(PS7-70) Examining Emotional and Psychological Outcomes of a Modified Tuning in to Teens® Program

Abstract Text: Early adolescence is a critical developmental period when symptoms of anxiety and depression often intensify (Cohen et al., 2017). Emotional competency skills (e.g., emotional awareness and regulation, Saarni, 1999), are essential for healthy development (Lau & Wu, 2012). Difficulties in managing complex emotions such as anger, sadness, and worry heighten the risk of psychological challenges (Zeman et al., 2002). Programs focused on strengthening emotion skills can enhance regulation abilities while also reducing psychopathology (Moltrecht et al., 2021). This study examines the effects of a modified Tuning in to Teens® (TINT) program (Kehoe et al., 2013), originally designed for parents, now adapted for in-person implementation with a community sample of middle-school-age adolescents. The program consisted of six, two-hour sessions focused on teaching emotional competency skills. This study evaluates the program’s impact on emotional awareness and regulation outcomes as well as parent- and child-reported internalizing and externalizing symptoms.
Participants were 36 youth (23 girls; Mage = 11.82, SD = 0.97, grades 5-7; 77.8% White) with 20 more participants expected to complete the program. Youth answered the Emotion Expression Scale for Children (Penza-Clyve & Zeman, 2002), the Children’s Emotional Management Scales (Zeman et al., 2001), the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (March et al., 1997), the Children’s Depression Inventory (Kovacs, 1992), and the externalizing items from the Youth Self Report (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001). Parents (n = 29) completed the Emotion Expression Scale for Children (Kerns et al., 2014) and the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001). Data were collected at T1 (first session), T2 (last session), and T3 (one-month post-program).
Repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted with attention paid to the effect size given the sample size.¬¬¬ A large effect emerged for child-report of expressive reluctance, F(2, 32) = 3.05, p = .06, η2p = .16, indicating less reluctance to express negative emotions from T1 to T3 (p = .02). Parents reported a decrease in their children’s poor emotional awareness, F(2, 27), p = .02, η2p = .27, from T1 to T2 (p = .03) and T1 to T3 (p = .004). For emotion-specific regulation, there were significant effects for sadness dysregulation, F(2, 34) = 3.56, p = .04, η2p = .17, and regulation, F(2, 34) = 3.60, p = .04, η2p = .18, from T1 to T2 (ps = .01). Youth anxiety significantly decreased, F(2, 34) = 5.54, p = .01, η2p = .25, from T1 to T3 (p = .01) and T2 to T3 (p = .01). Youth depression symptoms also decreased, F(1.59, 55.65) = 3.38, p = .05, η2p = .09, from T1 to T3 (p = .04) and T2 to T3 (p = .02). There was a significant reduction in externalizing symptoms, F(1.67, 58.09) = 8.68, p = .001, η2p = .20, from T1 to T3 (p = .001) and T2 to T3 (p < .001). However, parent-report of teen symptoms were not significant.
Findings suggest that the modified TINT program may be effective in improving emotional competency skills while reducing internalizing and externalizing symptoms in early adolescents. Further research is needed to examine whether these effects differ by gender and age, and generalize to non-White samples.