The purpose of this study was to explore and describe themes of resilience in the expressions and behaviours of six-year-old children with regard to the mother-child relationship, where the mothers are infected with HIV&AIDS. Themes of resilience were investigated within the framework of positive psychology. A study of limited scope was conducted from a phenomenological paradigm. I followed a mixed method methodological paradigm based on a case study design. I purposefully selected eleven six-year-old participants whose mothers are infected with HIV&AIDS from a five-year randomised control trail study (Kgolo Mmogo). Qualitative data collection methods included the transcriptions of structured baseline interviews relating to the Kinaesthetic Family Drawing (KFD), as well as the KFD per se. I utilised the scores from the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale (Vineland) as uantitative data collection strategy. The transcriptions were analysed by means of an inductive thematic analysis. For the analysis of the KFD I developed and piloted a framework of analysis. The raw scores from the Vineland were compared with the appropriate age norms and compared with themes of resilience identified from the KFD as well as the transcripts of the interviews. I identified both internal and external resources of resilience. The findings of my study illustrate the presence of themes of resilience as well as non-resilience within the participants and the mother-child relationships. More factors of resilience (protective factors) than non-resilience (risk factors) were identified. Secondly, it seems possible to use the KFD with the Vineland when exploring resilience as insights from both mother and child participants are measured. The integrated results from the different data sources indicate that although the results of the KFD and the transcriptions did not correlate with the results obtained from the Vineland, the results from the different data sources supplement one another. The use of the KFD as a measure to generate data related to resilience made it possible to evaluate adaptation and resilience in a specific cultural context unlike the Vineland. The results from the data sources indicate resilience and/or non-resilience in the mother-child relationship in terms of three categories namely, protective factors (Expressive Language Skills, Interpersonal Relationships and Play and Leisure Time), risk factors (Coping Skills and Gross Motor Skills) and a balance between protective and risk factors (Receptive Language, Daily Living Skills, personal and domestic, as well as Fine Motor Skills). It is feasible to use the KFD as a measure to identify themes of resilience and non-resilience when the drawing is accompanied by an interview. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

Die Interaktion zwischen Maschinen und ihrer Umgebung sollte zuverlässig, sicher und ökologisch adequat sein. Um das in komplexen Szenarien langfristig zu gewährleisten, wird eine Theorie adaptiven Verhaltens benötigt. In der Entwicklungsrobotik und verkörperten künstlichen Intelligenz wird Verhalten als emergentes Phänomen auf der fortlaufenden dynamischen Interaktion zwischen Agent, Körper und Umgebung betrachtet. Die Arbeit untersucht Roboter, die in der Lage sind, schnell und selbständig einfache Bewegungen auf Grundlage sensomotorischer Information zu erlernen. Das langfristige Ziel dabei ist die Wiederverwendung gelernter Fertigkeiten in späteren Lernprozessen um damit ein komplexes Interaktionsrepertoire mit der Welt entstehen zu lassen, das durch Entwicklungsprozesse vollständig und fortwährend adaptiv in der sensomotorischen Erfahrung verankert ist. Unter Verwendung von Methoden des maschinellen Lernens, der Neurowissenschaft, Statistik und Physik wird die Frage in die Komponenten Repräsentation, Exploration, und Lernen zerlegt. Es wird ein Gefüge für die systematische Variation und Evaluation von Modellen errichtet. Das vorgeschlagene Rahmenwerk behandelt die prozedurale Erzeugung von Hypothesen als Flussgraphen über einer festen Menge von Funktionsbausteinen, was die Modellsuche durch nahtlose Anbindung über simulierte und physikalische Systeme hinweg ermöglicht. Ein Schwerpunkt der Arbeit liegt auf dem kausalen Fussabdruck des Agenten in der sensomotorischen Zeit. Dahingehend wird ein probabilistisches graphisches Modell vorgeschlagen um Infor- mationsflussnetzwerke in sensomotorischen Daten zu repräsentieren. Das Modell wird durch einen auf informationtheoretischen Grössen basierenden Lernalgorithmus ergänzt. Es wird ein allgemeines Modell für Entwicklungslernen auf Basis von Echtzeit-Vorhersagelernen präsentiert und anhand dreier Variationen näher besprochen. / The interaction of machines with their environment should be reliable, safe, and ecologically adequate. To ensure this over long-term complex scenarios, a theory of adaptive behavior is needed. In developmental robotics, and embodied artificial intelligence behavior is regarded as a phenomenon that emerges from an ongoing dynamic interaction between entities called agent, body, and environment. The thesis investigates robots that are able to learn rapidly and on their own, how to do primitive motions, using sensorimotor information. The long-term goal is to reuse acquired skills when learning other motions in the future, and thereby grow a complex repertoire of possible interactions with the world, that is fully grounded in, and continually adapted to sensorimotor experience through developmental processes. Using methods from machine learning, neuroscience, statistics, and physics, the question is decomposed into the relationship of representation, exploration, and learning. A framework is provided for systematic variation and evaluation of models. The proposed framework considers procedural generation of hypotheses as scientific workflows using a fixed set of functional building blocks, and allows to search for models by seamless evaluation in simulation and real world experiments. Additional contributions of the thesis are related to the agent's causal footprint in sensorimotor time. A probabilistic graphical model is provided, along with an information-theoretic learning algorithm, to discover networks of information flow in sensorimotor data. A generic developmental model, based on real time prediction learning, is presented and discussed on the basis of three different algorithmic variations.

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研究目的：欲瞭解自閉症類疾患兒童，橫跨幼兒期、學齡前期至學齡期的自閉症狀發展軌跡，探究當中是否存有不同的發展軌跡，並檢視不同發展軌跡的群體在認知功能與適應行為隨時間的變化型態是否有差異，以及不同群體在早期的社會溝通能力或療育經驗上是否有差異。 方法：本研究有37名自閉症類與24位非自閉症類受試者納入分析，共測量三次：時間點一平均生理年齡為2歲半、時間點二為4歲、時間點三為8歲半。於三個時間點皆以自閉症診斷觀察量表評估自閉症狀嚴重度、以及穆林發展量表或魏氏兒童智力量表第四版評估認知功能，在時間點二與時間點三以文蘭適應行為量表第二版評估適應行為；另外，在時間點一以台灣版兩歲期自閉症篩檢工具評估社會溝通能力，以及在時間點一至時間點二之間，以電話訪問的方式紀錄兒童每週參與療育的時數。 結果：由階層式集群分析結果顯示，社交情感嚴重度校正分數可將自閉症類與非自閉症類兒童分群，並於自閉症類兒童中可再分為維持高嚴重度組與退步組。兩組自閉症類兒童於學齡時期在社交情感症狀皆呈現嚴重度明顯上升的趨勢，在認知功能與適應行為隨時間的變化型態相似，不過維持高嚴重度組在認知功能與適應行為有較低的分數（但未達統計顯著）。此外，兩組自閉症類兒童於時間點一的意圖溝通能力即有差異，不過僅共享式注意力可預測日後社交情感症狀發展軌跡之分群。 總結：由結果可見自閉症狀維持高嚴重度組，於認知功能與適應行為有較明顯缺損，推論自閉症類兒童的自閉症狀嚴重度與認知功能及適應行為並非完全獨立的變項。兩組自閉症類兒童於學齡期症狀嚴重度上升，而此趨勢在退步組兒童更為明顯。雖然本研究並未發現早期療育經驗對於社交情感症狀發展的影響，不過共享式注意力對於日後社交情感症狀有預測力。進一步討論此結果在理論與臨床實務上的應用。 / Purposes: the purpose of the study was to plot longitudinal developmental trajectories of autism symptom severity in the children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) from toddler age to school age. And to examine whether these different trajectories are associated with the cognitive function, adaptive behavior, early social communication skill, and early intervention experience. Methods: Thirty-seven children with ASDs and 24 children with developmental delay participated at time 1 (mean chronological age was 2.5 years old), and then followed at time 2 (mean chronological age was 4 years old) and time 3 (mean chronological age was 8.5 years old). The study assessed the autism symptom severity by ADOS and cognitive function by MSEL or WISC-Ⅳ at three time points; adaptive behavior by VABS-II at time 2 and time 3; and early social communication skills by T-STAT at time 1 and also used telephone interviews to record participants’ weekly intervention hours during time 1 to time 2. Results: In hierarchical cluster analysis, social affect calibrated severity score (CSS) could discriminate ASDs and Non-ASDs groups, also could divided ASDs into two groups, called persistent high and worsening groups. The social affect symptom severity increased at school age in both groups. On the other hand, the change of cognitive function and adaptive behavior with time showed similar pattern in the two groups. However, participants in the persistent high group have relatively lower scores of cognitive function and adaptive behavior, although did not rearch statistically significant. Furthermore, two ASDs groups at toddler showed difference in intention communication skills; however, only joint attention could predict social affect trajectory subgrouping. Conclusions: In summery, the study showed that persistent high group has more cognitive and adaptive function impairments than the worsening group in the children with ASDs. It seemed that the autistic symptom are not entirely independent with cognitive function and adaptive behavior. Moreover, the symptom severity increased at school age in both the persistent high and the worsening groups, and this trend was more significant in the worsening group. Additionally, the experience of early intervention showed no significant effects on developmental trajectories of social affect symptom; however, the joint attention was found to be an index to predict the development of social affect symptom in ASDs groups. The theoretical and clinical implications were discussed.