Browsing by Author "Donlon, Katharine"

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    The Role of Social Support Seeking and Social Constraints on Psychological Outcomes After Trauma: A Social Cognitive Theory Perspective
    Donlon, Katharine (Virginia Tech, 2012-05-02)
    Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) posits that survivors of a traumatic event have the ability to influence their own outcomes and do so most aptly when they perceive they can exert control over their outcomes. Posttraumatic growth outcomes are associated with a greater perception of controllability, while posttraumatic stress outcomes can be related to the lack of perceived control. In the context of the Virginia Tech shootings, several social factors were examined three months after the trauma (T1) and one year later (T2) to further explore the dynamic interplay between these factors and psychological outcomes. Social support seeking was conceptualized as both a coping strategy (situational) and as a coping style (dispositional) and was hypothesized to predict greater growth outcomes, while social constraints were hypothesized to predict higher levels of posttraumatic stress outcomes. These variables were also examined as moderators of the relationship between perceived threat and psychological outcomes at both time points. As expected, dispositional social support seeking was negatively related to posttraumatic stress at T1, and positively related to posttraumatic growth at T1 and T2. Social constraints were positively related to posttraumatic stress at T1 and negatively related to posttraumatic growth at T1 and T2. Situational social support seeking served as a moderator for the relationship between perceived threat and posttraumatic stress at T1. Lower levels of situational social support seeking lessened the relationship between perceived threat and posttraumatic stress, while high levels of situational social support seeking exacerbated this relationship.
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    Underidentification of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Females: A Case Series Illustrating the Unique Presentation of this Disorder in Young Women
    Trubanova, Andrea; Donlon, Katharine; Kreiser, Nicole L.; Ollendick, Thomas H.; White, Susan W. (Exeley, 2014-05)
    Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is diagnosed more often in males than females, with the male-to-female gender ratio reported to be around 4.3:1 to 5:1. It is possible that the underrecognition of ASD in females partially contributes to this uneven ratio. Recent attention has been placed on understanding the processes that give rise to this gender difference in ASD prevalence. Socialization may contribute to the unique presentation of ASD in females, which may underlie this condition’s subsequent underidentification in this group. The purpose of this case series is to demonstrate how symptoms of ASD may uniquely manifest in females without co-occurring intellectual impairment. An examination of three case examples of young women diagnosed with ASD will illustrate the processes that contribute to the atypical manifestation and underidentification of ASD in females. Across cases, the females in this study demonstrated shared symptom presentations within three domains: 1) unique core symptom manifestation (insistence on sameness, lack of social engagement, and social processing difficulties); 2) heightened psychiatric comorbidities with internalizing disorders (anxiety, depression, and borderline personality traits); and 3) emotional dysregulation. These three domains reflect specific processes that may help to explain the underidentification of ASD in females via diagnostic overshadowing. Consideration of atypical symptom presentations, heightened comorbidities, and emotion regulation difficulties may help with the understanding of why ASD symptoms in females are commonly underidentified or identified later than they are in males. Social difficulties in combination with internalizing psychiatric disorders and emotional dysregulation may lead to the development of a specific symptom presentation in females that obscures the detection of ASD symptoms. Suggestions for clinical practice are made to promote the accurate identification of ASD and to inform case formulation and treatment planning.