Courtney Lewis

Courtney is assessing medication adherence in college students. There are several reasons that college students may have poor medication adherence including mental health status, adverse side effects, and cost. College is a time where many students live on their own for the first time, so any parental figure in charge of administering or reminding about medication is no longer available. She will be collecting data from the students at the University of South Alabama. 

Madison Parfait, Joseph Hantouche

Madison and Joseph are combining their love for medicine and neuropsychology in this study. Madison is conducting a meta analysis looking at the neuropsychological effects of individuals with 22Q11.2 deletion syndrome. She is working through coding her articles. Joseph has served as a second coder and a consultant for the medical aspect of the study. 22q Deletion Syndrome, also known as DiGeorge Syndrome or Velocardiofacial Syndromeoccurs when part of the 22nd chromosome is missing. This can result in abnormalities associated with developmental, psychological and physiological issues in the individual. Heart defects, immune defense, cleft palate, emotional problems, and behavioral problems are a few signs and symptoms present in those with 22Q deletion syndrome. 

Hayley Mullinax, Mackenzie Robeson, Courtney Lewis

Hayley and Mackenzie are in the beginning stages of their meta analysis focusing on evaluating possible interventions to increase medication compliance in individuals with ADHD. Individuals with ADHD can skip medication dosages for several reasons including adverse side effects, higher costs, SES, caregiver attitudes, and lack of awareness/concentration. They are currently sorting articles from their selected search terms and exclusion critreria. Courtney has served as a coder for their articles. 

Dr. Jamie Spiegel in collaboration with Dr. Paulo Graziano

Although traditional models of ADHD propose that hyperactivity is a ubiquitous within ADHD and largely independent of task demands, more recent evidence indicates that more cognitively demanding tasks are associated with greater concurrent physical movement (Kofler et al., 2016). It is possible that more cognitively demanding tasks result in an up-regulation of movement to compensate for cortical under-arousal (Rapport et al., 2009). To date, most research examining the ubiquity of hyperactivity has been examined within the context of executive function tasks, with limited research examining more academically oriented tasks. The aim of this study was to examine the concurrent association between physical movement and academic/classroom performance in a sample of preschool- to kindergarten-age children, with and without diagnoses of ADHD. Physical activity was assessed via actigraphy data within the context of the Summer Treatment Program (STP-PreK), which provided a close approximation of an authentic educational environment.

Funding Source: This study was funded by an internal grant from Florida International University and the Center for Children and Families. Data were collected through the Summer Treatment Program (STP-PreK), in collaboration with Dr. Paulo Graziano, the founder and director of the STP-PreK program. 

Publications: Although data collection has been completed for this project, publications are currently ongoing. We will provide updates on published manuscripts here.