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.

This dissertation seeks to add to our understanding of the faith development of college students by focusing on the transitional phases. The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive and detailed description of the effects of liminality on the perceived faith development of twelve students attending a southern United Methodist Church-related college. Qualitative data analysis through the Faith Development Interview Guide (FDIG) was used to gather and compose the data in a desirable format. The primary data were generated through interviews with each of twelve respondents (six males and six females). Secondary data from document analysis provided information about the context of the study (e.g., institutional setting, personal reflections from respondents, etc.). Findings from the research study identified how the respondents described their faith development and how liminality helped them to experience and better understand the transformation of their faith. The source of this study included primary information from oral interviews, secondary literature, including theories of development, and scholarly work from the fields of cultural anthropology, psychology, and theology. The author's analysis of the various sources resulted in a thesis that conveys as fully as possible the dynamic nature that liminality has on the faith development of college students. The research question that provided direction for the study was: 'How can liminality help students to explain and understand the transformation of their worldviews (faith expressions) at a small liberal arts United Methodist Church-related college?' James Fowler's theory of faith development and his FDIG were used as practical instruments to collect and analyze the data.

This work seeks to construct and implement in two Baptist churches a viable congregational model for doing youth ministry, which can be used to improve positive self-esteem in Black children, ages ten thru eighteen. Positive self-esteem is examined in the congregational settings by posing and answering six (6) questions: What is Self-Esteem? Who is God? Who am I? Who are you? Who are we in Christ? and What ought we do? These six (6) questions form the essence of positive self-esteem. The model uses family relationships between adult presenters and the intended youth, adult presentations on Christian identity and action in the congregation, field trips, Black history materials in the homes, and visual aids as the vehicles to accomplish the improvement in the positive self-esteem of the youth. The model responds to the threat to positive self-esteem of many of the youth as evidenced by racism and discrimination in American society, the presence of several indicators of negative or low self-esteem, problems in the very institutions that influence positive self-esteem, and adult perceptions of the social environment. It is based on the premise that the church must provide the family with the tools to help our children survive in this society. This will be accomplished by preparing our youth to affirm positive actions that build and affirm positive self-esteem and to reject the negative actions that counter it. This project seeks to use the extended family system and the conjugal family system of the children in their quest for positive self-esteem because of its potential as a positive influence. Finally, this work seeks to place the responsibility of the children in the hands of the entire church family, which is called to actively work to nurture them in this crucial and critical time in their lives.

Deception is not only part of daily life for adults, but it is also part of typical development throughout childhood. Research has shown that the ability to deceive improves with age and has been found to be related to the development of cognitive skills such as executive functioning processes, theory of mind, and intelligence. However for some children, lie-telling becomes problematic and atypical. For children with conduct problems, deception is one of the most common presenting symptoms and has been found to be pervasive across childhood and into adolescence. While most studies analyze the lying behaviours of these children based on parent and teacher reports, no studies have yet empirically evaluated the actual deceptive behaviours of children with severe conduct problems. The current study investigated the antisocial and prosocial deception rates and abilities of children with and without severe conduct problems. Additionally, cognitive measures and parental reports of lying and parenting styles were considered in order to determine how such variables may be related to deception. A total of 66 children participated in the current study with half of the sample originating from a community agency for children with behaviour problems and the other half consisting of an age- and gender-matched control sample. Results demonstrated that compared to their typically developing counterparts, children with conduct problems were more likely to behave antisocially by committing antisocial transgressions, and subsequently lying. These children were also less likely to tell prosocial lies. Consistent with previous research, many cognitive measures, such as Executive Functioning (e.g., inhibition) and Theory of Mind (1st and 2nd Order) were found to be related to deception for the typically developing sample, though fewer and different cognitive measures were found to be predictive of deception within the clinical sample. Parent ratings of lie-telling frequency were not predictive of antisocial or prosocial deception, though they were predictive of antisocial lie-telling sophistication. Parenting styles were minimally predictive of deception. Results suggest that the mechanisms used by children with conduct problems during deception differ from a typically developing sample. Limitations as well as implications are discussed.

Deception is not only part of daily life for adults, but it is also part of typical development throughout childhood. Research has shown that the ability to deceive improves with age and has been found to be related to the development of cognitive skills such as executive functioning processes, theory of mind, and intelligence. However for some children, lie-telling becomes problematic and atypical. For children with conduct problems, deception is one of the most common presenting symptoms and has been found to be pervasive across childhood and into adolescence. While most studies analyze the lying behaviours of these children based on parent and teacher reports, no studies have yet empirically evaluated the actual deceptive behaviours of children with severe conduct problems. The current study investigated the antisocial and prosocial deception rates and abilities of children with and without severe conduct problems. Additionally, cognitive measures and parental reports of lying and parenting styles were considered in order to determine how such variables may be related to deception. A total of 66 children participated in the current study with half of the sample originating from a community agency for children with behaviour problems and the other half consisting of an age- and gender-matched control sample. Results demonstrated that compared to their typically developing counterparts, children with conduct problems were more likely to behave antisocially by committing antisocial transgressions, and subsequently lying. These children were also less likely to tell prosocial lies. Consistent with previous research, many cognitive measures, such as Executive Functioning (e.g., inhibition) and Theory of Mind (1st and 2nd Order) were found to be related to deception for the typically developing sample, though fewer and different cognitive measures were found to be predictive of deception within the clinical sample. Parent ratings of lie-telling frequency were not predictive of antisocial or prosocial deception, though they were predictive of antisocial lie-telling sophistication. Parenting styles were minimally predictive of deception. Results suggest that the mechanisms used by children with conduct problems during deception differ from a typically developing sample. Limitations as well as implications are discussed.

This study explored the effectiveness of Handle With Care, a mental health promotion training program for child care practitioners working with children between birth to age 6. Handle With Care program content is based on research evidence. Training units are intended to deepen practitioners’ understanding of how children’s social-emotional development, centre and family connections and positive workplace activities link to children’s well-being and practitioners’ roles in these areas. Fifty-seven front-line practitioners from three different regional groups (Rural, Suburban, Urban) completed Handle With Care workshops and were compared to 56 comparison participants, matched according to region, who were not exposed to training. The evaluation utilized a time series repeated measures design and consisted of mixed quantitative and qualitative measures to determine training outcomes related to practitioner’s mental health promotion knowledge and practices. Findings indicated that child care practitioners who participated in Handle With Care training demonstrated increased mental health promotion knowledge. In particular, they acquired better comprehension of issues concerning practitioner and child attachment relationships, children’s self-esteem, emotion expression and regulation and peer relationships. Training participants significantly differed from comparison participants in their knowledge of these topics. In terms of practices, training participants also evidenced significantly improved practices relative to comparison participants. These gains were especially observed in relation to practitioners building trusting relationships with children, fostering children’s sense of self and competence, positive peer interactions and practitioners promoting their own mental health. In contrast, Handle With Care training did not show the intended consistent outcomes with respect to practitioners helping children with emotional communication, dealing with diversity, changes and transitions and practitioners building relationships with children’s parents. Results tended to be discrepant across regional groups, and in some instances, gains in mental health promotion and knowledge were not sustained over time. Overall, the study suggests that Handle With Care is a useful way to augment child care practitioners’ capacity to consider the mental health of all children in their care and flexibly implement strategies to help children reach their optimal potential. The study also provides important information concerning regional differences and areas of training content that may benefit from revision.

Children with traumatic brain injury (TBI) often experience difficulties with inhibitory control (IC), manifest in both neurocognitive function (poor performance on the stop signal task, SST) and behavior (emergence of de novo attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or secondary ADHD, S-ADHD). IC allows for the regulation of thought and action, and interacts with reward to modify behaviour adaptively as environments change. Children with developmental or primary ADHD (P-ADHD) exhibit poor IC and abnormalities when responding to rewards, yet the extent to which S-ADHD is similar to and different from P-ADHD in terms of these behaviours is not well-characterized. The cancellation and restraint versions of the SST were used to examine the effects of rewards on 2 distinct forms of IC in children and adolescents divided into 4 groups (control, TBI, S-ADHD, and P-ADHD). The SST requires participants to respond to a “go signal” and inhibit their responses when encountering a “stop signal”. Rewards improved performance similarly across groups, ages, and cancellation and restraint IC tasks. Adolescents exhibited better IC and faster and less variable response execution relative to children. Significant IC deficits were found in both tasks in the P-ADHD group, with participants with S-ADHD exhibiting intermediate cancellation performance relative to the other groups. Participants with TBI without S-ADHD were not impaired on either task. The relationship between neurocognitive and behavioral IC was examined by comparing multi-informant ratings of IC across groups, and examining the relationship between ratings and IC performance on the SST. Participants in the control and TBI groups were rated within the typical range, and exhibited fewer problems than either of the ADHD groups, who differed from each other (the P-ADHD group was rated as more inattentive than the S-ADHD group). Moderate to high concordance was found between parent and teacher reports, each of which was poorly concordant with self-reports. The P-ADHD and S-ADHD groups were unaware of their own deficits. Poorer IC predicted parent and teacher classification of participants into ADHD subtypes, although IC did not predict rating concordance. Despite similar clinical presentations, S-ADHD and P-ADHD differ in the phenotypic expression of behaviour and manifestation of IC across contexts.

Users of cochlear implants typically have difficulty differentiating talkers, identifying vocal expressions of emotion, and recognizing familiar melodies because of the degraded spectral cues provided by conventional implants. This thesis examined these abilities in a small, relatively privileged sample of young bilateral implant users. In Study 1 child implant users and a control sample of hearing children were required to judge whether various utterances were produced by a man, woman, or girl (Experiment 1) and to identify the voices of cartoon characters from familiar television programs (Experiment 2). Child implant users’ performance on talker classification was comparable to that of hearing children. Their identification of cartoon characters’ voices was less accurate than that of hearing children but well above chance levels. These findings challenge conventional wisdom about the talker identification difficulties of implant users. In Study 2 the children were required to indicate whether semantically neutral utterances (Experiment 1) or classical piano excerpts (Experiment 2) sounded “happy” or “sad”. In both cases, implant users performed less accurately than hearing children but well above chance levels. Although the findings on emotion recognition in music are in line with those of previous research, the findings on emotion in speech are at odds with claims that young implant users are insensitive to vocal affect. In Study 3 the children were required to identify the theme songs from familiar television programs on the basis of combined timing and pitch cues as well as timing or pitch cues alone. Implant users’ performance was comparable to that of hearing children except when the cues were restricted to pitch relations, which resulted in performance at chance levels. The findings suggest that the musical representations of young implanted listeners include precise information about timing and coarser information about pitch. They also demonstrate, for the first time, that children, both implant users and those with normal hearing, can identify familiar music on the basis of timing cues alone. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of timing cues for implant users, the range of individual differences, and habilitation possibilities for the recognition of talkers, emotion, and music.

Speaker identification is a challenge for cochlear implant users because their prosthesis restricts access to the cues that underlie natural voice quality. The present thesis examined speaker recognition in the context of spectrally degraded sentences. The listeners of interest were child implant users who were prelingually deaf as well as hearing children and adults who listened to speech via vocoder simulations of implant processing. Study 1 focused on child implant users' identification of a highly salient speaker—the mother (identified as mother)—and unfamiliar speakers varying in age and gender (identified as man, woman, or girl). In a further experiment, children were required to differentiate their mother's voice from the voices of unfamiliar women. Young hearing children were tested on the same tasks and stimuli. Although child implant users performed more poorly than hearing children overall, they successfully differentiated their mother's voice from other voices. In fact, their performance surpassed expectations based on previous studies of child and adult implant users. Even when natural variations in speaking style were reduced, child implant users successfully identified the speakers. The findings imply that person-specific differences in articulatory style contributed to implanted children's successful performance. Study 2 used vocoder simulations of cochlear implant processing to vary the spectral content of sentences produced by the man, woman, and girl from Study 1. The ability of children (5-7 years and 10-12 years) and adults with normal hearing to identify the speakers was affected by the level of spectral degradation and by the gender of the speaker. Female voices were more difficult to identify than was the man's voice, especially for the younger children. In some respects, hearing individuals' identification of degraded voices was poorer than that of child implant users in Study 1. In a further experiment, hearing children and adults were required to provide verbatim repetitions of spectrally degraded sentences. Their performance on this task greatly exceeded their performance on speaker identification at comparable levels of spectral degradation. The present findings underline the importance of ecologically valid materials and methods when assessing speaker identification, especially in children. Moreover, they raise questions about the efficacy of vocoder models for the study of speaker identification in cochlear implant users.

Dimensional models of personality pathology present a promising approach to the assessment of maladaptive personality in adults and children (eg. De Clercq, De Fruyt, & Widiger, 2009). In addition, recent findings show that some childhood maladaptive traits can be predictive of adulthood personality disorders (eg. Mervielde, De Clercq, De Fruyt, & Van Leeuwen, 2005). The Dimensional Personality Symptom Item Pool (DIPSI) is a questionnaire designed to measure maladaptive lower and higher order traits in children and adolescents. This study aims to examine the DIPSI’s scales and to replicate several previous findings of maladaptive trait patterns in children. The results indicate that the DIPSI’s lower and higher order trait scales are high in reliability and show many of the trait relationships suggested by previous literature. A successful outcome of this study serves as the first step towards establishing the DIPSI as a valid and useful measure of personality pathology in children.