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This research compared Brown and Levinson’s “face saving” account of linguistic politeness with the everyday or social normative account in the context of children’s requesting skills. The research also explored the relationship between children’s politeness skills and their behavioural adjustment. The subjects comprised four groups of ten-and-a-half year old children: a comparison group without behaviour problems, a hostile-aggressive group; an anxious-fearful group; and a comorbid group. All the children were selected from the Australian Temperament Project subject population based on parents’ ratings of the children on the hostile-aggressive and anxious-fearful subscales of the Rutter Child Behaviour Questionnaire. Study 1 found that all the groups of children discriminated between others on the power and distance dimensions in ways consistent with social norms, e.g. adults are judged as more powerful than children. Study 1 also showed that the hostile-aggressive and comorbid groups were significantly less likely to discriminate between others on these dimensions compared to the comparison group. Study 2 showed that for all the children studied politeness as a normative way of speaking was marked by use of please whereas face saving politeness was marked by the use of question directives and hints compared to other request forms. Further, Study 2 showed that there were no differences between children with and without behaviour problems in their use of please to mark different ways of asking.

This study explores the validity of key assumptions and arguments about the nature, extent, depth, causes, and consequences of poverty that underpinned the statements and policy of the Howard Government during its decade in office. One important assumption appeared to be that an inability to afford the essentials of life plays a relatively unimportant, even negligible role in generating the low levels of human capital and school achievement exhibited by many ??poor?? parents and their children. Drawing on extensive secondary evidence from disciplines as diverse as economics, sociology, neurobiology, epidemiology and developmental psychology, the study demonstrates that these assumptions and arguments do not stand up to close empirical scrutiny. The adequacy of income support payments as a ??safety net?? from poverty, and the validity of various poverty ??lines?? are examined against the costs of obtaining the ??essentials?? that Australians believe no citizen should have to go without. This analysis reveals that the depth and prevalence of poverty in Australia is considerably more serious than has been admitted by the Howard Government and in many academic analyses. Next, the study demonstrates that the rise in so-called ??welfare dependence?? is a product of economic, rather than cultural developments; that income support ??customer?? data contradicts the claim that poverty is mostly a transitory phenomenon; and that ??work first welfare to work policies?? are not a solution to poverty, even during an economic boom. The second half of the thesis explores evidence from a variety of disciplines that suggests that the financial stress and material hardship associated with poverty have direct, indirect and cumulative impacts which commonly include compromised brain function and development and a reduced capacity for physiological and behavioural self-regulation. These consequences undermine physical and mental health, inter-personal relationships, parenting and health behaviours, learning capacities, and the development and maintenance of cognitive and non-cognitive abilities that are valued in the labour market. Contrary to the policy conclusions that flow from mis-characterisation of these consequences as symptoms of the intrinsic deficits of the poor, the multi-disciplinary evidence suggests that the real economic costs of allowing poverty to continue are likely to be higher than the costs of preventing it.

Child sexual abuse is a widespread social problem found to be associated with detrimental outcomes in both the short and long term. Efforts by researchers to develop comprehensive understandings of the factors and processes associated with abuse occurrence and outcome have been hampered by a lack of consensus across theory and epistemology. The complexity of the problem has also meant that few studies have attempted to examine risk factors for the occurrence of child sexual abuse simultaneously with outcomes. Attending to this observed gap in the literature, this thesis examined the relationship between factors specific to children, their families and social environments, and the occurrence and outcomes of child sexual abuse for participants in an Australian prospective longitudinal cohort study. Guided by a conceptual framework based on concepts from developmental psychopathology, ecological theory and the ‘Integrated Risk-Sequelae’ model of child maltreatment (Higgins & McCabe, 1994), the thesis investigated the hypothesis that sexually abused and non-abused children differ significantly across child, family and environmental factors, and that these differences in context synergistically influence both the occurrence and outcome of child sexual abuse. To clarify these relationships, the study assessed the relative influence of sexual abuse and contextual factors upon child outcomes by exploring the potential of sexual abuse to affect outcomes through both direct and indirect pathways. The data source for the study (de-identified survey data with linked child protection information) provided a unique life course perspective on the experiences of sexually abused children, and in contrast to other studies, enabled a wide range of contextual factors to be investigated as potential risk factors for the occurrence of child sexual abuse and its outcome or sequelae over time. The study finds that when compared to their non-abused counterparts, sexually abused children experience greater vulnerability and disadvantage across multiple aspects and phases of their life. While mothers of sexually abused children report significantly higher rates of child problems when compared to mothers of non-abused children, no significant differences exist between sexually abused and non-abused children’s self report of social, emotional and behavioural outcomes. Examination of the relationship between contextual factors and sexual abuse confirm the hypothesis that observed differences between the contextual domains of sexually abused and non-abused children are associated with increased risk for both the occurrence and outcome of child sexual abuse. Assessment of the relative influence of sexual abuse and contextual factors upon maternal and child self-reported outcomes for all children, finds that when the effect of contextual factors is taken into account, sexual abuse does not make a significant contribution to report of child health outcomes. Exploration of the potential for sexual abuse to affect outcomes through indirect pathways finds little support for the presence or operation of moderation or confounding effects, but does find considerable support for the proposition that contextual factors mediate the relation between sexual abuse maternal reports of child outcome. This thesis also finds that factors specific to the sexual abuse experience are significantly associated with sexually abused children’s self-reported outcomes even when the effects of contextual factors are considered. This effect does not hold for maternal report of child outcomes, suggesting that while contextual factors exert a strong influence on maternal-reported outcomes, characteristics of the sexual abuse experience, rather than the sexual abuse itself, may be an important influence on sexually abused children’s self reported outcomes. Collectively, the findings of this thesis suggest that the occurrence and outcomes of child sexual abuse exist as a function of multiple factors that operate via dynamic processes or mechanisms over time. The study is unique in the Australian context and makes several important findings that add to the knowledge base for child sexual abuse.

[Truncated abstract] Intelligence in children increases with age until adult levels of performance are achieved. Dempster (1991) proposed that developmental changes in inhibitory processes underpin these changes in the development of intelligence. The evidence Dempster presented to support this thesis typically takes the form of noting changes in inhibitory performance that occur in the same time frame as changes in psychometric intelligence (Dempster, 1991, 1992, 1993; Dempster & Corkill, 1999). He also provides correlational evidence from studies in which intelligence scores are correlated with various inhibitory measures. One problem with much of the evidence presented by Dempster is that it does not distinguish between developmental and individual differences in inhibition and/or intelligence. Developmental differences are differences in performance between children at different ages. Individual differences are differences in performance between children of the same age. The majority of evidence Dempster provides concerns individual differences in inhibition and the relationship of these differences to intelligence rather than the relationship of any developmental differences to intelligence. Anderson (1987) suggests that the processes underpinning these two types of differences are not necessarily the same. For example, individual differences may be related to speed of processing, while developmental differences may be related to changes in inhibitory ability. Therefore, a more accurate test of Dempster’s thesis is to assess whether developmental changes in inhibition are related to developmental changes in intelligence, rather than whether individual differences in inhibition are related to intelligence. This was the primary goal of this thesis. A secondary goal was to address whether or not any developmental changes seen were primarily due to changes in inhibition or could be accounted for by changes in speed of processing. Measures which utilise difference score reaction time (RT) measures as inhibitory indices such as the stroop task do not typically account for this potential confound. A number of researchers have addressed this problem of difference score measures and proposed alternative analytic techniques (Christ, White, Mandernach, & Keys, 2001; Christ, White, Brunstrom, & Abrams, 2003; Faust, Balota, Spieler & Ferraro, 1999). Each inhibitory measure used in the current study will attempt to control for group and individual speed differences, either by utilising one of these alternative techniques or using regression analysis to identify the contribution of speed to the developmental shift in intelligence.

This thesis deals with a) The investigation of the problem of clumsiness resulting from developmental apraxia and agnosia ; b) the development of effective screening tests particularly suitable for employment by medical practitioners and specialist schoolteachers for the identification of these children. Chapter 2 reports the detailed initial investigation in Great Britain of 21 such clumsy children who had been referred for diagnosis and management. This study in turn stimulated a clinical survey of developmental clumsiness in Western Australian schoolchildren described and analysed in Chapters 3 and 4. It was anticipated that this survey would yield information regarding the magnitude of the problem and would provide normative data regarding motor performance in children. Subsequently these data were to be the basis of a set of standardized tests of motor proficiency in children (Chapter 4). In order to obtain information efficiently and to develop these tests it seemed most rational to commence with a pilot study of a relatively small number of children, when after statistical analysis it would become evident which tests were the most reliable, effective and convenient (Chapter 3). A comprehensive review of the subject of developmental apraxia and agnosia constitutes the final chapter of this thesis (Chapter 5).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1988. / Bibliography: leaves 194-207.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--Kutztown University, 1988. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2763. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-79).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-99).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2007. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (ℓ.80-102 )