published_or_final_version / Community Medicine / Master / Master of Public Health

Impairments in executive function have been posited to account for some of the poor cognitive and educational outcomes associated with very preterm birth. As part of a prospective, longitudinal study, this research examined executive function in a regionally representative sample of 103 children born very preterm and/or very low birth weight (<33 weeks GA / <1500g) and a comparison sample of 108 full term children at age 6 years (corrected for prematurity). The specific aims of the study were 1) to describe the performance of children born very preterm and full term on a range of executive function measures, 2) to identify the antecedent medical, neurological and socio-familial factors associated with executive function performance within the very preterm group, and 3) to examine linkages between children’s executive function performance and their academic achievement at age 6 years. Children underwent a comprehensive developmental assessment, including standardised tests of IQ and academic achievement in mathematics, reading and receptive language. Additionally, they completed a number of executive function tasks selected to assess verbal working memory (Digit Span), spatial working memory (Corsi Blocks), planning and problem-solving (Tower of Hanoi), selective attention (Visual Search), shifting and inhibitory control (Detour Reaching Box) and sustained attention and inhibition (Kiddie-Conner’s Continuous Performance Task; K-CPT). Parents and teachers of these children also completed the Behavioural Rating Inventory of Executive Function and teachers rated children’s performance in reading, arithmetic and comprehension in relation to their classroom peers. Results revealed a pervasive pattern of impairment across multiple measures of executive function in children born very preterm relative to their full term peers. Specifically, children born very preterm were less likely to be able to complete any backward Digit Span trials (p<0.05) and showed lower raw scores on this task (p<0.1) than children in the full term group. Children born very preterm showed lower spatial span scores on the Corsi Blocks Task (p<0.01). They also showed lower planning performance, as assessed by the Tower of Hanoi (p<0.05). Children born very preterm made more inhibitory control/shift errors on the Detour Reaching Box and demonstrated less accuracy in their Visual Search (p<0.001) than children born full term. Finally, they showed lower levels of sustained attention on the K-CPT (p<0.001). Parents, teachers and examiners rated these children as having greater difficulties across multiple areas of executive function. These differences remained significant after controlling for group differences in socioeconomic status and after exclusion of children with severe cognitive and motor impairments. Within the very preterm group, antecedent predictors of poorer working memory and planning performance included male gender (p<0.001), intrauterine infection (p<0.05) and severity of cerebral white matter abnormality on term-equivalent MRI (p<0.05). Lower gestational age (p<0.05) and male gender (p<0.001) were related to poorer executive attention performance. Familial predictors of poorer executive performance included instability in parenting (p<0.05), higher levels of parental intrusiveness (p<0.1) and lower levels of interactional synchrony (p<0.05) between parent and child, recorded at earlier follow-up points. Finally, children’s executive function performance was highly correlated with school achievement in reading, arithmetic and language comprehension (p<0.001). Findings suggest a global pattern of executive impairment amongst children born very preterm, with these difficulties placing children at risk for poor academic performance and learning difficulties. Findings also suggest that both neurological pathology and early parenting experiences are important mediators of the relationship between very preterm birth and poor executive function, highlighting the importance of these areas for early intervention.

An observational study was conducted examining the social and cognitive play of young children with hearing-impairment playing in small groups composed of both hearing and hearing-impaired peers. The questions addressed the effects of the hearing status of the play partner upon the social/cognitive play patterns of children with hearing-impairment, and the relationship between their play patterns and their communicative competence, social competence and speech intelligibility. Forty-eight hearing-impaired subjects ranging in age from 3-6 to 6-1 were observed playing with partners of same and different hearing status during integrated play sessions at 13 school sites. The social play categories included solitary, parallel and group play, while the cognitive play categories included functional, constructive and dramatic play. Results of the study showed that the play patterns of the hearing-impaired children differed significantly for each group of partners. When playing with hearing-impaired partners, subjects engaged in group functional and constructive play more frequently than parallel functional and constructive play, and with equal frequency in parallel dramatic and group dramatic play. When playing with hearing partners, subjects engaged with equal frequency in group and parallel play. When playing with mixed groups of hearing and hearing-impaired partners, subjects engaged in group dramatic play more frequently than parallel dramatic play, and with equal frequency in group functional and constructive play, and parallel functional and constructive play. Communicative competence was negatively correlated to functional play. A positive correlation was found between social competence and constructive play, and between speech intelligibility and dramatic play. These correlations remained significant when age was partialed out. The hearing-impaired subjects spent similar percentages of time in social/cognitive play as those reported for hearing children. The study supports the premise that the play of young hearing-impaired children varies according to the hearing status of the play partner and is neither delayed nor deficient.

The Federal Communications Commission and the Motion Picture Association of America have strict guidelines for regulating sex, nudity and obscene language in television and movies, but do not regulate violence nearly as much (Donnerstein & Linz, 1994; Robson, 2004). However, empirical evidence suggests that violence can be harmful to children’s moral development (Byrne, Linz, & Potter, 2009). The current study examined if younger siblings are exposed to more obscene television at younger ages than older siblings, and if exposure to obscene television affects their moral development. For the purpose of this study, obscenity was defined as sex, nudity, obscene language, and violence, and the effects of each aspect of obscenity on moral development were studied separately. Participants will be asked about how much obscene television they watched growing up and then will be tested on how they would behave in morally wrong or morally ambiguous situations. The proposed results suggest that exposure to violent television can negatively affect moral development. Instead of regulating for sex, nudity, and obscene language, the FCC and the MMPA should focus more on the negative effects of violence.

Attitudes of primiparous women toward childbirth were studied longitudinally as they varied with the intervention of childbirth education classes before delivery; and as they varied with the experience of labor and deli very and having a baby in the home after delivery. An anxiety scale was used measuring anxiety toward labor, delivery, the parenthood role, and stress on the marriage relationship. Measurement on the anxiety scale was taken prior to childbirth education when primiparous mothers ranged from 4 months to 7-l/2 months gestation. Measurement II on the anxiety scale was taken after childbirth education, one month prior to delivery. Measurement III on the anxiety scale was taken one month following delivery . The sample consisted of primiparous women selected from two Childbirth Education Classes at the Logan L. D. S. Hospital, Logan, Utah, in September and October of 1974. The following numbers of women responded on each of the three questionnaires: Measurement I - 77 Measurement II - 69 Measurement III - 66 Total Matched sample including all three measurements - 56. H was found that anxiety toward delivery increased significantly alter childbirth education and as time for delivery drew nearer, while anxiety toward labor decreased slightly but not significantly. One month following delivery, however, anxiety decreased toward both labor and delivery, as was expected, but anxiety toward delivery decreased to a lower level than did anxiety toward labor. It appears that these primiparous women experience more anxiety toward delivery prior to the experience, but after experiencing labor and delivery, some feel more anxious about labor than about delivery. No difference was found between any of the three measures on anxiety toward the role of parent. The participation of husbands in labor and delivery was viewed by over 90 percent of these primiparous mothers as a positive factor, on all these measurements. Earlier in pregnancy, prior to childbirth education on Measurement 1, a strong positive correlation was found between physical symptoms of pregnancy and overall anxiety level. However, this relationship seemed to disappear after childbirth education, one month prior to delivery on Measurement II. An analysis of variance showed significant variation in the anxiety or stress of the childbearing cycle on the marriage relationship with the highest stress being just prior to delivery.

This report is oriented at defining characteristics of children who have problems with school-related skills and abilities (Learning Disabled, N=17) as compared with Brain Damaged children (N=17) and Normals (N=17) as measured by selected measures of the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery. Also, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) and the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT) were given to each subject. Subjects were matched for age, sex, and Full Scale Intelligence Quotient as measured by the WISC.It was found that Control children differed significantly on neuropsychological measures when compared to Brain Damaged children. There were no significant differences on the WISC or WRAT. The Learning Disabled children resembled the Brain Damaged children more than they resembled the Control children on several of the neuropsychological measures. No significant lateralized deficits on motor or sensory-motor tasks were found to differentiate between the HV-LP and the LV-HP groups with respect to consistent lateralized deficits on the motor, perceptualmotor, or sensory measures, although both groups were significantly poorer than Controls on some of the sensory measures, particularly perception. of numbers written on the fingertips.

Cultural geography draws attention to the diverse meanings and values of groups in society, however, despite a growing interest in the geographies of children and youth, there have been few recent empirical studies investigating young people’s experience of place. In particular, comparatively little is known about the multiple realities of young people living in contrasting social and environmental contexts. This study investigates the multiple geographies of young people growing up in inner and outer urban areas of an English Midlands town in the late 1990s. An investigation of this kind is especially apposite in that it provides geographical perspectives on the widening, and increasingly more complex, discourses surrounding young people, space and society. This thesis uses participatory and ethnographic methods to engage young people in evaluating their local environments and to explore in detail the meanings, values and experiences young people associate with different places and place uses. The theoretical framework for this study is based on an extensive cross-disciplinary review of literature and informed by recent theories of childhood and youth, social change, social action, children’s rights, participation and citizenship and contemporary cultural geography. It adopts an holistic approach to understanding the complex and multifaceted world of young people as a product of their reflexive relations with their social and environmental contexts. The study recognises the multiple realities that exist within and between different groups of young people and the variable factors which influence young people’s geographies. It utilises conventional social variables such as gender and age to differentiate between ‘cultures of childhood’, together with contingency factors concerning location and parental influence. The study reveals both commonalities and differences in young people’s experience of place, which cut across social and spatial divides to give rise to a heterogeneity of childhood experiences. A major conclusion is that ‘lifestyle’ or ‘microcultures’ offer a more suitable way forward for future children and youth research. The thesis contributes to discourses of childhood and youth by investigating how childhood is constructed, contested and reproduced in neighbourhood space. The marginal status of young people in urban neighbourhood space is exposed in terms of the neglected spaces of young people, marked by a dearth of appropriate environmental provision, environmental hazards and conflict with adult place users. However, the thesis also reveals young people’s keenness to be more involved in improving their communities, together with a range of different ‘modes’ of participation in local decision making and community development processes. The thesis concludes by highlighting key implications for policy and planning with and for young people with respect to social and environmental provision for young people, environmental quality, and the social integration of young people in everyday community life, local decision making and environmental planning

The problem of this study is to demonstrate a method of evaluating situations in textual materials that may assist pre-adolescent children in achieving certain developmental tasks. The problem involves the analysis of fifty stories taken from five state-adopted readers on the sixth-grade level, as well as the development of criteria for making such an analysis.

The problem of this study was twofold: first, to determine what personal and social characteristics of normal American preadolescent children are revealed in research studies completed since 1950; and, second, to integrate this research into a pattern from which implications could be drawn for use by persons who work with preadolescents.

The problem of this study was to determine and analyze the opinions of a large number of children and their teachers, in both the third and sixth grades of a large suburban school system, regarding the seriousness of forty-seven selected behaviors commonly observed in children.