet thi...

Evidence-based intergenerational (IG) programs bring youth and older adults together in shared activities and promote socioemotional health across age-groups. The core components of these IG programs include 14 IG "best practices" that should be implemented during IG program sessions to optimize program effectiveness for both youth and older adult...

Evidence-based intergenerational practices are sought by practitioners interested in the potential value of intergenerational programs. These are often difficult to identify as intergenerational program research frequently consists of small samples and pre-post analyses of attitudinal data with little attention to implementation characteristics. We...

Evaluating intergenerational programs often involves measuring the extent to which programs actually strengthen both the quantity and quality of intergenerational contact, which is associated with attitudes towards aging, social connection, and anxiety about aging. However, a surprisingly limited number of reliable, valid measures of intergeneratio...

Intergenerational programs facilitate mutually beneficial interactions between youth and older adults, achieving an array of outcomes. With few exceptions, implementation factors rarely figure into outcome analyses, though researchers frequently gather data on factors influencing outcomes. The resulting practice-evidence gap may deter wide-spread a...

Programs that intentionally engage unrelated young and old persons often lead to mutual benefits; however, specific implementation strategies that support the use of evidence-based intergenerational programming in community settings are understudied. With strong demand for training resources among intergenerational program providers, this pilot stu...

While the significance of social capital to the well-being of black South African grandmothers raising grandchildren has been well documented, few studies have systemically investigated the sources, types, and patterns of use of social capital in this population. The aim of the current qualitative study is to use the social capital framework to exp...

Background and objectives: Home- and community-based service (HCBS) recipients often possess multiple fall risk factors, suggesting that the implementation of evidence-based fall prevention guidelines may be appropriate for the HCBS setting. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the determinants of fall prevention guideline implemen...

The outcomes of out-group members working together can be mixed. Many researchers have taken a pessimistic view, describing conflict and social categorization among age-diverse workforces. Alternately, we consider an optimistic view, framing contact theory within the input-process-output model to depict the potential of multigenerational workplaces...

Aerobic exercise has been demonstrated to be one of the most effective means of improving cognition in older adults. However, less is known about how exercise programs may improve cognition in older adults participating in Adult Day Service (ADS) programs. We analyzed a ten-year longitudinal data set from the Virginia Tech ADS center. We limited ou...

Globally, late-life migration has been a growing phenomenon. Literature on aging and migration however, has primarily focused on immigrant populations who migrated early in life. To expand our conceptualization of aging and to plan for the care of growing older immigrant populations, it is crucial to understand the compounding effects of late-life...

GSA and other agencies have undertaken to “Reframe Aging” to reduce pervasive global ageism, which has been associated with negative attitudes towards and disinterest in working with older adults and poor health in old age. Familial and non-familial intergenerational contact, that is between members of non-adjacent generations, provides valuable op...

GSA and other professional organizations recognize the threat that ageism poses to the country’s health and welfare, from its youngest to oldest citizens. Reframing Aging involves communication and outreach strategies to inform the conversation about aging and its implications. Non-familial intergenerational relationships can support the Reframing...

Malnutrition in older adults, while ubiquitous, remains largely underrecognized and undertreated. In community-dwelling older adults, 25% of those at risk of over or under nutrition do not receive any dietary interventions; routine screenings for malnutrition are not typically required in community-based settings. In this interdisciplinary symposiu...

In our presentation, we will offer insights into our process of creating and validating a comprehensive theory- and evidence- informed measure of intergenerational contact that expands beyond the measurement of age-related attitudes. While attitudinal shifts are an important construct related to intergenerational contact and its impact on ageism, e...

According to a 2018 national survey of intergenerational (IG) care providers, practitioners identified as their number one concern a need for evidence-informed evaluation tools to demonstrate their impact on older and younger participants. The Best Practices Checklist is a 14-item (yes/no) measure grounded in evidence of effective intergenerational...

Older adults attending adult day services (ADS) often possess risk factors for malnutrition, such as chronic disease, physical disability, and cognitive impairment. We explored the utility of administering to ADS participants the DETERMINE Checklist - a measure of nutritional status. Among eleven participants (M age=77.3 years), 82% (n = 9) present...

Despite the reported benefits of intergenerational programming, relatively few empirical studies have reported outcomes specific to older adult participants. We conducted a scoping review to assess older adult-specific outcomes that have been quantitatively assessed in the intergenerational programming literature and the tools used to measure such...

Intergenerational practitioners have identified documentation of impact as the greatest challenge. Intergenerational program outcomes are best understood when interpreted through a theory-research-practice framework. We present theory and evidence informing an intergenerational model developed and tested over several years in the current paper. The...

Children and older adults are especially vulnerable to the negative effects of food insecurity. Intergenerational strategies often engage youth and elders in shared programming that supports each group’s needs. With community partners, we established a community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) partnership to improve knowledge, access, a...

The built environment of intergenerational facilities, where both youth and elders receive services , can either foster or discourage social interaction; it influences children's development as well as elders' health and well-being. The spatial design of these facilities further impacts the quality of the social interactions that take place there,...

As a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, unemployment and other sociocultural issues, grandmothers serve as primary caregivers for a significant number of Black South African children. Previous research has documented that Black South African grandmothers experience significant physical, financial, emotional, and social adversity. However, less attent...

Successful intergenerational programs involving unrelated youth and elders foster positive relationships and mutual benefit. Intergenerational care programs usually serve children and physically and/or cognitively frail elders. Skilled facilitators address multiple factors to implement programming matched to participant characteristics (e.g., mobil...

Grandparent-grandchild relationships can contribute to individual development and relational health. However, these relationships are not always available to the youth and elders who might join them. Families emigrating from other countries may leave grandparents behind and have limited opportunity for exchange of cultural traditions, for example....

Studies have examined the impact of environments on long-term care residents’ quality of life; however, environment gets little attention in adult day services (ADS). The current study gives voice to clients and staff by capturing their perceptions of the physical and social environments of their ADS centers. Data were collected from 23 interviews...

Adult day services (ADS) provide care to adults with physical, functional, and/or cognitive limitations in nonresidential, congregate, community-based settings. ADS programs have emerged as a growing and affordable approach within the home and community–based services sector. Although promising, the growth of ADS has been hampered by a lack of unif...

Background and objectives: Project TRIP (Transforming Relationships through Intergenerational Programs) was developed as a sustainable intergenerational community project involving child care participants and elders attending an elder care program or volunteering at the children's program. The project focused on staff development of evidence-based...

Using content analysis, we identified themes in data collected via small focus groups and individual interviews with staff and administrators (N=30) from six sites where childcare centers partnered with adult day services, senior center, and elder volunteer programs. As a USDA CYFAR Sustainable Community Project, emergent themes addressed the impac...

The outcomes of different generations working together can be mixed. Previous literature has taken a pessimistic view, addressing conflict and social categorization among generations. Alternatively, we consider an optimistic view, using contact theory to explore employees’ perspective on the different career stages as they relate to team effectiven...

Purpose of Study: Although several studies have examined the impact of environments on quality of life outcomes for long-term care residents, scholars have put minimal emphasis on the environments of adult day services (ADS). In the United States, ADS centers are perceived as the place used by incompetent and impaired elders who are labeled as depe...

Intergenerational contact contributes to a range of health outcomes, including greater social and psychological engagement and lower levels of depression. Contact measures are limited. Informed by Allport’s contact theory, the Queen’s University Scale (Knox, Gekoski, & Johnson, 1986) measures contact with the general elder population and a familiar...

Adult day services (ADS) professionals have begun to explore assessment systems focused on participants. Barriers include inadequate technology, software costs, and personnel requirements. We present data from staff interviews at an ADS with an electronic participant assessment system. Contrary to reports about difficulties learning to use electron...

Objectives: Intergenerational contact has been linked to a range of health outcomes, including greater engagement and lower depression. Measures of contact are limited. Informed by Allport's contact theory, the Queen's University Scale consists of items rating contact with elders. We administered the survey to a young adult sample (N = 606) to iden...

Adult day services (ADS) aim to help elders age in place, but evidence of impact on participants lags behind caregiver research. To play a larger role in the continuum of care, ADS participant outcomes should regularly be documented with standard measures. We conducted a Delphi review of one integrated participant assessment system. Capturing physi...

Grandmothers serve as primary care-givers for a significant number of South African children. Previous research has documented that South African grandmothers experience physical, financial, emotional and social adversity. However, less attention has been given to South African grandmothers' resilience, or their capacity to respond to the challenge...

Intergenerational contact can promote positive attitudes towards elders. However, contact with older adults often fosters multiple stereotypes, which may contribute to ambivalence about aging and poorer health in late life. Online survey data from 457 young adults (M age = 19.4 years; 74% female) were used to explore the relationship between interg...

As a discipline, Human Development embraces a philosophical stance that incorporates bio-psycho-social frameworks to guide the study of individuals, families, and communities across the lifespan. Historically, scholars trained in this integrative, multidisciplinary tradition have relied on theories and models developed in the behavioral and social...

Non-familial intergenerational (NFIG) relationships can complement conventional therapeutic interventions. We discuss the intergenerational gap and structural changes families have experienced over the last several decades. We advocate for an integrative framework combining non-familial intergenerational opportunities with conventional therapeutic...

Background: Researchers have demonstrated that adult day services (ADS) benefit elders with dementia and their caregivers, but they have also observed infantilization that diminishes personhood. Many ADS are socially constructed as places for incompetent elders, where clients are labeled as child-like dependents. Most ADS research has been perform...

Intergenerational relationships and the media influence young persons' attitudes about aging. The authors analyzed 20 contemporary adolescent novels with intergenerational relationships using Allport's (1954 ) contact theory to assess whether the relationships demonstrated conditions that foster positive attitudinal change toward outgroups. When te...

Background/rationale: A group-based exercise program has the potential to promote physical, psychological, and social health of participants. This study intended to document that an exercise intervention, designed for delivery and achievability in dementia care centers, could effectively engage participants with dementia.Methods: An exercise progra...

We used a social organization framework to pilot a community- capacity building project at a shared site intergenerational program. Such programs possess potential to build relationships among participants that contribute social capital to the program and support individual development. Our approach addressed infrastructure development, intergenera...

Researchers have documented the powerful influence of the physical and social environment on persons with dementia; however, most intervention studies fail to include contextual assessments when exploring outcomes. As part of a larger study assessing a horticultural therapy (HT) intervention, the authors explored the contextual and procedural facto...

We assessed whether a shared site intergenerational care program informed by contact theory contributed to more desirable social behaviors of elders and children during intergenerational programming than a center with a more traditional programming approach that lacks some or all of the contact theory tenets. We observed 59 elder and child particip...

Intergenerational programs target diverse youth, elder and community needs with creative practices and considerable success. With the earliest nonfamilial intergenerational interventions identified in the 1960s (i.e., Foster Grandparents in 1965), intergenerational program research is relatively new compared to parallel lines of inquiry in child, y...

Portfolios have been used for the past three decades in higher education for assessment of student competency and also as a reflection tool to assist student learning. Electronic portfolios, or ePortfolios, have additional benefits compared to paper portfolios in that they are easily accessible, portable, and sharable, and they are more environment...

Engaging persons with dementia in meaningful activities supports well-being; however, care staff are challenged to implement age- and ability-appropriate activities in a group setting. We compared a randomly assigned treatment group, who received horticultural therapy-based (HT-based) programming to a comparison group, who engaged in traditional ac...

In light of the demographic changes transpiring worldwide and with a framework of intergenerational solidarity, we must consider the needs and resources of individuals, families, and communities that contribute to and detract from intergenerational solidarity. The previous session addressed demographic and cultural factors that lead to generational...

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the relationship between gait adaptation and slip/fall risk of older adults with cognitive impairments. The study investigated the gait characteristics of six healthy older adults and five older adults with dementia. Participants walked on an instrumented walkway at their preferred walking speeds....

Innovative intergenerational programs continue to grow in number and scope. The development of standardized evaluation instruments, however, lags behind, leaving many researchers and practitioners without tools to effectively assess their programs. Evaluation data often focus on outcomes without attention to the nature of the interactions between g...

We conducted an exploratory study evaluating the potential impact of intergenerational programming (IG) on children's socio-emotional development, behavior, school performance, and attitudes and behavior toward older adults. Children currently in kindergarten through second grade (age range: 6–8 years old) who previously attended one of two prescho...

Implementing meaningful activities for persons with dementia reduces boredom, agitation, and negative affect. Previous research demonstrated that Montessori activities, modified for persons with dementia, facilitate positive engagement and affect. We conducted activities in small parallel group settings to support social interactions and reflect ty...

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the association between cognitive ability and upper body muscle strength. Two sources of existing data were pooled for this examination. Thirty-eight older participants diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or dementia (25 women, 13 men; age = 83.2 +/- 5.6 years, MMSE score = 16.75 +/- 7.04, M +/- SD) u...

When faced with changes in physical health, cognition, and daily functioning, older adults most frequently rely on family members for instrumental support and more intense care activities. Using a life span perspective as our guiding framework, we identified several developmental themes across the late-life caregiving research including individual...

Shared site intergenerational programs (SSIP) unite disparate age groups in quasi-kin relationships and meet the care needs of multiple generations of families. SSIPs can effectively support development through intergenerational relationships. However, many programs prove unsustainable. The authors conducted a case study of an established SSIP serv...

Dementia Care Mapping (DCM) was originally developed as a clinical tool but has attracted interest as a potential observational measure of quality of life (QOL) and well-being of long-term care residents with dementia. DCM coding involves continuous observation over a 6-h period, with observers recording a Behavior Category Code (BCC, a recording o...