The current research examined whether nonword repetition (NWR) tasks, designed to measure phonological short-term memory, are also influenced by familiarity with lexical representation of a given language. In Study 1, children with and without exposure to Hebrew were administered a NWR task based on the Hebrew language structure (HNWR). On the HNWR, participants with Hebrew exposure significantly outperformed participants who had no familiarity with any Semitic language. This indicates that long-term phonological and lexical knowledge can be used to aid NWR performance. Study 2 investigated whether a NWR task based on a foreign language could minimize the lexicality effect. English speaking undergraduate students rated the less familiar HNWR task to be lower in wordlikeness than English-like NWR tasks. These findings demonstrate that regardless of language background a NWR task based on an unfamiliar language structure is a more valid measure of the phonological processing skills required for vocabulary acquisition.

This study examined the significance of perceived parent and teacher support for autonomy and responsiveness, along with perceptions of democratic social organization, in the development of conceptions of children’s rights. Relations between these family and school environments and adolescents’ psychological well-being were also examined and a contrast between urban and rural settings within mainland China was included. Current findings suggest that Chinese adolescents display patterns of children’s rights attitudes similar to those found in Western settings. Different possible pathways of family and school environmental impact on children’s rights attitudes are found and explored. Current findings support psychological models that propose that the promotion of autonomy and responsiveness is critical to adolescents’ psychological well-being across cultures. Moreover, these findings provide strong evidence that features of democratic environments (e.g., mutual respect between parents and children, opportunities for children to express their opinions, shared decision making) are relevant to people in non-Western cultures.

The current research examined whether nonword repetition (NWR) tasks, designed to measure phonological short-term memory, are also influenced by familiarity with lexical representation of a given language. In Study 1, children with and without exposure to Hebrew were administered a NWR task based on the Hebrew language structure (HNWR). On the HNWR, participants with Hebrew exposure significantly outperformed participants who had no familiarity with any Semitic language. This indicates that long-term phonological and lexical knowledge can be used to aid NWR performance. Study 2 investigated whether a NWR task based on a foreign language could minimize the lexicality effect. English speaking undergraduate students rated the less familiar HNWR task to be lower in wordlikeness than English-like NWR tasks. These findings demonstrate that regardless of language background a NWR task based on an unfamiliar language structure is a more valid measure of the phonological processing skills required for vocabulary acquisition.

This study examined the significance of perceived parent and teacher support for autonomy and responsiveness, along with perceptions of democratic social organization, in the development of conceptions of children’s rights. Relations between these family and school environments and adolescents’ psychological well-being were also examined and a contrast between urban and rural settings within mainland China was included. Current findings suggest that Chinese adolescents display patterns of children’s rights attitudes similar to those found in Western settings. Different possible pathways of family and school environmental impact on children’s rights attitudes are found and explored. Current findings support psychological models that propose that the promotion of autonomy and responsiveness is critical to adolescents’ psychological well-being across cultures. Moreover, these findings provide strong evidence that features of democratic environments (e.g., mutual respect between parents and children, opportunities for children to express their opinions, shared decision making) are relevant to people in non-Western cultures.

In Canada and internationally, policy makers are moving towards more comprehensive and integrated service delivery models for early learning that include parent involvement and support as integral to their design. The current study was part of an ongoing evaluation of the Best Start project in Peel Region, a municipality in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Best Start aims to integrate preschool, junior/senior kindergarten, child care, public health and parenting programs into a seamless, easily accessible early child development system. This study examined whether parents with kindergarten children enrolled in Best Start schools, where kindergarten and child care were co-located and service integration was underway, would report lower levels of parenting daily hassles compared to parents of children in demographically similar schools where there was no service integration. Parental perceptions about hassles specific to child care and early learning settings were measured using the Early Childhood-Parenting Daily Hassles Scale (EC-PDH) (Arimura, 2008). Three areas of parenting stress that could potentially be reduced through service integration were explored: (1) seamless day – seamless access to care, education and family support; (2) connectedness – parents feeling involved and connected to their child’s school; and (3) parenting capacity – parents feeling confident in their parenting role. The study also combined hassles scores from Best Start and comparison schools to examine all parents’ involvement in the early learning and care system and the hassles they may or may not face on a daily basis as a function of parent demographics and program usage. Parents from 369 families in 10 schools were included in this study. Although Best Start parents did not report lower levels of parenting daily hassles compared to comparison parents, qualitative analyses at Best Start sites where parents used child care suggested that parents were feeling supported and they were forging positive relationships with staff. The positive relationships reported among parents and ECEs or other staff were not as frequent between parents and kindergarten teachers. Combined data indicated that all parents seemed to be experiencing the greatest hassles in the parenting capacity domain. Results are discussed in terms of policy implications for parent involvement in integrated full-day early learning programs such as full-day kindergarten.

Research has shown that social pressure is related to treatment motivation and plays an important role in treatment engagement in adults with problematic substance use. Despite the shifts in autonomy and decision-making in emerging adulthood, the factors affecting treatment motivation (e.g., readiness to comply with treatment) and motivation to change (e.g., problem recognition and taking steps towards change) during this period have been largely ignored. In this study, 134 youth presenting to an outpatient substance abuse program completed questionnaires investigating substance use history, mental health, social pressure to reduce use and enter treatment, and motivation. Results indicated that peer pressure accounted for significant variance in internal positive and internal negative treatment motivation. Family pressure was related only to external treatment motivation. Neither social network source had a significant impact on motivation to change. Limitations, directions for future research and treatment implications are discussed.

This thesis comprised two longitudinal studies examining the role of morphological awareness in Chinese and English reading among Chinese children. In Study 1, participants were 84 kindergarten and first grade Chinese-speaking English Language Learners (ELLs) from Canada. Children’s morphological awareness, vocabulary and reading comprehension in English were assessed at two measurement points spaced one year apart. Study 2 involved the Chinese-Canadian children from Study 1, and 98 kindergarteners and first graders from China. Their morphological awareness, vocabulary and reading comprehension in Chinese were measured at the beginning of two successive academic years. Study 1 showed that for the ELLs, morphological awareness explained increasingly large proportions of variance in English vocabulary and reading comprehension with age. In Study 2, compound awareness significantly predicted Chinese vocabulary for children from both countries. Taken together, the two studies substantiated that morphological awareness contributes to reading in Chinese and English across different language-learning contexts.

The purpose of this study is to examine how educators who teach in schools that face challenging circumstances understand child development and the school context, and how their understanding of child development is manifested through non-academic responses to these challenging circumstances. Using mixed methods to explore and compare the results of survey data (N = 209) with interview data (N = 48) this study examines 10 schools that face challenging circumstances that have also demonstrated trends of success on provincially administered standardized assessments. Analysis reveals the findings that educators understand the challenging circumstances their students face to be developmental in nature, that educators’ believe that these challenges involve students’ physical, social-emotional, and cognitive development, and that educators respond to these challenges by implementing non-academic and co-curricular programs that are developmentally based. This study finds that all 10 schools have implemented developmental programs that foster the success of students. These findings suggest that educators offset the developmental disadvantages their students face as a result of the community, school, and their home environments. This study finds that these educators believe students’ social-emotional development is intertwined with student cognitive development. Further, these educators have expanded the traditional performance-based construct of student “success” to include a range of success that includes child social-emotional developmental success, and in expanding their understanding of student success, have arrived at an innovative, developmentally-based approach to facing challenging circumstances in schools.

The current longitudinal research examined the story-writing development of students from Grades 4 to 6 (N = 178). All students began formal schooling in English in Grade 1. Students were classified in Grade 4 as typical readers (scoring above the 40th percentile in both decoding and reading comprehension; n = 72), poor decoders (scoring below the 30th percentile in decoding; n = 53), or poor comprehenders (scoring above the 40th percentile on decoding but below the 30th percentile, relative to their language group, in reading comprehension; n = 26). Students who spoke English as a first language (EL1s) and English language learners (ELLs) were proportionally represented in each reading group. A series of repeated measures ANOVAs tested the effects of language and reading group on students’ cognitive, linguistic and literacy development. Despite the fact that ELLs did not achieve native-like English language proficiency, showing delays in vocabulary and reading comprehension, they matched their EL1 peers in all other areas of cognitive and literacy development, including story-writing. Both EL1s and ELLs developed story-writing skills in a similar manner, showing significant growth from Grade 4 to Grade 6. Typically developing ELLs were thus able to attain age-appropriate story-writing levels. Additionally, poor decoders and poor comprehenders generally showed similar profiles of strengths and weaknesses, regardless of whether English was their first or second language. The major difference was that ELL poor comprehenders were more likely to have longstanding reading comprehension problems, while many EL1 poor comprehenders had improved by Grade 6. In general, poor decoders displayed more pervasive difficulties across cognitive, linguistic and literacy domains, while poor comprehenders had specific weakness in nonverbal reasoning, receptive vocabulary and listening comprehension. Nevertheless, both reading disorder groups had significant difficulties in story-writing, struggling with the mechanics of writing, sentence structure, and overall story organization. Regression analyses indicated that cognitive, linguistic and language skills were strong concurrent and longitudinal predictors of story-writing. However, the strongest predictor of Grade 6 story-writing skill was Grade 4 story-writing performance, suggesting that story-writing skills tend to be relatively stable over time. The results generally support the ‘simple view of writing’ (Berninger, 2000). Practical recommendations for assessment and instruction are presented.

The objective of this study was to examine symptomatology; stress responses for everyday academic and social stressors; and cognitive coping resources among 11-year-old children adopted from Romanian orphanages. Two groups were established by the amount of time spent within the institutional system. Early adoptees (EAs, n=25) spent less than 6 months while late adoptees (LAs, n=14) endured 6 months or more of institutionalization. A comparison group of non adopted, same-age peers (Canadian Born (CBs), n=25) was included. The first goal was to investigate whether there were differences between EAs and LAs in ratings of symptomatology and stress responses. The second goal was to compare all Romanian adoptees (RAs) to CBs on the same set of factors. The third goal was to identify predictors of symptomatology and predictors of stress responses for RAs only. The main findings were as follows. EAs and LAs did not differ in any symptom ratings or stress responses, showing a lack of evidence for duration of deprivation as a grouping factor. Significant differences were detected by adoption status. Ratings were higher for RAs than CBs in parent-rated symptomatology, including the rate of RAs who exceeded the borderline clinical cut-off. RAs reported less secondary control coping for social stressors than CBs. Models to predict symptoms from stress responses were not supported, with one exception. More disengagement coping for social stress and less involuntary disengagement for academic stress predicted less externalizing and generalized symptoms by teacher report. Models to predict stress responses from cognitive coping resources were significant except for disengagement coping. One of the main findings was that predictors of secondary control coping varied by stressor domain. In conclusion, the findings were important in demonstrating that duration of deprivation does not differentiate between post-institutionalized preadolescents in aspects of psychosocial adjustment. Adoption status is a significant factor. Stress responses do not contribute to models of symptoms. The cognitive coping resources of perceived academic competency and social-support contribute to models of stress responses, yet with room to improve the predictive power of the models. Implications of the findings are discussed along with limitations and directions for future research.