Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs promote safer school environments for students. GSAs typically refer to student-led, teacher-supported school clubs that serve youth of diverse gender identities and sexual orientations. This study investigated the relationship between students' awareness of school-based GSAs and their bullying experiences, mental health, self-determination, and relationships at school and home. Findings showed that LGBTQ2S+ students experienced higher rates of bullying and symptoms of depression and scored lower on self-determination subscales than cisgender heterosexual students. Interestingly, students who were aware of their school's GSA club scored higher on the self-determination subscales regarding family relationships and lower on bullying compared to students who were unaware of their school's GSA club. LGBTQ2S+ students had lower rates of comfort with their sexual orientation at home and school than their cisgender heterosexual students. Implications and future directions are discussed.
Intellectual impairments in preschoolers have been widely studied. A regularity that emerges is that children's intellectual impairments have an important impact on later adjustments in life. However, few studies have looked at the intellectual profiles of young psychiatric outpatients. This study aimed to describe the intelligence profile of preschoolers referred to psychiatry for various cognitive and behavioral problems in terms of verbal, nonverbal, and full-scale IQ and to examine their association with diagnoses. Three hundred four clinical records from young children aged under 7 years and 3 months who consulted at an outpatient psychiatric clinic and who had one intellectual assessment with a Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence were reviewed. Verbal IQ (VIQ), Nonverbal IQ (NVIQ), and Full-scale IQ (FSIQ) were extracted. Hierarchical cluster analysis using Ward's method was employed to organize data into groups. The children had, on average, a FSIQ of 81, which is significantly lower than that expected in the general population. Four clusters were identified by the hierarchical clusters analysis. Three were characterized by low, average, and high intellectual ability. The last cluster was characterized by a verbal deficit. Findings also revealed that children's diagnoses were not related to any specific cluster, except for children with an intellectual disability with, as expected, low abilities. Children referred to an intellectual assessment in an early childhood mental health clinic showed an altered intellectual development, more specifically in the verbal domain.