Building on research on family communication and forgiveness, this study seeks to understand how families communicate the value and practice of forgiveness. Through semi-structured interviews, the study asks participants to recall their formative conversations and experiences about forgiveness with their family members and to discuss how those conversations influenced their current perspectives on forgiveness. Interviews from five female undergraduate students yielded seven main themes from where individuals learn how to forgive: 1) Sibling conflicts, 2) Family conversations about friendship conflicts, 3) Conversations with Mom, 4) Living by example, 5) Take the high road, 6) “Life’s too short”, and 7) Messages rooted in faith and morality.

American Sign Language (ASL) is a manual language that communicates through gestures, facial expressions, and body language. In the United States, there are over six million sign language users (Mitchell & Young, 2022). At Arizona State University, there is a limited offering of classes for undergraduate students to take sign language; they can take up to four levels, which is satisfactory for degrees’ foreign language requirements. If students wish to proceed with their ASL education, they must transfer to a different university. The purpose of this study and subsequent research is to propose an ASL minor that can be established at ASU so that students can receive an in-depth education. Survey data was collected with the intention of determining how students felt about ASL and the addition of a potential minor. The survey findings, coupled with the secondary literature review, lead to the conclusion that establishing an American Sign Language minor is in the best interests of both the students and the University.

SUMMARY: A failed attempt to conduct a systematic review of disparities in racial inclusivity in stroke rehabilitation research: A call to action Group Members: Adeline Beeler & Mikayla McNally Faculty Mentor(s): Dr. Sydney Schaefer & Dr. Keith Lohse Topic Overview: Stroke is responsible for the death of an individual every four minutes in the United States. While all Americans are gravely affected by this statistic, Black Americans are at a significantly increased risk of first stroke incidence when compared to their white counterparts, majorly due to heightened prevalence of stroke risk factors. Not only does race contribute as a factor in stroke incidence, but it also has a considerable impact in the physical impairment of Black Americans following stroke occurrence. While it still remains unclear as to whether or not stroke plays a significant role in stroke rehabilitation efforts, there is a clearly demonstrated need for increased reporting or participation of Black Americans in stroke rehabilitation clinical trials to have the ability to conduct a systematic review of these racial disparities in the near future. In the analysis of 36 stroke rehabilitation-related clinical research studies, 80% of selected trials failed to report any participant racial demographics, with 77.3% of the NIH-funded trials not reporting, as well. Out of the 7 trials that did provide some sort of participant racial information, only 5 successfully provided statistically significant racial data compared to the remainder that simply categorized participants’ race as “white” or “other.” In order to fully investigate the effects of race on stroke rehabilitation, it is imperative that researchers collect and report equally distributed and diverse participant racial data when publishing clinical research. Potential methods of improvement for researchers to include more racially diverse subject populations include more comprehensive and in-depth advertising and recruitment strategies for their studies. Research Methods: In order to produce accurate analyses of the current state of the relationship between race and stroke rehabilitation efforts, 36 stroke rehabilitation clinical research trials from various locations across the United States were identified using the Centralized Open-Access Rehabilitation Database for Stroke (SCOAR). These trials were evaluated in order to extract relevant data, such as number of trial participants, average age of participants, if the research trial was funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) or not, and any reported participant racial demographic details. Trends across these categories were compared between all trials to determine if any disparities existed in providing data sufficient to support the relationship between varying racial populations and stroke rehabilitation efforts. Future Project Efforts: Future efforts will include the completion of submitting a Point of View/Directions for Research article for publication to offer an opportunity for clinical and basic researchers to examine the discrepancies surrounding racial inclusivity in stroke rehabilitation clinical research. The aim is to improve the ability of clinicians to interpret the literature, translate research studies into practices, and better direct future experiments. Further identification of stroke rehabilitation clinical research trials will be necessary, as well as modifications to current written work content.