This thesis focuses upon the abilities of children with severe learning difficulties to contemplate the psychological states of other people, what is often referred to in the literature as 'mindreading' (Whiten and Perner, 1991). The first section contains a review of the literature on children's developing understanding of the mind and their conceptual representational abilities. This is followed by two studies investigating non-learning disabled children's abilities to attribute first-and second-order false belief. The first of these uses an adaptation of the Sally-Anne test (Baron-Cohen, et al., 1985). The second study uses an original false belief story scenario, which involves children in drama. The researcher uses a technique called 'split-briefing' to provide children with first-hand experience of first-and second-order false belief. Simplified versions of the two false belief story scenarios are then used with children with severe learning difficulties to investigate their abilities to represent first-and second-order false belief. The relationship between children's scores on belief attribution tasks and their scores on tests of non-verbal intellectual reasoning (Ravens Coloured Matrices) and receptive language ability (TROG) is also examined in this study. The third section outlines the findings of a questionnaire-based study examining parental reports of spontaneous internal state use by two groups of children: non-learning disabled children aged 1-5 years and pupils with Down's Syndrome aged 4-19 years with severe learning difficulties. 'Internal state language' is language which refers to intentions, cognitions and feeling states (Bretherton and Beeghly, 1981). This is followed by a further investigation of internal state language among a group of students with severe learning difficulties. This study uses a series of playlets written by the author to provide students with an interactive, participatory medium in which to draw their attention to people's internal states. The thesis concludes with a final statement on research into the social-cognitive development of children with severe learning difficulties, with recommendations for future research and intervention.

In the current study children 3-5 years of age (N = 75) participated in a mental state task to investigate the effect of action saliency on young children's appreciation of mental states during pretend play activities. They also engaged in a parent-child interaction period, including storybook reading and pretend play activities, in order to examine the relation between mental state term utterances and performance on the mental state task. Two actors appeared side-by-side on a television screen, either in motion or as static images; one actor had knowledge of the animal he was pretending to be; the other actor did not have the same knowledge. The actors' behaviors were identical and related to the behavior of the animal, identical and unrelated, or the knowledgeable actor behaved contradictory to the animal's behavior while the unknowledgeable actor behaved appropriately for that animal. Children were asked to select the actor who was pretending to be the animal. Children selected the appropriate knowledgeable actor significantly more often than a non-knowledgeable actor. Older children performed better than younger children. Children's performance was unaffected by whether actors were shown in motion as compared to simply a static image. Children performed most successfully on trials where actors were both engaged in behaviors unrelated to the animal's behavior and poorest when the actor's behavior was contradictory to his knowledge. The mental state utterances of parents and children were correlated with the children's performance on the mental state task. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed parent's mental state utterances used during the parent-child interactions - specifically cognitive terms and modulations of assertion - were predictive of their children's performance on the mental state task. The current study's results support an understanding of the mind in pretend play activities by some children younger than five years of age and this understanding may be influenced by their parents' use of mental state language. Children who do not do well in appreciating that the mind is essential during pretense activities may have difficulty inhibiting responding to action, thus interfering with their ability to maintain focus on the mental state of the pretender.

One means by which inhibitory control in selective attention may be studied is with the negative priming (NP) procedure. It is widely assumed that children are characterised by reduced capacity for inhibition (Diamond, 2002) and that inhibitory dysfunction is a key characteristic of children and adolescents with ADHD (Barkley, 1997). This should translate into reduced NP effects for these populations. In this dissertation, four studies using the NP procedure find no evidence for reduced inhibitory function in typical children or in adolescents with ADHD. Study 1 examined the magnitude of NP in children compared with adults. An important line of support for the idea that children suffer an inhibitory decrement has been based an empirical report suggesting that conceptual (identity or semantic) NP effects, assumed to reflect the by-product of distractor inhibition, while consistently found in adults are lacking in children (Tipper, Bourque, Anderson, & Brehaut, 1989). In Study 1, the opposite result was found. Study 2 compared NP effects between 7-year-old children and adults while replicating the respective methodologies of the only two studies to explore conceptual NP effects in developmental populations to date (Pritchard & Neumann, 2004, vs. Tipper et al., 1989) to determine the nature of the divergent results between these studies. In Study 2, it was found that distractor inhibition effects are comparable between children and adults when a NP task contains trials in which the distractor stimulus is consistently incongruent with the target stimulus, but that children may be more susceptible than adults to divide attention between target and distractor when a NP task contains a number of trials in which target selection difficulty is reduced. These are critical new findings, highlighting that reduced NP may often relate to methodological artifacts, and when considered in the light of current theories of NP, are also problematic for anti-inhibitory accounts of NP. Having distinguished more definitively the role of inhibition in developmental NP effects, Studies 3 and 4 explored whether the inhibitory process underpinning NP was implicated in young persons with ADHD. To date, evidence for NP in ADHD populations is equivocal. Study 3 found no evidence for a reduced NP effect in ADHD devoid of a corresponding diagnosis. Study 4 found that conduct and oppositional defiant disorders had the potential to confound the evaluation of NP in ADHD. Taken together, results in Studies 1 - 4 parallel very recent results in the literature on NP in older adults and adult psychopathology where presumed reductions of NP in these populations may also be accounted for by methodological artifacts (Buchner & Mayr, in press). It is concluded that NP may reflect a primitive and robust form of inhibitory processing, one that develops early and one that is often the last to deteriorate.

[Truncated abstract] There are few existing screening instruments designed to identify Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) at an early age, such as the Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (CHAT) and the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT). Unfortunately, many are limited in their ability to identify children at risk in the first two years of life while displaying an acceptable level of reliability. Given this limitation, the present study aimed to identify any additional early markers of ASD from either the retrospective analysis of early autistic symptomatology (parental report and video analysis of footage made before the diagnosis) or performance-based measures linked to different theoretical accounts of ASD. Specifically, measures addressing theory of mind, executive dysfunction and weak central coherence were developed. In the first study, parents of three groups of children those of typical development (n = 19, mean CA = 26 months), children with an ASD (n = 39, mean CA = 34 months) and children with developmental delay (n = 14, mean CA = 28 months) were interviewed about their child's early development. In the first study, parents of three groups of children those of typical development (n = 19, mean CA = 26 months), children with an ASD (n = 39, mean CA = 34 months) and children with developmental delay (n = 14, mean CA = 28 months) were interviewed about their child's early development. Several behaviours discriminated children with ASD from children with typical development and children with delayed development. ... A discriminant function analysis using the two factor scores indicated that Factor 1 discriminated the ADI-R groups, while Factor 2 scores did not add to the ability of Factor 1 scores to discriminate the ADI-R groups. Furthermore, while the finding that joint attention behaviours differentiated children with ASD from children with typical development and children with delayed development, more research is needed to determine if this impairment is a precursor of a theory of mind deficit or if this impairment and later appearing impairments in theory of mind are the result of a more global impairment in social-emotional approach behaviours. Additional research is also needed to determine the relationship between the early appearing deficits in joint attention and the impairments in social relating behaviours that appear to develop later in the chronology of ASD development and how both of these relate to the theory of mind hypothesis of ASD.

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact screen time has on the cognitive development of children between the ages of four to five, at one early childcare education center. The significance of the study will help determine how the amount of screen time affects children’s cognitive development. The results of this study will help educational leaders determine how to effectively use technology for learning. Research suggests that the most important factor in a child’s development is a positive parent-child relationship, in which loving caregivers respond to a child’s cues and provide age-appropriate activities that nurture curiosity, exploration and learning (Lerner & Barr, 2014). This provides the foundation for teacher and child interactions in preschool programs. The role of early childhood educators lays the foundation for education. Currently, over 80% of children between the ages of three and five years are reported to be using some type of electronic device on a daily basis (Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Sesame Workshop, 2011). Time spent with these electronic devices is defined as screen time, the total amount of time spent in front of any and all screens (Common Sense Media, 2013). The National Association for the Education of Young Children (2012) defines technology and media tools as, “computers, tablets, multi-touch screens, interactive white boards, mobile devices, cameras, DVDs, music players, audio recorders, electronic toys, games, e-book readers, and older analog devices.” The impact of positive and consistent interactions to young children can help mold development. These meaningful interactions cannot be substituted with technology tools. The educators of School A are restricted to only allowing their students to engage in interactive screen time for a total of thirty minutes per week. This research was geared towards finding out if screen time effects a child’s cognitive development between the ages of four and five.

O avanço das tecnologias vem sendo impulsionado por ferramentas como internet móvel, touchscreen, wirelles, dentre outras, possibilitando que o manuseio com auxílio destes dispositivos seja cada vez mais fácil e intuitivo, não necessitando de um tutorial ou mesmo de uma explicação completa por parte dos usuários para acessá-los. Desta forma, qualquer pessoa que tenha computador, celular, smartphone ou tablet conectado à internet, poderá produzir um vídeo, um texto ou uma imagem e compartilhá-los na rede. Os meios de comunicação e informação tornam-se maiores e menores ao mesmo tempo. Por meio de uma única ferramenta portátil, que comporta diversas mídias é possível que os conteúdos educacionais, e não somente conteúdos, mas informações, revistas, artigos possam ser acessados a qualquer tempo e em qualquer lugar. Diante deste novo paradigma, estar atento à forma com que as tecnologias estão sendo utilizadas pelas crianças, e como elas vêm percebendo este mundo digital se faz necessário. A presente pesquisa tem por objetivo observar e verificar como as crianças de 7 meses a 7 anos de idade estão se apropriando das tecnologias digitais, bem como percebem os atrativos oferecidos por elas. Adotou-se como aporte teórico a Epistemologia Genética de Piaget e suas principais obras sobre o desenvolvimento infantil, para melhor compreender os processos de desenvolvimento da inteligência da criança. Para tanto, a metodologia utilizada foi a aplicação de provas Piagetianas e, posteriormente, a realização desta mesma prova com o uso de recurso tecnológico. Durante estas atividades, foi utilizado o Método Clínico, já a análise das observações e interações das crianças, foi fundamentada a partir de obras de Piaget em que o desenvolvimento da inteligência infantil era abordada. Durante a pesquisa, foi possível observar o nítido interesse das crianças pelos aparelhos e pelas tecnologias digitais. As tecnologias digitais possibilitaram que as crianças realizassem constatações mais aprofundadas do que nas provas Piagetianas, pois os recursos tecnológicos apresentados envolveram diferentes sentidos, bem como proporcionaram que elas descobrissem coisas sem terem que fazer um esforço tão grande como quando trabalham com objetos concretos. O mundo virtual mostrou-se mais atrativo, porque possibilitou às crianças ter a oportunidade de aprender de modo não-formal, e sim fazendo e descobrindo sem seguir uma sequência definida. / The advancement of technologies has been driven by tools such as mobile internet, touchscreen, wirelles, among others, making it easier and more intuitive to handle these devices without requiring a tutorial or even a full explanation for the users to access them. Anyone with a computer, cell phone, smartphone or tablet connected to the internet can produce a video, text or image and share them on the web. Media and information become larger and smaller at the same time. With a single portable tool that contains several media, it is possible that educational content, educational content, general information, magazines, articles can be accessed anytime, anywhere. Facing this new paradigm, being aware of how technologies are being used by children and how they are perceiving this digital world becomes necessary. The present research aims to observe and verify how children from 7 months to 7 years of age are appropriating digital technologies as well as perceiving the attractions offered by them. It was adopted as a theoretical contribution the Piaget's Genetic Epistemology and his main works on child development, in order to better understand the processes of child intelligence development. For this, the methodology used was the application of Piagetian tests and, later, the accomplishment of this same test with the use of technological resources. During these activities, the Clinical Method was used. The analysis of the observations and children‟s interactions was based on works of Piaget in which the development of the child intelligence was approached. During the research, it was possible to observe the clear interest of the children by the devices and the digital technologies. Digital technologies made it possible for children to make more in-depth findings than in Piagetian tests because the technological features presented involved different senses as well as allowing them to discover things without having to make as much effort as when working with concrete objects. The virtual world proved to be more attractive because it enabled children to have the opportunity to learn in a non-formal way, but by doing and discovering without following a definite sequence.

Diante de um contexto em que a evolução tecnológica amplia as formas de disseminação e acesso à informação, explorando o uso da multimídia e a mescla dos diferentes tipos de linguagens, percebe-se que pessoas com deficiência ainda permanecem excluídas dos processos de produção e recepção de dados digitais. Diante do potencial das Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação (TIC) para firmarem-se como opção para a superação de barreiras, apresenta-se aqui o desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta, denominada Oficina Multimídia, que visa a propiciar a interação desses indivíduos e a expressão de suas ideias em processos de autoria e trabalho em grupo, mediante o uso de signos audíveis, imagéticos e verbais. Por meio de um estudo qualitativo junto a sujeitos com diferentes necessidades especiais (deficientes visuais, deficientes motores e portadores de Síndrome de Down), investigou-se de que forma a implementação do software, seguindo recomendações de acessibilidade e a disponibilização de recursos para facilitação do uso por pessoas com deficiência na produção multimídia, favorece os processos de apropriação tecnológica e de interação entre os pesquisados. Verificou-se a pertinência da aplicação de testes com usuários finais para detecção de melhorias e validação de certas estratégias para adoção em projetos futuros de ferramentas acessíveis. Complementarmente, foram realizados testes de compatibilidade da Oficina Multimídia com um protótipo de tablet e suas tecnologias assistivas disponíveis. O potencial da ampliação de espaços infoinclusivos para expressão de pessoas com as mais distintas características pode ser observado nas produções elaboradas pelos grupos validadores. / Against a broad context of increased technological development, profuse forms of information dissemination and access by means of multimedia resources and multiple languages, it can be observed that people with special needs are still excluded from processes of digital data production and reception. Considering the potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to provide an alternative of transposing social limitations, this study introduces a tool labeled Oficina Multimídia, which aims at promoting the social interaction and manifestation of ideas by such individuals in processes of authorship and team work involving aural, imagetic and verbal signs. A qualitative investigation was conducted among participants with distinct needs (visually impaired individuals, physically handicapped and individuals with Down syndrome) to evaluate the extent to which the software implementation, following recommendations regarding the accessibility and availability of multimedia resources for PSNs, facilitates processes of technological appropriation and interaction among the research participants. Tests carried out with the software users validated part of the strategies adopted and pointed out to the need of considering improvements for future projects involving similar multimedia access tools. Complementarily, tests were conducted to evaluate the compatibility of Oficina Multimídia with a tablet prototype and its available assistive technologies. The potential of info-inclusive environments to extend the socio-digital participation of individuals with disabilities can be observed in the assignments produced by the group of participants validating the project.

Cognitive abilities in the age of adolescence reach a high standard. Critical thinking, an ability of each young individual, offers possible solutions for everyday situations as well as for complex tasks requiring an intellectual engagement. It is crucial to find new ways to support and further develop critical thinking of adolescents. The theoretical section is divided into three subsections. The first of them is based on a specification of the period of adolescence mainly focusing on the cognitive development. The second section is dedicated to critical thinking and in the last section, the academic debate as a method of education is presented. The core of this thesis is to examine the influence of debating on the development of critical thinking of adolescents. The empirical section describes a survey conducted as a part of an international survey project Evaluations. The theoretical baseline has determined three specific tasks to evaluate the gathered data. In these tasks, three groups of participants are observed and compared - debaters beginners, advanced debaters and non-debaters. Keywords: Adolescence, Debating, Cognitive development, Critical thinking.

xv, 140 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Although research on action processing indicates people segment action according to a partonomic goal hierarchy, no previous research has investigated whether memory for complex human action is actually organized in the mind with respect to goals. This dissertation explored the primary organization of action memory in adults and young children and explored the role of familiarity in young children's organization of action in memory. Borrowing from the text memory literature, a priming experiment was designed to investigate the degree to which action memory is organized with respect to goals versus veridical temporal structure. In all studies, participants viewed videos in which goals were carried out in an interleaved fashion, such that the execution of a goal was at times interrupted by action related to the other goal. In a first experiment with adults, the results indicated that adults reorganize action information in memory in order to emphasize goal structure relative to verbatim temporal structure. A second control experiment with adults clarified that the goal priming effect observed in the first experiment arose as a result of viewing the action scenario and was not simply due to the stimuli cuing pre-existing semantic memory. The results of a third experiment with adults revealed this process of goal organization is unlikely to be a by-product of goal-based linguistic encoding, but instead reflects encoding of human action itself. Young children's action memory was examined in a fourth experiment, and the role of children's familiarity with the action scenarios in action memory organization was also explored. Children did not display a significant tendency to organize action according to goal inferences (or temporal structure, either, for that matter). As well, children's prior familiarity with action did not modulate their memory organization to any significant degree. Overall, the results of this dissertation suggest that adult memory for action emphasizes goal inferences but cannot speak to how or when this process in achieved developmentally. These findings have implications for contemporary theories of action processing, point to commonalities in the processing of language and human action, and open the door to future research into the development of action memory organization. / Committee in charge: Dare Baldwin, Chairperson, Psychology; Marjorie Taylor, Member, Psychology; Ulrich Mayr, Member, Psychology; Eric Pederson, Outside Member, Linguistics

Introdução: embora a sequência de aquisições motoras e cognitivas seja previsível, o seu desenvolvimento é fruto da interação de múltiplos fatores relacionados ao indivíduo, suas experiências motoras e seu ambiente de inserção. Objetivo: investigar possíveis relações dos fatores individuais e ambientais familiares com o desenvolvimento motor e cognitivo de bebês ao longo de 4 meses de vida. Metodologia: estudo longitudinal realizado em Porto Alegre, no qual foram avaliados 49 bebês em 3 momentos ao longo de 4 meses. Para avaliação do desenvolvimento dos bebês foram utilizados a Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) e a escala mental da Bayley Scale of Infant Development (BSID-II). Também foram realizados questionários com os responsáveis para caracterização da amostra, do ambiente familiar (Affordances in The Home Environment for Motor Development – Infant Scale), das práticas dos cuidadores (Daily Activities of Infant Scale – DAIS) e do conhecimento sobre o desenvolvimento infantil (Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory – KIDI). Resultados: o desenvolvimento motor teve mudanças significativas ao longo do tempo nos escores bruto e por postura, no percentil houve mudança significativa apenas do 1º para o 2º momento avaliativo e no critério de categorização não houve diferença. O desenvolvimento cognitivo apresentou mudanças significativas apenas no escore bruto; o índice de desenvolvimento mental e a categorização se mantiveram constantes. Houve correlação de nível moderado a forte entre desenvolvimento motor e cognitivo. Na análise de regressão, destaca-se a associação do desenvolvimento motor com os escores cognitivos, práticas dos cuidadores, escolaridade dos pais e renda familiar mensal; e do desenvolvimento cognitivo com o gênero, escores motores, escolaridade dos pais, renda familiar mensal, quantidade de crianças na residência e tempo de creche. Conclusão: observa-se uma maior incidência de associação do desenvolvimento motor e cognitivo dos bebês com fatores do ambiente familiar, em detrimento dos fatores do indivíduo. / Background: Although the sequence of motor and cognitive acquisitions is predictable, the development is the product of interaction of many factors associated to the individual, his motor experiences and his insertion environment. Objective: To investigate possible relationships of individual and environmental family factors with motor and cognitive development of infants over 4 months of life. Methods: longitudinal study in Porto Alegre, which 49 infants were assessed in 3 times over 4 months. Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) and the mental scale of the Bayley Scale of Infant Development (BSID-II) were used to evaluate the development of infants. Questionnaires were also conducted with infant´s responsible for sample characterization, family environment (Affordances in The Home Environment for Motor Development - Infant Scale), caregivers practices (Daily Activities Scale of Infant - DAIS) and knowledge about child development (Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory - KIDI). Results: the motor development had significant changes over time in raw scores and postures scores, there was significant change in the percentile only from the 1st to the 2nd time evaluative and there was no difference in the criteria for categorization. Cognitive development showed significant changes only in the raw score, the mental development index and the categorization remained constant. There was moderate to strong correlation between motor and cognitive development. In regression analysis, the motor development were associated with cognitive scores, caregivers practices, parental education and family income; and the cognitive development were associated with gender, motor scores, parental education, family income, number of children in the and daycare time. Conclusion: there is a higher incidence of association of infant’s motor and cognitive development with factors of family environment, to the detriment of the individual factors.