This research aims to compare how adults use handheld and widescreen digital devices to distract children during painful medical procedures. Levels of pain and distress are compared to assess the effectiveness of each device medium. The behaviors of the adults using these devices were also examined in order to determine the quality of the distraction provided. Additionally, the observed behaviors of the adults are documented and analyzed to determine if the rates of specific action types are predictors of pain, distress, and quality of distraction provided. The results of this work show that children reported less pain when distracted by handheld devices compared to widescreens. Although children reported less pain with handheld devices they received lower quality distraction compared to when widescreen devices were used. Two types of actions were positively associated with higher quality distraction: those that demonstrated the adults’ interest in the devices and those that provided support to children interacting with the devices. Adults using widescreen devices performed these two types of actions more frequently than those using handheld devices. These findings indicate that when adults use handheld devices they tend to reduce pain and distress compared to widescreens. However, widescreen devices are more likely encourage actions that are linked to higher quality distraction. This interdependency of devices and coaching ability led to an interpretation of findings that presents a new theory called mediPLAYtion. MediPLAYtion recommends specific actions that promote cooperative engagement using digital devices for reducing pain during medical procedures.

Thesis (M.S. in Psychology)--Vanderbilt University, Dec. 2004. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of the Child Life Style Scale (CLSS) and clarify the underlying dimensions of the scale. Dr. Kathleen Stiles designed the 90 item CLSS to quantitatively identify life style typologies for children between eight and twelve. This questionnaire consisted of 6 scales based on Adlerian constructs of personality. They are pleasing, getting, controlling, rebelling, inadequacy, and socially useful. Ten items were deleted after an inter-judge reliability/validity study. The 80 item CLSS was administered to 314 third, fourth, and fifth graders in public and private schools in Dallas, Texas. Internal consistency coefficients for the six subscales ranged from .72 to .76 and test-retest reliability coefficients ranged from .70 to .80 (p < .001). Results from a factor analysis confirmed the original six scales but factors five and six were not strong. Exploratory factor analysis found four clear factors with internal consistency coefficients ranging from .76 to .84 and test-retest reliability coefficients ranging from .73 to .83 (p < .001). Underlying dimensions of the factors, which reflect Alfred Adler's four typologies exactly, were: Factor 1: Rebelliousness Factor 2: Social Usefulness Factor 3: Control Factor 4: Fear of Failure. Results of analysis of variance indicated that age and socioeconomics made significant differences while gender and place in the family were not as significant. This study showed the revised 64 item version of the CLSS reflects Adler's tenets exactly, and has a more concise format with better reliability and validity. The CLSS is a solid questionnaire worth being further investigated for use in schools and therapy.

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My research takes a social work perspective to investigate the concept of the child with ‘additional needs'. This concept arose out of the Labour Government's programme ‘Every Child Matters' (HM Government, 2003) which proposed that children's needs for support should be picked up at an earlier point by an integrated Children's Services consisting of social care, health and education. This would stop them from ‘falling through the net' of services. A focus on ‘additional needs' should mean that children in distress are helped at an early stage before problems became critical, improving the ‘well-being' of children and their families. The research has traced the cases of twelve children with ‘additional needs' through their contacts with Children's Services, using an interactionist methodology to interrogate the meaning-making between respondents. Further, following Hacking (2004), a Foucauldian approach to discourse allowed me investigate the discourses which shape formal diagnosis and categorization. Focusing on the ways that the child is positioned and perceived has allowed me to address the question of whose ‘need' is prioritized when the child enters the professional gaze. In doing so it has examined the role of formal and informal labels in constructing the child, the emotional content that goes into creating the ‘meaning-labels' of the child, and the ways that failures in knowing about the child affect the ways that a child becomes pictured. It concludes that in the shifting practices that make up Children's Services, the child with additional needs can become lost in the complex interaction between adult needs and emotions. The informal ‘meaning-labels' which arise out of this complexity often identify the child as carrying a ‘spoiled identity'. This can be carried through into practice with the child, including the processes of formal diagnosis and categorization. Adult emotions need to be managed better if children are to get fitting and timely help to allow them to thrive.

Nigerian families are overrepresented in child protection interventions in Greater London, drawing attention to cultural differences in childrearing practices. This research investigates the experiences of first-generation Nigerian immigrant parents regarding their management of childrearing issues, which are contextualised within a British child welfare polity and normative cultural milieu. The tension between Nigerian parents' childrearing worldviews and those attributed as ‘British' constitutes the central theme of this thesis. The study employs Bhaskar's (1998) critical realism as an epistemological and methodological paradigm, complemented by the use of Honneth's (1995) recognition theory as the principal substantive framework from which the findings are discussed. Qualitative data were collected from Nigerian parents living in Greater London through an internet blog, semi-structured interviews with 25 individuals, and two focus groups with four participants each. Template analysis was used to code and identify themes within the data. The project gives rise to a series of findings. The first is that most participants in the study wished to uphold certain childrearing practices from their backgrounds. Biographical accounts of their own upbringing in Nigeria revealed a picture of caregiving for children occurring within communal and codependent family relationships, which emphasised expectations of obedience and respectful behaviour from children. Participants' accounts of the physical chastisement of children present this discipline measure as both reasonable and not-so-reasonable. The problematic status of the physical chastisement of children in a British context is the focus of the second key finding of the study. Participants communicated a collective view that Nigerian parents were commonly understood within British society as harsh and controlling, a view attributed to social workers in particular, and other child safeguarding professionals (teachers, child protection police, health professionals) and traditional media producers in general. The defence or disavowal of physical chastisement appears to have become the focus both of immigrant identity practices and the host country's conditions of belonging and inclusion. A third finding was that parents were fearful in their dealings with child safeguarding professionals. Such fears were identified as linked to prior immigration experiences, xenophobia/racism within public discourses and activities, as well as ineffectual social work practices. Participants communicated the view that their values, knowledge, and experiences were not given proper consideration during child safeguarding interactions/interventions and that the challenges posed to the parent-child relationship by immigration were not acknowledged. Social workers and associated professionals were perceived as practicing in ways that could be described as not ‘culturally competent' (Bernard and Gupta, 2008, p.476). Participants experienced social workers as overly prescriptive and threatening. They viewed contact with social services with intense suspicion. A fourth finding was the respect expressed by participants for the British government's efforts to uphold the rights of children. An invitation to participants to share their strategies for managing tensions between Nigerian and British parenting values provided insights to how active/passive influences contribute to everyday strategies of parenting in a context of immigration. Drawing on recognition theory, the thesis offers a way of understanding these findings that recognises and makes sense of the dignity, resilience, fears, and aspirations conveyed by the research participants. The thesis argues for an approach that capitalises on shared values and acknowledges the strengths of Nigerian immigrants' parenting styles while promoting acceptable alternatives to practices that might have attracted child intervention. Recognition theory is offered to social work practice as a starting point for a strengths based approach to integration and wellbeing, suggesting that socio-political participation in the British child welfare polity would lead to an improvement in the confidence and wellbeing of these parents and their children. This conclusion has implications for British social work professionals and other authorities involved in child welfare policy and practice.