Exploring psychological mechanisms of change for children and young people utilising ecological momentary assessment (EMA): a thesis portfolio

Abstract

Two research articles are presented in this thesis: a systematic review and an empirical project. The systematic review investigated the feasibility of using experience sampling methodology (ESM) with children and young people that have a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Some children and young people with autism can face additional challenges, compared to neurotypical peers, contributing to poor outcomes. However, research can often rely on caregiver accounts of these difficulties, thus missing the opportunity to gauge the momentary child-reported fluctuations if self-reported. ESM allows for the measurement fluctuations within the context of one’s everyday life, but to date, no review has explored this with children and young people with autism. As such, the review included 10 studies that utilised ESM with different recruitment strategies, participant training and ESM sampling and prompting design. Additionally, the studies explored different outcomes. The results indicated that there was significant variation in the quality of reporting of ESM studies. Overall, ESM was deemed a feasible methodology for gathering information on a young person with Autism’s thoughts, feelings, emotions and behaviours within the context of their everyday life.

Secondly, an empirical research project investigated mentalization and the mediating role of perceived social support on the daily mental wellbeing of children and young people who reported experiencing traumatic events in their childhood. ESM methodology was used to measure all variables within this study. 27 participants completed 6 ESM assessments per day for 7 days. Results indicated that the momentary mentalization of others had a significant negative relation with momentary mental wellbeing. Moreover, momentary perceived social support was a significant predictor of momentary mental wellbeing and had a strong effect. The interaction of momentary perceived social support and average trauma impact was not significant . The interaction term for momentary perceived social support and momentary mentalization highlighted an additive effect. Lastly, structural equation models explored the mediation of average trauma impact and perceived social support on the relation between momentary mentalization and momentary mental wellbeing.