Cyberbullying and Cyberhate as Two Interlinked Instances of Cyber-Aggression in Adolescence: A Systematic Review.

In this paper we present the results of a systematic review aimed at investigating what the literature reports on cyberbullying and cyberhate, whether and to what extent the connection between the two phenomena is made explicit, and whether it is possible to identify overlapping factors in the description of the phenomena. Specifically, for each of the 24 selected papers, we have identified the predictors of cyberbullying behaviors and the consequences of cyberbullying acts on the victims; the same analysis has been carried out with reference to cyberhate. Then, by comparing what emerged from the literature on cyberbullying with what emerged from the literature on cyberhate, we verify to what extent the two phenomena overlap in terms of predictors and consequences. Results show that the cyberhate issue related to adolescents is less investigated than cyberbullying, and most of the papers focusing on one of them do not refer to the other. Nevertheless, by comparing the predictors and outcomes of cyberbullying and cyberhate as reported in the literature, an overlap between the two concepts emerges, with reference to: the parent-child relationship to reduce the risk of cyber-aggression; the link between sexuality and cyber-attacks; the protective role of the families and of good quality friendship relationships; the impact of cyberbullying and cyberhate on adolescents' individuals' well-being and emotions; meaningful analogies between the coping strategies put in practice by victims of cyberbullying and cyberhate. We argue that the results of this review can stimulate a holistic approach for future studies on cyberbullying and cyberhate where the two phenomena are analyzed as two interlinked instances of cyber-aggression. Similarly, prevention and intervention programs on a responsible and safe use of social media should refer to both cyberbullying and cyberhate issues, as they share many predictors as well as consequences on adolescents' wellbeing, thus making it diminishing to afford them separately. Systematic Review Registration: http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO, identifier: CRD42021239461.

The BEHAVE application as a tool to monitor inclusive interventions for subjects with neurodevelopmental disorders.

In the last few years, many educational and therapeutic interventions for young people with neurodevelopmental disorders are based on systematic monitoring of the outcomes. These interventions are typically conducted using single-case experimental designs, (SCEDs) a set of methods aimed at testing the effect of an intervention on a single subject or a small number of subjects. In SCEDs, an effective process of decision-making needs accurate, precise, and reliable data but also that caregivers and health professionals can gather information with minimal effort. The use of Information Communication Technologies in SCEDs can support the process of data collection and analysis, facilitating the collection of accurate and reliable data, providing reports accessible also by non-experts, and promoting interactions and sharing among clinicians, educators, and caregivers. The present paper introduces the BEHAVE application, a web-based highly customizable application, designed to implement SCEDs, supporting both data collection and automatic analysis of the datasets. Moreover, the paper will describe two case studies of kindergarten children with neurodevelopmental disorders, highlighting how the BEHAVE application supported the entire process, from data collection in multiple contexts to decision-making based on the analysis provided by the system. In particular, the paper describes the case studies of Carlo and Dario, two children with severe language and communication impairments, and the inclusive education interventions carried out to maximize their participation in a typical home and school setting increasing their mand repertoire. Results revealed an increase in the mand repertoire in both children who become able to generalize the outcomes to multiple life contexts. The active participation of the caregivers played a crucial role in the ability of children to use the learned skills in settings different from the ones they were learned in.

Challenging social media threats using collective well-being-aware recommendation algorithms and an educational virtual companion.

Social media have become an integral part of our lives, expanding our interlinking capabilities to new levels. There is plenty to be said about their positive effects. On the other hand, however, some serious negative implications of social media have been repeatedly highlighted in recent years, pointing at various threats to society and its more vulnerable members, such as teenagers, in particular, ranging from much-discussed problems such as digital addiction and polarization to manipulative influences of algorithms and further to more teenager-specific issues (e.g., body stereotyping). The impact of social media-both at an individual and societal level-is characterized by the complex interplay between the users' interactions and the intelligent components of the platform. Thus, users' understanding of social media mechanisms plays a determinant role. We thus propose a theoretical framework based on an adaptive "Social Media Virtual Companion" for educating and supporting an entire community, teenage students, to interact in social media environments in order to achieve desirable conditions, defined in terms of a community-specific and participatory designed measure of Collective Well-Being (CWB). This Companion combines automatic processing with expert intervention and guidance. The virtual Companion will be powered by a Recommender System (CWB-RS) that will optimize a CWB metric instead of engagement or platform profit, which currently largely drives recommender systems thereby disregarding any societal collateral effect. CWB-RS will optimize CWB both in the short term by balancing the level of social media threats the users are exposed to, and in the long term by adopting an Intelligent Tutor System role and enabling adaptive and personalized sequencing of playful learning activities. We put an emphasis on experts and educators in the educationally managed social media community of the Companion. They play five key roles: (a) use the Companion in classroom-based educational activities; (b) guide the definition of the CWB; (c) provide a hierarchical structure of learning strategies, objectives and activities that will support and contain the adaptive sequencing algorithms of the CWB-RS based on hierarchical reinforcement learning; (d) act as moderators of direct conflicts between the members of the community; and, finally, (e) monitor and address ethical and educational issues that are beyond the intelligent agent's competence and control. This framework offers a possible approach to understanding how to design social media systems and embedded educational interventions that favor a more healthy and positive society. Preliminary results on the performance of the Companion's components and studies of the educational and psychological underlying principles are presented.

Psychotherapy as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Coping Strategies and Anxiety During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the development of several risk factors for mental health, not only for people directly infected but also for those experiencing social isolation, loneliness, and concern for their health. The impact of these factors on individuals' health and well-being also depends on the type of coping strategies adopted. Moreover, one of the main effects of COVID-19 is the increase in the prevalence of people who manifest anxious or depressive syndromes. This study investigates the relationship between coping strategies and a multidimensional assessment of anxiety symptoms measured during the COVID-19 pandemic in people who were having psychotherapy sessions, while participating in the study had psychotherapy sessions (clinical group) and those who have never done them (non-clinical group). The results of a questionnaire administered online to Italian subjects from June to July, 2020 were analyzed through multiple linear regressions methods to evaluate the role of psychotherapy as moderator between anxiety symptoms and coping strategies. The results of this study highlight that there are substantial differences in functioning between the clinical and non-clinical groups, underlying the key role of psychotherapy as a moderator between anxiety and the coping strategies of avoidance, social support, and positive attitude.

Development and Validation of a Functional Behavioural Assessment Ontology to Support Behavioural Health Interventions.

BACKGROUND: In the cognitive-behavioral approach, Functional Behavioural Assessment is one of the most effective methods to identify the variables that determine a problem behavior. In this context, the use of modern technologies can encourage the collection and sharing of behavioral patterns, effective intervention strategies, and statistical evidence about antecedents and consequences of clusters of problem behaviors, encouraging the designing of function-based interventions. OBJECTIVE: The paper describes the development and validation process used to design a specific Functional Behavioural Assessment Ontology (FBA-Ontology). The FBA-Ontology is a semantic representation of the variables that intervene in a behavioral observation process, facilitating the systematic collection of behavioral data, the consequential planning of treatment strategies and, indirectly, the scientific advancement in this field of study. METHODS: The ontology has been developed deducing concepts and relationships of the ontology from a gold standard and then performing a machine-based validation and a human-based assessment to validate the Functional Behavioural Assessment Ontology. These validation and verification processes were aimed to verify how much the ontology is conceptually well founded and semantically and syntactically correct. RESULTS: The Pellet reasoner checked the logical consistency and the integrity of classes and properties defined in the ontology, not detecting any violation of constraints in the ontology definition. To assess whether the ontology definition is coherent with the knowledge domain, human evaluation of the ontology was performed asking 84 people to fill in a questionnaire composed by 13 questions assessing concepts, relations between concepts, and concepts' attributes. The response rate for the survey was 29/84 (34.52%). The domain experts confirmed that the concepts, the attributes, and the relationships between concepts defined in the FBA-Ontology are valid and well represent the Functional Behavioural Assessment process. CONCLUSIONS: The new ontology developed could be a useful tool to design new evidence-based systems in the Behavioral Interventions practices, encouraging the link with other Linked Open Data datasets and repositories to provide users with new models of eHealth focused on the management of problem behaviors. Therefore, new research is needed to develop and implement innovative strategies to improve the poor reproducibility and translatability of basic research findings in the field of behavioral assessment.