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Even without formal training, adults can easily perceive, clap, tap, and move in time to a musical beat, but these behaviours are more difficult for children and the development of these abilities in childhood is not well understood. Until the present thesis, there were no developmentally appropriate tasks to separately assess musical beat perception and beat synchronization in children. In Chapter 2, I created a child friendly video judgment task to assess beat perception in the context of both simple and complex musical timing, and demonstrated that five-year-old children’s ability to perceive both tempo- and phase-driven beat misalignments is affected by metric complexity. In Chapter 3, I again used the complex Beat Alignment Task (cBAT) to show that the detection of beat misalignment is not significantly affected by the inclusion of dynamic video stimuli compared to static images. Chapter 4 expanded the perception task by adding a tapping synchronization component, and tested both five- and seven-year-old children. The complex Beat Alignment and Tapping Task (cBATT) showed that although children’s overall perceptual sensitivity improves with age, the perceptual bias for simple structures persists. However, although children were significantly better at tapping to metronomes than to songs, musical tapping synchronization was not obviously affected by metric complexity. Instead, performance related to other acoustic characteristics of the music, such as spectral flux, energy, and density. Together, these findings suggest that musically untrained children are sensitive to phase and tempo information in a perception-only task, and show perceptual specialization for culturally typical musical metres, but this is not the case for production. Thus, beat synchronization ability appears to be somewhat dissociated from beat perception in children. These studies represent the first use of a developmentally appropriate task to separately assess children’s beat perception and synchronization while also examining the role of metre and early experience. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Fatherlessness is a serious problem in South Africa and statistics show a high rate of children growing up without parents and particularly without a biological father. An estimated nine million children in South Africa are growing up without a father (Statistics South Africa [StatsSA], 2010). Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) (2010) highlights the systematic disappearance of the traditional family structure among South African families. According to their statistics, only 27% of South African children live with their biological parents, which is a further indication of the increasing number of children in South Africa that come from fatherless homes. In light of the above, the primary goal of the study was to determine teachers‟ perceptions on the impact of fatherlessness on child development. A literature review was undertaken to analyse and describe the effect of fatherlessness on child development from Bronfenbrenner‟s bio-ecosystemic perspective. Secondly, a case study was conducted to qualitatively explore the perceptions of primary school teachers on the effect of fatherlessness on child development. The data was gathered by means of focus group interviews and analysed. The following findings arose from the empirical study: * Fatherlessness has an effect on virtually all facets of child development (emotional, social, moral, spiritual, cognitive and physical). * Fatherlessness implies the absence of a father, whether it is because of death, physical absence (lives and works elsewhere), a lack of involvement (the so-called present-absent father) or that the identity of the father is unknown. * Fatherless learners need special intervention strategies to support their development. * The types of intervention strategies include emotional support, opportunities for male gender role identification and community awareness projects on fatherlessness. * Aside from the material support some teachers offer to the learners, the school does not provide any formal support to fatherless learners. Recommendations are made, in accordance with the findings, in regard to the support of fatherless learners. / MEd (Learner Support), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Fatherlessness is a serious problem in South Africa and statistics show a high rate of children growing up without parents and particularly without a biological father. An estimated nine million children in South Africa are growing up without a father (Statistics South Africa [StatsSA], 2010). Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) (2010) highlights the systematic disappearance of the traditional family structure among South African families. According to their statistics, only 27% of South African children live with their biological parents, which is a further indication of the increasing number of children in South Africa that come from fatherless homes. In light of the above, the primary goal of the study was to determine teachers‟ perceptions on the impact of fatherlessness on child development. A literature review was undertaken to analyse and describe the effect of fatherlessness on child development from Bronfenbrenner‟s bio-ecosystemic perspective. Secondly, a case study was conducted to qualitatively explore the perceptions of primary school teachers on the effect of fatherlessness on child development. The data was gathered by means of focus group interviews and analysed. The following findings arose from the empirical study: * Fatherlessness has an effect on virtually all facets of child development (emotional, social, moral, spiritual, cognitive and physical). * Fatherlessness implies the absence of a father, whether it is because of death, physical absence (lives and works elsewhere), a lack of involvement (the so-called present-absent father) or that the identity of the father is unknown. * Fatherless learners need special intervention strategies to support their development. * The types of intervention strategies include emotional support, opportunities for male gender role identification and community awareness projects on fatherlessness. * Aside from the material support some teachers offer to the learners, the school does not provide any formal support to fatherless learners. Recommendations are made, in accordance with the findings, in regard to the support of fatherless learners. / MEd (Learner Support), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The purpose of this study was to investigate adolescent knowledge of physical, mental, social, and emotional development of babies and young children. The study was concerned with the effects of the following factors on adolescent knowledge of child development; geographic location, family size, ordinal position, and years of homemaking classes in school. Questionnaires were administered to 200 homemaking students in high schools in Parker and Tarrant counties. The only factor significant at the .05 level in affecting.adolescent knowledge was geographic location. Students from rural high schools obtained higher overall child development knowledge scores than students from urban high schools. Further research to compare the knowledge of students not enrolled in homemaking classes to the knowledge of students enrolled in homemaking classes is recommended.

To determine if home economics child development education affected disciplinary techniques used by parents of kindergarten children, 298 parents of kindergarten children completed an eleven-part questionnaire. Comparisons were made of disciplinary techniques used, five categories of child development education, and five levels of education. Educational level appeared to affect parental disciplinary techniques more than child development education. As educational level increased, the use of punitive and reasoning techniques, the use of sources for learned disciplinary techniques, and parental reaction to stress concerning discipline all increased. It is suggested that parental expectations increased as educational level increased. Frustration with disciplining increased punitiveness and reaction to stress. Educational skills encouraged adoption of disciplinary sources.

石粒子. / "2013年8月". / "2013 nian 8 yue". / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 20-23). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Shi Lizi.