published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

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Children with ADHD have significant attentional problems that affect their academic performance. Because many of the typical symptoms of ADHD manifest themselves in classrooms, these attentional problems may have an impact on comprehension and its course of development. This is a significant area of interest because the academic success of a child requires being able to recall and comprehend information. Effective comprehension requires being able to understand both causal (why?) and factual (what?) questions. The purposes of this study are use the television viewing methodology and 1) to employ a longitudinal investigation and compare patterns of developmental change among children with ADHD and comparison children in attention and comprehension, 2) examine if cognitive engagement, as indexed by long looks, increases with age for each group, and 3) investigate how look lengths relate to comprehension for each group. Participants were 59 children with ADHD and 101 comparison children. Children viewed two 12-minute episodes of the Rugrats television program at time one and two episodes at time two, approximately 18-months later. Each of the children viewed the television program in one of two viewing conditions, toys-present and toys-absent. Results provide insight into the problems in attention and comprehension experienced by children with ADHD. First, the preciously observed difficulties in sustaining attention with toys-present for children with ADHD are stable across time and a wide age range. Second, as they got older children with ADHD did not exhibit the same increase in time spent in long looks as comparison children. Third, the older high IQ children with ADHD fell behind comparison children in their recall of factual information as they got older. Fourth, as they became older, high IQ children with ADHD did not show improvement in their causal recall with toys present, in contrast to comparison children. Finally, although there was some support for the hypothesis that time spent in long looks is associated with comprehension of the televised material, it did not account for group differences in recall. Several implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Margin of Balance is a collection of seven short stories developed and published during the spring and summer sessions of 1993. This six-hour creative project was completed under the guidance of Ms. Margaret Dimoplon, Dr. Thomas Koontz, and Dr. Frances Rippy, all of the English department. Stories were written, workshopped by these committee members, then rewritten or revised; upon completion, the stories were paginated, printed, and perfect-bound for marketing on consignment in area bookstores.Numerous authors-Virginia Woolf, Allen Tate, Dylan Thomas, and William Blake, to name a few-have used self-publishing as a first step on a successful career path. This creative project, besides completing the requirements for my master's degree, becomes an initial opportunity to place my collected fiction in public.The stories "Knuckling Under," "Margin of Balance," "Run, Red Pony," and "A Man of Letters" were begun in fiction classes taught by Ms. Dimoplon. The three longest stories-"The Anointed," "Brooklyn Babes & Babbling Brooks," and "Strings Attached"-were written for this particular project. My professional experience as an editor and graphic designer made planning and producing the book possible. Six sixteen-page signatures and a separate cover were printed at Ball State University Printing Services and bound at Commercial Service in Anderson, Indiana.Although I have had extensive experience in journalistic and public relations writing, this project served as a professional introduction to the field of fiction writing. Also, it became a final opportunity to work with three accomplished professors, a last chance to gain insight concerning my work and writing methods through their guidance. Though the collection must stand on its own merits, the experience of working with three such distinguished literary academicians proved most valuable and unforgettable. I trust that, through this project, I carry some portion of their sagacity into my writing endeavors. / Department of English

The group of six short stories is unified around a central theme of remembrance, as the title of the collection suggests. In all of the stories but one, the memories of a female character are evoked--a character who looks back in time, either to childhood or to the more recent past, to recall an event which was crucial in her life, an event which changed her. In each of these five stories, the speaker is a mature adult; however, in the sixth, "Fern James and the Kid," the story is told by an observer of the main character(s). The setting (and voice) in these stories is most often that of small-town southern Indiana.

This creative project is a collection of five pieces of short fiction revolving around the life and times of one central character, a young man named Jared Yando. The perspective of each individual piece is centered at different points within approximately one calendar year, and chronicles the protagonist's life within that very transitional period. The focus holds mainly on Jared's relationships, from the latest one with his girlfriend Claudia to the oldest ones with his shattered but healing family. Throughout, these relationship partners take unexpected actions that result in unexpected consequences spanning both ends of the emotional spectrum. Jared finds himself repeatedly involved in that most human of predicaments as he is forced to sort out the actions of those close to him and determine what they have meant, and will mean, to the construction of his own character. / Department of English

The aim of this research was to explore the alternative stories of a group of black adults who survived the apartheid years in South Africa. In common parlance it is held that there are two sides to a story and surely, there must have been alternative stories of how people in the black community survived the apartheid years, other than only the dominant stories of suffering that came to the fore during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings. It was surmised that the lives of many of the black adults, who experienced the atrocities of the apartheid years, might have been shaped by the dominant stories of hardship and that alternative stories of survival may not have played the important role in the shaping of their lives, that they should have played. The motivation for this research is that the data that were elicited may lead to further research and the possible planning of programmes to help people that experienced the atrocities during the apartheid era to incorporate their alternative stories of survival with their dominant stories of suffering. Fifteen black participants, aged thirty-seven and older participated in the research project. A qualitative research design, more specifically narrative analysis, was used in the form of the categorical-content approach. Two methods were used to obtain data, namely a question in the biographical questionnaire, as well as an unstructured individual interview with the participants. Analysis of the data yielded eight prevalent themes, namely support, religion, role models, education, the struggle, culture, positive experiences facilitated hope, and acceptance. Results indicated that the eight themes are closely linked Suggestions for future research projects were made. / Thesis (M.A. (Clinical Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

The aim or this research was to explore a group of black South Africans' experiences of telling their untold stories of survival about the apartheid era. The expectation was that if they did become more aware of these alternative stories, it could have a far-reaching effect on their lives. Research indicates that when attention is given to these narratives they may be a powerful tool in not only recovering the story but also in focusing on the survivors' own consciousness and growth. Consequently personal meaning may be elicited by focusing on memories, and that which can be narrated afterwards. This may mean that by sharing these narratives the narrator may be enabled to construct a happier future via a positive rather than dissociative perspective simultaneously supplying the researcher with multifaceted data. A qualitative study was conducted with a group of seven black South African survivors of the apartheid era, ranging in age from 42 - 62 years. These participants formed part of an earlier study of Van der Merwe (2005) investigating their perceptions regarding factors that helped them to survive the apartheid era. For the present study, unstructured interviews were conducted focusing on their subjective experiences after the initial study. Analysis of the data yielded seven prevalent themes namely, a positive experience that made a difference, gaining of a positive attitude, not all white people are bad, transcending the past and moving on, awareness of personal strengths, forgiveness and starting to talk to family and friends. Recornmendations are made concerning future research. / Thesis (M.A. (Clinical Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007

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