Rachel Razza | Syracuse University (original) (raw)
Papers by Rachel Razza
ECNU review of education, Apr 6, 2021
This study examined the effectiveness of a 12-week mindfulness curriculum for at-risk, urban adol... more This study examined the effectiveness of a 12-week mindfulness curriculum for at-risk, urban adolescents. Of particular interest was whether participation in the intervention was associated with gains in self-regulation and self-compassion. Design/Approach/Methods: The analytic sample included 217 public high school students from thirteen 11th and 12th grade classrooms; 133 students received one dose of the program, 39 students received two doses, and 45 students served as a control group. The program was delivered by a trained mindfulness instructor who met with the classrooms once a week for 45 min. Adolescents completed self-report measures tapping self-regulation and self-compassion at pretest and posttest. Findings: Results indicated significant benefits of the intervention for adolescents' selfcompassion among both intervention groups. The effect was larger among students participating for the first time (one-dose group) than for those who were participating for a second time (twodose group). There was also evidence that the program supported self-regulation, as students in
Mindfulness, Apr 26, 2022
Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Sep 1, 2016
![Research paper thumbnail of Erratum to “Executive function and the promotion of social–emotional competence” [Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 27 (2006) 300–309]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/88295482/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2007
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2006
This study examined the role of self-regulation in emerging academic ability in one hundred and f... more This study examined the role of self-regulation in emerging academic ability in one hundred and forty-one 3- to 5-year-old children from low-income homes. Measures of effortful control, false belief understanding, and the inhibitory control and attention-shifting aspects of executive function in preschool were related to measures of math and literacy ability in kindergarten. Results indicated that the various aspects of child self-regulation accounted for unique variance in the academic outcomes independent of general intelligence and that the in-hibitory control aspect of executive function was a prominent correlate of both early math and reading ability. Findings suggest that curricula designed to improve self-regulation skills as well as enhance early academic abilities may be most effective in helping children succeed in school. The emergence of self-regulation provides the basis for a wide array of developing competencies in early childhood ranging from theory of mind (Carlson,...
This study examined the developmental pathways from maternal behavior to school readiness within ... more This study examined the developmental pathways from maternal behavior to school readiness within a sample of 1007 children, with a specific focus on the mediating role of delay of gratification (DoG)
Purpose:This study examined the effectiveness of a 12-week mindfulness curriculum for at-risk, ur... more Purpose:This study examined the effectiveness of a 12-week mindfulness curriculum for at-risk, urban adolescents. Of particular interest was whether participation in the intervention was associated...
HCI International 2020 – Late Breaking Papers: Cognition, Learning and Games
Novice meditators often find it difficult to tune out external distractions which hinders their a... more Novice meditators often find it difficult to tune out external distractions which hinders their ability to engage in mindfulness practice. The problem is further exacerbated by stress and directed attention fatigue. Researchers and tech companies are experimenting with nature-inspired themes to improve the meditation session quality. In this paper, we discuss our pilot experiment, using nature inspired virtual reality themes to create an idealized space for meditation. Our results indicate that the participants found the space restorative and that the perceived restorativeness was positively correlated with the perception of the depth or quality of the meditation session. We also found that a majority of participants experienced a reduction in baseline tonic electrodermal activity as well as frequency of skin conductance responses; however, neither electrodermal measure of arousal was significantly correlated with any of the self-report measures.
Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality: Applications in Health, Cultural Heritage, and Industry
Chronic and acute stress are persistent and troubling health concerns for many people and militar... more Chronic and acute stress are persistent and troubling health concerns for many people and military veterans in particular. Clinicians are increasingly turning to mindfulness techniques to provide people with the skills they need to self-manage that stress. However, training and getting people to adhere to the practice is difficult. In this paper, we talk about a virtual reality based system designed specifically to help veterans learn mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques.
This study examined physiological and neurocognitive correlates of teacherreported adaptive behav... more This study examined physiological and neurocognitive correlates of teacherreported adaptive behavior in preschool among children in Head Start. Child physiology was assessed by cardiac vagal tone and was measured during a baseline period and during the administration of a mildly effortful cognitive task. Neurocognitive function was measured using two tasks of executive function, which require children to inhibit a prepotent response, while remembering and executing the rule for correct responding. Parents reported on aspects of child negative emotionality associated with fear and anger. Information on child receptive language ability was also collected. Although correlates of teacher-reported social competence and on-task behavior were expected to be similar, some evidence for differentiation was obtained. Results indicated that higher resting vagal tone, vagal increase during the administration of the cognitive task, and higher levels of fearful emotionality were related to higher ratings of social competence, after adjusting for levels of on-task behavior. In contrast, lower resting vagal tone, vagal suppression in response to the cognitive task, and higher levels of executive function were associated with higher teacher ratings of on-task behavior, adjusted for social competence. Implications are considered of findings for developmental relations between social and academic competence and adaptation to preschool among children in Head Start.
This study examined a parent-report version of the Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activa... more This study examined a parent-report version of the Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activation System (BIS/BAS) scales, a measure of approach-withdrawal motivation, in 170 children between the ages of 3 to 5 years attending Head Start programs. Physiological measures included assessments of baseline salivary cortisol and change in cortisol in response to the assessment session, and resting and suppression estimates of cardiac vagal tone. Cognitive self-regulation was assessed with a peg-tapping measure of inhibitory control and an item-selection measure of cognitive set-shifting ability. Results indicated that higher level of parent-reported withdrawal motivation was associated with cortisol increase and that parent-reported approach motivation tended to be associated with cortisol decrease across the assessment session. Higher level of parent-reported withdrawal also was positively related to cognitive self-regulation while parent-reported approach was negatively related to cognitive self-regulation. Person-oriented analysis indicated that children characterized by both high level of approach and high level of withdrawal tended to exhibit lower resting vagal tone, higher initial cortisol, and minimal cortisol and vagal change. Overall, findings suggest that the parent-report version of the BIS/BAS scales works well as an indicator of children's reactivity to appetitive and aversive motivational stimuli. Directions for future research and implications of findings for the longitudinal study of temperament and personality are discussed.
Augmented Cognition
Practicing mindfulness-based stress reeducation and other contemplative practices generates a num... more Practicing mindfulness-based stress reeducation and other contemplative practices generates a number of health and human performance benefits. However, limited access to qualified training and practice support, as well as poor practice environments, makes it difficult to sustain the habits necessary to develop the attentional regulation skills needed to benefit from mindfulness. In this paper, we report on our research, which focuses on developing immersive environments to support mindfulness-based stress reduction practices. We specifically look at how the design of a virtual environment can foster a restorative experience, if that restorative experience is associated with the depth of the meditation session, and if there are associations between presence and the depth of the meditation session and the restorative properties of the virtual experience. Results show there are significant relationships between the three core concepts, suggesting future work is needed to determine if there are causal relationships exist between the presence, meditation depth, and perceived restorativeness. Understanding how the design of virtual environments may facilitate mindfulness and other contemplative practices has implications for promoting the use of the practices in a variety of contexts.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Purpose: This experimental cross-sectional research study examined the emotional reactivity and e... more Purpose: This experimental cross-sectional research study examined the emotional reactivity and emotion regulation in preschool-age children who do (CWS) and do not stutter (CWNS) by assessing their psychophysiological response during rest and while viewing pictures from the International Affective Picture System (Lang et al., 2008).Method: Participants were 18 CWS (16 boys and two girls; mean age 4 years, 5 months) and 18 age- and gender-matched CWNS. Participants' psychophysiological responses were measured during two baselines and two picture viewing conditions. Skin conductance level (SCL) and heart rate were measured to assess emotional reactivity. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was measured to assess emotional regulation. Participants' shyness and executive function were assessed via parent report and considered for their effects on participants' psychophysiological responses.Results: First, CWNS and CWS did not differ in their initial baseline SCL, heart rate,...
American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology
Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate whether preschool-age children who stutter (... more Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate whether preschool-age children who stutter (CWS) were more likely to exhibit a temperamental trait of behavioral inhibition (BI), a correlate of shyness, than children who do not stutter (CWNS) and whether this temperamental trait affected preschool-age children's speech fluency and language complexity during a conversation with an unfamiliar adult. Method Sixty-eight preschool-age children (31 CWS, 37 CWNS) participated. The degree of BI was assessed by measuring the latency to their sixth spontaneous comment and the number of all spontaneous comments during a conversation with an unfamiliar examiner (following Kagan et al.'s [1987] methodology). Parent report of shyness from the Children's Behavior Questionnaire served as an indirect measure of BI. Children's language complexity was assessed by measuring their mean length of utterance and the number of words spoken. For CWS, the frequency of stuttering and the ne...
ECNU review of education, Apr 6, 2021
This study examined the effectiveness of a 12-week mindfulness curriculum for at-risk, urban adol... more This study examined the effectiveness of a 12-week mindfulness curriculum for at-risk, urban adolescents. Of particular interest was whether participation in the intervention was associated with gains in self-regulation and self-compassion. Design/Approach/Methods: The analytic sample included 217 public high school students from thirteen 11th and 12th grade classrooms; 133 students received one dose of the program, 39 students received two doses, and 45 students served as a control group. The program was delivered by a trained mindfulness instructor who met with the classrooms once a week for 45 min. Adolescents completed self-report measures tapping self-regulation and self-compassion at pretest and posttest. Findings: Results indicated significant benefits of the intervention for adolescents' selfcompassion among both intervention groups. The effect was larger among students participating for the first time (one-dose group) than for those who were participating for a second time (twodose group). There was also evidence that the program supported self-regulation, as students in
Mindfulness, Apr 26, 2022
Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Sep 1, 2016
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2007
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2006
This study examined the role of self-regulation in emerging academic ability in one hundred and f... more This study examined the role of self-regulation in emerging academic ability in one hundred and forty-one 3- to 5-year-old children from low-income homes. Measures of effortful control, false belief understanding, and the inhibitory control and attention-shifting aspects of executive function in preschool were related to measures of math and literacy ability in kindergarten. Results indicated that the various aspects of child self-regulation accounted for unique variance in the academic outcomes independent of general intelligence and that the in-hibitory control aspect of executive function was a prominent correlate of both early math and reading ability. Findings suggest that curricula designed to improve self-regulation skills as well as enhance early academic abilities may be most effective in helping children succeed in school. The emergence of self-regulation provides the basis for a wide array of developing competencies in early childhood ranging from theory of mind (Carlson,...
This study examined the developmental pathways from maternal behavior to school readiness within ... more This study examined the developmental pathways from maternal behavior to school readiness within a sample of 1007 children, with a specific focus on the mediating role of delay of gratification (DoG)
Purpose:This study examined the effectiveness of a 12-week mindfulness curriculum for at-risk, ur... more Purpose:This study examined the effectiveness of a 12-week mindfulness curriculum for at-risk, urban adolescents. Of particular interest was whether participation in the intervention was associated...
HCI International 2020 – Late Breaking Papers: Cognition, Learning and Games
Novice meditators often find it difficult to tune out external distractions which hinders their a... more Novice meditators often find it difficult to tune out external distractions which hinders their ability to engage in mindfulness practice. The problem is further exacerbated by stress and directed attention fatigue. Researchers and tech companies are experimenting with nature-inspired themes to improve the meditation session quality. In this paper, we discuss our pilot experiment, using nature inspired virtual reality themes to create an idealized space for meditation. Our results indicate that the participants found the space restorative and that the perceived restorativeness was positively correlated with the perception of the depth or quality of the meditation session. We also found that a majority of participants experienced a reduction in baseline tonic electrodermal activity as well as frequency of skin conductance responses; however, neither electrodermal measure of arousal was significantly correlated with any of the self-report measures.
Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality: Applications in Health, Cultural Heritage, and Industry
Chronic and acute stress are persistent and troubling health concerns for many people and militar... more Chronic and acute stress are persistent and troubling health concerns for many people and military veterans in particular. Clinicians are increasingly turning to mindfulness techniques to provide people with the skills they need to self-manage that stress. However, training and getting people to adhere to the practice is difficult. In this paper, we talk about a virtual reality based system designed specifically to help veterans learn mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques.
This study examined physiological and neurocognitive correlates of teacherreported adaptive behav... more This study examined physiological and neurocognitive correlates of teacherreported adaptive behavior in preschool among children in Head Start. Child physiology was assessed by cardiac vagal tone and was measured during a baseline period and during the administration of a mildly effortful cognitive task. Neurocognitive function was measured using two tasks of executive function, which require children to inhibit a prepotent response, while remembering and executing the rule for correct responding. Parents reported on aspects of child negative emotionality associated with fear and anger. Information on child receptive language ability was also collected. Although correlates of teacher-reported social competence and on-task behavior were expected to be similar, some evidence for differentiation was obtained. Results indicated that higher resting vagal tone, vagal increase during the administration of the cognitive task, and higher levels of fearful emotionality were related to higher ratings of social competence, after adjusting for levels of on-task behavior. In contrast, lower resting vagal tone, vagal suppression in response to the cognitive task, and higher levels of executive function were associated with higher teacher ratings of on-task behavior, adjusted for social competence. Implications are considered of findings for developmental relations between social and academic competence and adaptation to preschool among children in Head Start.
This study examined a parent-report version of the Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activa... more This study examined a parent-report version of the Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activation System (BIS/BAS) scales, a measure of approach-withdrawal motivation, in 170 children between the ages of 3 to 5 years attending Head Start programs. Physiological measures included assessments of baseline salivary cortisol and change in cortisol in response to the assessment session, and resting and suppression estimates of cardiac vagal tone. Cognitive self-regulation was assessed with a peg-tapping measure of inhibitory control and an item-selection measure of cognitive set-shifting ability. Results indicated that higher level of parent-reported withdrawal motivation was associated with cortisol increase and that parent-reported approach motivation tended to be associated with cortisol decrease across the assessment session. Higher level of parent-reported withdrawal also was positively related to cognitive self-regulation while parent-reported approach was negatively related to cognitive self-regulation. Person-oriented analysis indicated that children characterized by both high level of approach and high level of withdrawal tended to exhibit lower resting vagal tone, higher initial cortisol, and minimal cortisol and vagal change. Overall, findings suggest that the parent-report version of the BIS/BAS scales works well as an indicator of children's reactivity to appetitive and aversive motivational stimuli. Directions for future research and implications of findings for the longitudinal study of temperament and personality are discussed.
Augmented Cognition
Practicing mindfulness-based stress reeducation and other contemplative practices generates a num... more Practicing mindfulness-based stress reeducation and other contemplative practices generates a number of health and human performance benefits. However, limited access to qualified training and practice support, as well as poor practice environments, makes it difficult to sustain the habits necessary to develop the attentional regulation skills needed to benefit from mindfulness. In this paper, we report on our research, which focuses on developing immersive environments to support mindfulness-based stress reduction practices. We specifically look at how the design of a virtual environment can foster a restorative experience, if that restorative experience is associated with the depth of the meditation session, and if there are associations between presence and the depth of the meditation session and the restorative properties of the virtual experience. Results show there are significant relationships between the three core concepts, suggesting future work is needed to determine if there are causal relationships exist between the presence, meditation depth, and perceived restorativeness. Understanding how the design of virtual environments may facilitate mindfulness and other contemplative practices has implications for promoting the use of the practices in a variety of contexts.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Purpose: This experimental cross-sectional research study examined the emotional reactivity and e... more Purpose: This experimental cross-sectional research study examined the emotional reactivity and emotion regulation in preschool-age children who do (CWS) and do not stutter (CWNS) by assessing their psychophysiological response during rest and while viewing pictures from the International Affective Picture System (Lang et al., 2008).Method: Participants were 18 CWS (16 boys and two girls; mean age 4 years, 5 months) and 18 age- and gender-matched CWNS. Participants' psychophysiological responses were measured during two baselines and two picture viewing conditions. Skin conductance level (SCL) and heart rate were measured to assess emotional reactivity. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was measured to assess emotional regulation. Participants' shyness and executive function were assessed via parent report and considered for their effects on participants' psychophysiological responses.Results: First, CWNS and CWS did not differ in their initial baseline SCL, heart rate,...
American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology
Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate whether preschool-age children who stutter (... more Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate whether preschool-age children who stutter (CWS) were more likely to exhibit a temperamental trait of behavioral inhibition (BI), a correlate of shyness, than children who do not stutter (CWNS) and whether this temperamental trait affected preschool-age children's speech fluency and language complexity during a conversation with an unfamiliar adult. Method Sixty-eight preschool-age children (31 CWS, 37 CWNS) participated. The degree of BI was assessed by measuring the latency to their sixth spontaneous comment and the number of all spontaneous comments during a conversation with an unfamiliar examiner (following Kagan et al.'s [1987] methodology). Parent report of shyness from the Children's Behavior Questionnaire served as an indirect measure of BI. Children's language complexity was assessed by measuring their mean length of utterance and the number of words spoken. For CWS, the frequency of stuttering and the ne...