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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 2d

@topicgroup.bsky.social

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Reposted by Dr Lucy Foulkes

Dr Susan Ebbels @susanebbels.bsky.social · 2d

Read this thread if you are unsure what DLD (Developmental Language Disorder) is

#DevLangDis

Word Aware @wordaware.bsky.social · 13d

#DLDday is coming, so I’m starting a thread over a few days.

DLD (Developmental Language Disorder) is all about spoken language. Words and sentences are tricky for people with DLD. And people don’t grow out of it.
#DevLangDis @radld.bsky.social

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 2d

Instead, we may be better off focusing our efforts on targeted support (1:1 or small group) for those who want or need it

I argue this further in the paper below

acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

(with thanks to Carolina et al for all their great work getting this paper out 🙏)

Debate: Where to next for universal school-based mental health interventions? Time to move towards more effective alternatives

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 2d

We have to be cautious: of course, there are far too many YP that do have these problems and aren’t getting the help they need

But it’s another reminder that universal interventions aren’t a good idea, because many people in each class don't need help (and these interventions don't help MH anyway)

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 2d

For the measure of depressive symptoms, 5381 (69.8%) were in the low-low-low group

For total SDQ score, 4938 (64.2%) were low-low-low

This is important and encouraging. It tells us that, across about a year, the majority of young people do not have mental health problems

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 2d

Let's go back to this graph and look at the pink line. This line represents the students who were low in anxiety before the study, low in anxiety after it, and low 12 months later

76.6% of participants (5514 students) were in this
low-low-low group

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 2d

Why does this matter?

It contributes to the growing argument that universal school interventions are not the answer to improving MH in young people

But this study highlighted something else that I think is important... it showed that the majority of young people do not have mental health problems

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 2d

This suggests that the average overall findings found in MYRIAD are not masking specific hidden subgroups that experience positive or negative effects

We don't know if this applies to other universal interventions that show null/negative effects - Carolina is looking at this now

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 2d

Our key finding was that having mindfulness lessons (vs being in the control group) didn’t predict which of these trajectory groups a student would end up in

There was variety in students’ mental health trajectories, it just didn’t link to whether they'd been in the mindfulness vs control group

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 2d

To do this, Carolina conducted trajectory analysis, which enables us to split participants into subgroups based on their symptoms before, immediately after, and a year after the intervention

So, one subgroup might be high-high-high, one might be
high-low-low, etc

example visual below

trajectory analysis graph - anxiety symptoms

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 2d

The overall findings from MYRIAD showed null and negative effects. In this paper, we wanted to examine underlying individual differences

We wanted to know: were there subgroups of students more likely to experience negative effects (symptom increase) or positive effects (symptom reduction)?

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 2d

New paper from my group, led by Carolina Guzman Holst

This is a secondary analysis of data from the high-quality MYRIAD trial, a universal school-based mindfulness intervention

Summary below (🧵)

acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Adolescents' trajectories of mental health in the MYRIAD trial

Abstract
Background
This study explored adolescent's mental health trajectories over the course of a school-based mindfulness-based intervention trial (MYRIAD). It examined whether intervention condition (mindfulness vs. teaching-as-usual), individual-level and contextual-level factors were associated with different trajectories.

Methods
This pre-registered study used data from 11- to 14-year-olds who participated in the MYRIAD trial. We used growth mixture models to examine distinct trajectories in risk for depression, social-emotional-behavioural functioning, and wellbeing (co-primary outcomes), and anxiety (secondary outcome), across pre-intervention, post-intervention and 12-month follow up (ns = 7198–7727). We then used multinomial and binomial logistic regression models to examine factors associated with individual trajectory membership.

Results
Distinct trajectories emerged for each outcome: A five-trajectory model best explained the changes in risk for depression, whilst four-trajectory models best explained changes in social-emotional-behavioural functioning, wellbeing, and anxiety. While 69%–80% of adolescents followed stable low-problem trajectories for each outcome, 11%–23% experienced stable high-problem trajectories, 2%–16% experienced increasing-problem trajectories and 1%–5% experienced decreasing-problem trajectories. Receiving the mindfulness intervention was not associated with any mental health trajectory in models adjusted for confounders. Several individual-level factors, including executive functioning difficulties and risk of mental health problems at baseline, and school-level factors, such as school climate, predicted adolescents' classification into different trajectories, but they did not vary according to intervention group.

Conclusions
Individual differences in mental health trajectories emerged over the course of a 1-year mindfulness-based intervention, with most adolescents experiencing low-stable problem trajectories for each outcome. However, the intervention itself had no impact on individual trajectory membership, mirroring null results found in the main trial. Our findings suggest that universal interventions may not be sensitive enough to address the diverse needs of all students, however, tailoring interventions to address a range of different individual and contextual factors might maximise their impact.

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 5d

ah okay got it, thanks! Ha yes I do try to be careful about these things, even when they get in the way of a nice easy story... so I'm glad that came across 😁

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 11d

no matter what happened to us. Let me know if you do read it as would love to hear what you think!

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 11d

that move me whenever I think of them. But I also tried to make it a hopeful book, because the resounding feeling i got from writing it was just how brave and resilient young people can be, and that all teenage stories can be re-written, at least in part, by our adult selves...

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 11d

oh no!! I'm sorry to hear this but understand (I'm too scared to read A Little Life). If you had a difficult time in adolescence - which we all did to varying degrees - then it will make you reflect on that for sure, and some of my interviewees faced exceptionally tough life events...

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · 11d

thanks so much for these kind words Julia! Really glad you liked it. Can I ask what you mean about the theories that grind your gears (no shade just want to understand 🙂) - do you mean the overarching theory that adolescence shapes our adult selves and that this may not always be the case?

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Reposted by Dr Lucy Foulkes

Vaughan Bell @vaughanbell.bsky.social · 27d

New from us:

Understanding the countermovement to online presentations of psychiatric disorder that are perceived as "faked" www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

A huge online movement tries to identify people they feel are 'faking' mental illness for reasons of self-promotion.

Understanding the countermovement to online presentations of psychiatric disorder that are perceived as

The self-presentation of psychiatric disorders on social media has generated a countermovement of sceptics who believe some are “faked” for reasons of self-promotion. This has been the focus of a R...

www.tandfonline.com

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Reposted by Dr Lucy Foulkes

Isaac Ahuvia @isaacahuvia.bsky.social · Sep 6

Forthcoming in CPS (@psychscience.bsky.social): Are mental illness identities helpful? Harmful? Can thinking you have a mental illness become a “self-fulfilling prophecy”... and how would this happen?

doi.org/10.1177/2167...

🧵⬇️

The Mental Illness Self-Labeling Model: A Conceptual Model for Studying the Effects of Mental-Illness Self-Labeling on Clinical Outcomes - Isaac L. Ahuvia, Bruce G. Link, 2025

Self-labeling with a mental illness, for example, deciding that one “has depression,” has the potential to affect clinical outcomes through multiple cognitive a...

doi.org

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · Jul 14

My book Coming Of Age: How Adolescence Shapes Us is out in paperback now

www.penguin.co.uk/books/451093...

Cover of Coming Of Age: How Adolescence Shapes Us by Lucy Foulkes. Out now in paperback

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · Jul 7

thank you!

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · Jul 7

you might enjoy this book if you're not already aware of it! I'm reading it at the moment - it's basically loads of people being interviewed about their jobs and it's so interesting

www.panmacmillan.com/authors/char...

Is This Working? by Charlie Colenutt

Find out more about Is This Working? by Charlie Colenutt

www.panmacmillan.com

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · Jul 7

Out on Thursday, available to order now:

www.penguin.co.uk/books/451093...

Coming of Age

What we experience during adolescence shapes us for life, but psychologist Lucy Foulkes shows that too often we fear, dismiss or even try to prevent aspects of it that are crucial to our development. ...

www.penguin.co.uk

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · Jul 7

Coming Of Age is about how adolescent memories pack such an emotional punch and how they shape our adult lives — but also about how the narrative about them has room for change, about how the stories we tell about our adolescent selves can always be re-written

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Dr Lucy Foulkes @lucyfoulkes.bsky.social · Jul 7

I’m especially grateful for David’s review here - all positive reviews are lovely of course, but this one felt particularly special because I felt like he really captured what I hoped the book was about...

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