Objective: Limited time and resources necessitate the availability of accurate, inexpensive and rapid diagnostic aids for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The Autistic Behavioural Indicators Instrument (ABII) was developed for this purpose, but its psychometric properties have not yet been fully established. Method: The clinician-rated ABII, the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), the Childhood Autism Rating Scale – Second Edition, Standard Version (CARS2-ST), and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) diagnostic criteria were individually administered to children with an independent paediatrician DSM-IV-TR or DSM-5 autism spectrum diagnosis, aged 2-6 years (n = 51, Mchildage = 3.6 years). The agreement between each of the measures on autism diagnostic classification was calculated and compared, and the intercorrelation between the instruments examined. Results: There was significant moderate agreement for the classification of autism between the ABII and the DSM-5, and significant fair agreement between the ABII and ADOS and ABII and CARS2-ST. True positive diagnostic classifications were similar across the ABII (n = 47, 92.2%) and ADOS (n = 45, 88.2%), and significantly higher than the CARS2-ST (n = 30, 58.8%). The ABII total scale score was strongly positively correlated with both the ADOS and CARS2-ST total scores. Conclusion: The ABII's test characteristics were comparable to those of established measures, and the intercorrelations between selected measures support its convergent validity. The ABII could be added to the clinician's toolbox as a screening test.

School belonging is generally regarded as a student's sense of affiliation or connection to his or her school. Anyone who has personally navigated the sometimes torturous terrain of secondary school is able to have some level of direct understanding of the importance that belonging, fitting in, and identifying with a school holds for most people. Educators and practitioners often work with young people who feel that they do not belong to the school community, in which they attend. An absence of belonging can manifest itself in mental health concerns, school attrition, and risk taking behaviours. Opportunities for early intervention through fostering school belonging are born from a greater understanding and awareness of what school belonging is and how it is contextualised and fostered. This special issue aims to place a focus on school belonging and highlight it as a significant social issue of our time.

While children both understand the concept of, and have died by, suicide, little research has been conducted on children's experiences of healthcare systems during and after a suicidal crisis. This article focuses on three case studies of mothers with suicidal daughters and aims to describe the health service experiences of parents whose children have attempted suicide. The case studies were selected as exemplars of three different healthcare experiences of mothers with suicidal daughters younger than 16 years of age. Interviews were conducted with the mothers, focusing on their experiences when trying to find care for their daughters after a suicide attempt. A ‘dirty text’ analysis was undertaken on the transcripts, which aimed to find potential redemption within stories of trauma. Narratives were analysed to see how their stories were told, but also how experiences could be shared or be dissimilar. Significant gaps currently exist in the care and support provided to suicidal children, particularly in the critical post-discharge phase. Adults were not always able to recognise when a child was suicidal, or sometimes take that suicidality seriously. Support must often be proactively sought, and even organisations that are meant to target children and adolescents may not always provide appropriate care.

School belonging, at both a school and university level, has been well documented as a predictor of academic and psychosocial success. The construct has been examined by scholars in a variety of different professional disciplines (e.g., education, psychology, sociology) and continues to be consistently researched. Although significant contributions have been made in the field, there are still additional areas of investigation needed, as well as interventions that need to be designed and explored. The current article was designed to review the theoretical foundations of belonging, conceptualise school belonging with respect to how it is presented in the literature, discuss the key variables related to school belonging, present a summary of the predictors of school belonging, discuss school belonging in a university setting, and posit future directions for research.

Considering the many positive outcomes associated with adolescents’ sense of school belonging, including psychological functioning, it is possible that including an assessment of school belonging within a complete mental health screening process could contribute to the prediction of students’ future mental health status. This exploratory study used complete mental health screening data obtained from a central California high school (N = 1,159). At Time 1 (T1) schoolwide screening was used to identify complete mental health groups by applying a dual-factor strategy and concurrently measuring students’ school belonging. One year later at Time 2 (T2), social-emotional wellbeing and internal distress were assessed. Cross-sectional T1 results indicated that there were significant differences in school belonging between students who reported low global life satisfaction and those who reported average or high global life satisfaction, regardless of reported level of psychological distress. A comparison of T1 to T2 data revealed that global life satisfaction and psychological distress were predictive of wellbeing and internal distress. However, contrary to study expectations, school belonging at T1 added little to the prediction of T2 psychological distress beyond the information already provided by the T1 dual-factor screening framework. Implications for practice and future directions are discussed.

Studying worked examples providing problem solutions to learners usually leads to better test performance than solving the equivalent problems without guidance, demonstrating the worked-example effect. The generation effect occurs when learners who generate answers without guidance learn better than those who read answers that provide guidance. The contradiction between these results can be hypothesised to be due to differences in the element interactivity of the learning tasks. Primary school students in Year 6 participated in the experiment, which investigated the hypothesis by using geometry materials. A disordinal interaction was obtained between levels of guidance and levels of element interactivity. Higher levels of guidance facilitated learning using high element interactivity information, while lower levels of guidance facilitated learning for low element interactivity information. Cognitive load theory was used to explain these contrasting results. From an educational perspective, it was suggested that when determining levels of guidance, a consideration of element interactivity is essential.

Teacher adaptability is a key disposition for teachers that has been linked to outcomes of interests to schools. The aim of this study was to examine how the broader disposition of teacher adaptability might be observable as classroom-based adaptive practices using an argument-based approach to validation. The findings from the initial phase of the validation study indicate that there is sufficient warrant to further develop a teacher observation instrument based on the construct of teacher adaptive practices. The study is of import to educational researchers and school leaders who are interested in the development and use of a valid and reliable teacher observation instrument designed for the purpose of promoting adaptive teacher practices.

Previous research with adolescents with refugee backgrounds living in countries of resettlement has found that school belonging has an impact on a range of wellbeing and developmental outcomes, including mental health, peer relationships, self-esteem and self-efficacy, and academic achievement. However, very little research has explored school belonging in younger children with refugee backgrounds (i.e., under 13 years of age). In this article we report on a participatory research project concerning the experiences and understandings of school belonging with 15 children with refugee backgrounds (aged from 5 to 13 years old) who had been living in Australia for less than 12 months. The research aimed to explore experiences of school and school belonging from the perspective of children, and utilised photo elicitation techniques. The study found that refugee children were able to create a sense of school belonging through aspects of the school environment that reflected their identity and values, and through their relationships with their peers and teachers. In conclusion, we highlight the importance of ensuring that schools create spaces for refugee students to demonstrate their knowledge, values, and skills at school, and to ensure that strategies to promote school belonging in refugee students take into account their experiences and identity.

‘School connectedness’ is one of a number of terms used to describe a young person's relationship to school. With school being a compulsory feature of most young people's lives, the nature of this relationship can be highly influential in terms of the quality of their overall school experience. Young people experiencing low connectedness are more likely to withdraw from school and experience the parlous outcomes that often follow. This study used a mixed methods approach to explore the meanings of being connected with school, how this process is understood by students and staff, and how it is shaped by school and individual factors. The study was conducted at a secondary college in outer metropolitan Melbourne. Data collection involved a student questionnaire, student and staff focus groups, and student diaries. Findings indicate that that year level, cigarette use, and involvement in the choice of school were associated with significant differences in connectedness scores. Qualitative data revealed that students experience their connection to school through the relational, activity-based, and academic opportunities available to them in the school setting. It is argued that the findings from this study could be used to frame effective risk reduction or protection-enhancing interventions in schools.

Learning from complex instructional materials typically requires sustained attention, but many learners — both children and adults — may find their minds ‘wandering’ when learning. Drama educators have argued that ‘mirroring’ exercises, where students in pairs or groups mirror each other's movements, improve attention; but, to date, evidence for this claim is anecdotal. This exploratory study investigated the effects of a prelearning mirroring intervention on mathematical performance from the perspective of cognitive load theory. Twenty-six university students engaged in a mindful and embodied mirroring activity before learning a rapid mental mathematics strategy. Effects on learning were evaluated using two mathematical problem-solving tests completed after learning the maths strategy. Compared to the non-mirroring condition, students in the mirroring condition solved subsequent test problems more quickly than those in the control condition. Initial evidence thus suggests a mirroring intervention may enhance the quality of learning during mathematics.

Many youth participate in extracurricular activities, and research has linked activity participation with school engagement and academic success. Social-ecological theory suggests that the social contexts of different types of extracurricular activities may differentially affect student outcomes. Yet, there is scant research examining the relation between various extracurricular activities and student outcomes. The current study seeks to address this gap by exploring how participation in three activities (sports, clubs, and arts), and combinations of these activities are associated with perceptions of school climate, using multilevel modelling. Participants included 15,004 high school students from 28 schools across 11 states in the United States. Findings suggest that students involved in extracurricular activities have more favourable perceptions of social-emotional security, adult support, student support, and school connectedness. However, these perceptions vary by activity type and combination, and do not appear to have a stacked effect in which involvement in more activities yields more favourable outcomes. We conclude that extracurricular activity participation may serve as a mechanism to promote a positive school climate. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

This qualitative study explored students’ experiences in a small, early-college secondary school in the United States that intentionally aims to create a culture promoting accelerated academic achievement, particularly in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Past research in the fields of both educational and developmental psychology has suggested that students’ sense of belonging plays a significant role in their social and academic functioning. Few studies, however, have explored how students’ sense of belonging is supported in settings that emphasise accelerated academic performance. The present study focused on students’ own understanding of the factors that contribute to their sense of belonging in this academically rigorous environment and extends current accounts of belonging, most of which have been quantitative in nature. The results of the present study highlight a distinction between social and academic belonging. Social belonging originated from students’ descriptions of their relationships with teachers and friends, alongside a noted lack of bullying behaviour, and an open and accepting social environment. Academic belonging originated from students’ accounts of meeting rigorous expectations, participating in a range of educational opportunities, receiving academic support from teachers, and sharing similar academic interests with peers. Some students reported experiencing one type of belonging without the other, suggesting that social and academic belonging are distinct aspects of students’ overall sense of school belonging. Future research should examine whether academic belonging provides an alternative pathway to the sense of school belonging in academic environments beyond the context examined in the present study.

The benefits of belonging and feeling connected to school for adolescent mental health and wellbeing are well documented, but how belonging is fostered is less understood. The present article puts forward a new conceptual framework of school belonging based on Bronfenbrenner's (1979) sociological model of human development, using evidence from a range of previous peer-reviewed studies to better understand the factors that occur across five levels that affect a students’ sense of school belonging (i.e., the individual level, the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, and the macrosystem). The conceptual framework is used to present a range of evidence-based school belonging strategies (some with examples) that schools can use to enhance student belonging. This article makes an original contribution to the field of psychological and educational research by presenting a socio-ecological framework to explore the themes that influence school belonging within a secondary school system. It broadens the frame of reference of school belonging beyond the individual student to consider features of the broader school system and environment.