Drs. Rice and Ihrig and GSEHD Students/Alumni Published in Journal of Child and Families Studies


April 15, 2020

Special Education and Disability Studies (SEDS) faculty, Drs. Elisabeth Rice and Karen Ihrig, published an article with SEDS alumnae Margaux Brown, Kandace Hoppin, Amy Srsic, Adelaide Kelly-Massoud and doctoral student Melissa Boston in the Journal of Child and Families Studies. The article's title is "Raising Girls with Emotional and Behavioral Challenges: An Exploration of Caregiver Perceptions."

Highlights of the article include:

  • Caregivers of youth with emotional and behavioral challenges experience parental stress and caregiver strain; unique experiences of caregivers of girls are explored here.
  • Researchers interviewed caregivers of 16 girls with emotional and behavioral challenges from urban, suburban, and rural areas.
  • Caregivers perceived their daughters’ behaviors to be more complex than what is described in the literature as an externalizing-internalizing continuum.
  • Participants reported that schools failed to correctly identify their daughters and provided reactive rather than proactive services. Therapy and medication were also helpful interventions.
  • Researchers explored coping among these caregivers of girls with emotional and behavioral challenges.