Advisor(s)
Caroline Richter
Committee Member(s)
Carolyn Mervis
Christopher Henrich
Sandra Chafouleas
Sylvie Mrug
School
College of Arts and Sciences
Document Type
Dissertation
Department (new version)
Psychology
Date of Award
9-11-2025
Abstract
Emotional well-being has emerged as a crucial determinant of both physical and mental health, with implications for public health initiatives aimed at improving quality of life and reducing mortality. However, a clear and consistent understanding of emotional well-being, its components, and optimal measurement strategies remains lacking, especially for individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. This dissertation investigated how emotional well-being is conceptualized and measured in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. Paper one was a scoping review that identified 20 emotional well-being measures developed or adapted for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Findings demonstrated that many existing measures do not include emotional well-being items and instead focus on quality of life or external conditions. Of the identified measures, many accommodations exist to increase the utility of self-report measures for this population, however, most measures are validated on adults and older adults with mild to moderate levels ID. Paper two reported the psychometric properties of emotional well-being measures currently used for children with specific learning disabilities (SLD). These measures showed high internal consistency and evidence of convergent validity. The self-reported levels of emotional well-being in children with SLD were similar to those reported by typically developing children. These findings indicated that children with SLD are able to reliably report on their internal experiences. They may demonstrate unique resilience factors that mitigate the increased risk factors that impact both their mental health and emotional well-being. The final paper further characterized mastery motivation, a construct related to goal pursuit, in six- to eight-year-old children with Williams syndrome. Children with Williams syndrome demonstrated higher persistence, and lower mastery pleasure in a fishing task compared to a puzzle task, and lower parent reported mastery motivation compared to typically developing norms. Persistence in the puzzle task uniquely predicted the school readiness subtest of Matching Letter Like Forms. These findings provide insight on the potential impact of mastery motivation on school readiness, specifically in skills related to visual discrimination. Overall, by further characterizing emotional well-being, identifying and assessing measures, and examining associated variables such as mastery motivation, this project further advances the conceptualization of emotional well-being specific to individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. A more reflective conceptualization may help identify and develop optimal measures to evaluate emotional well-being in individuals across different disabilities.
ProQuest ID
Recommended Citation
Mercier, Alecia, "Measuring Emotional Well-Being Across Neurodevelopmental Disorders" (2025). All ETDs from UAB. 7413.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-collection/7413
