The interaction between troubled adolescents and the adult world is generally characterized as laden with ambiguity and conflict, and is rarely seem as productive or mutually satisfying. This research project is an attempt to study the way in which this interaction is perceived by a group of female adolescents involved in the Bridge, a short-term residential program for girls in a state of early crisis as demonstrated by runaway behavior. This study specifically focuses on communication behaviors of parents and of adults other than parents as perceived by the adolescent upon her entry into The Bridge and at her release from the program.

In working with the disabled and/or handicapped person it is necessary to consider all aspects of social functioning if realistic goals are to be reached in the rehabilitation process. It is recognized that if the family can give interest and support to that member of the family who is disabled and/or handicapped, and agrees to participate in rehabilitation planning that the effect will be helpful. The dichotomy of this study sample is made between those patients living alone and those patients living with some member of their family. The null hypothesis of this study is that there are no differences between the observed and expected frequencies on eleven items of descriptive, social, and clinical information as revealed in the distribution of data for thirty-four adult physically disabled and/or handicapped patients who live with some member of their family and thirty-six adult physically disabled and/or handicapped patients who live alone, which could not occur by chance. / Typescript. / "June, 1961." / "Submitted to the Graduate School of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work." / Advisor: Merle M. Foeckler, Professor Directing Study. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-55).

Voice onset time (VOT) är en akustisk tidsparameter som reflekterar den tidsmässiga samordningen av talmotoriken. VOT betraktas som det mest pålitliga akustiska kännetecknet på huruvida en klusil är tonlös eller tonande. Föreliggande studies syfte var att studera och jämföra VOT hos svenska barn (8, 9, 10, 11 år) och vuxna för att se hur utvecklingen sker samt för att ta fram svenska normvärden. Ljudinspelningar genomfördes på 150 barn och 36 vuxna vid uttal av de svenska klusilerna i minimala par. Akustiska analyser av materialet utfördes sedan. Resultatet visade att de tonlösa klusilerna föreföll produceras med vuxenlika VOT-värden från och med cirka nio års ålder. De tonande motsvarigheterna producerades med vuxenlik VOT omkring tio års ålder. I tioårsåldern förekom dessutom förton i helt vuxenlik utsträckning. Resultaten tyder dock på att svenska vuxna ej nödvändigtvis behöver producera tonande klusiler med förton. Inga tydliga könsskillnader erhölls. De normvärden för VOT som har tagits fram i föreliggande studie kan nyttjas som referensmaterial vid utredning av barn med talstörningar. / Voice onset time (VOT) is a temporal acoustic parameter, which reflects the timing of speech motor control. VOT is said to be the most reliable acoustic cue of whether a plosive is voiceless or voiced. The aim of the present study was to investigate and compare VOT among Swedish children (8, 9, 10, 11 years) and adults to examine the development of VOT and to obtain Swedish normative data. Audio recordings were performed on 150 children and 36 adults when pronouncing the Swedish plosives in minimal pairs. Acoustic analyses were then carried out. The results indicated that the voiceless plosives seemed to be produced with adult like VOT-values around the age of nine. The voiced plosives in turn, appeared to be produced with adult like values at approximately ten years of age. By the age of ten, also prevoicing was found in a fully adult like extent. Though, the results indicate that not all Swedish adults produce voiced plosives with prevoicing. No evident gender differences were found. The normative data for VOT that have been obtained in the present study can be used as normative data when assessing children with speech disorders.

My study arose in the context of an intervention programme aimed at the development of a child with autism’s communication and social interaction skills. The approach I take is a social constructionist one in which language is considered to be constructive and constitutive of social and psychological reality. This orientation challenges the assumptions of a western psychiatric approach that emphasizes the impairment and deficits associated with autism. The participants of the study are a 6-year-old boy diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (Autistic Spectrum), and his mother, father, sister and a volunteer on the intervention programme. The discourse analytic method of conversation analysis is employed as a means of elucidating the collaborative mechanisms employed by both the child and his co-participants in making sense of one another. The specific aims of the study are to closely examine the communicative behaviour and interactive styles of the child and his coparticipants, their implications for communicative success (co-ordinated interaction) or breakdown (discordant interaction), and the implications for how the child is positioned within the discourse in relation to his co-participants. My constructions of the data suggested that a playful, activity-based interactive style constituted by non-verbal turns, affection and short, simple utterances enhance mutual participation and the accomplishment of co-ordinated interaction. Barney’s co-participants sometimes tend to dominate interaction and frequently employ a strategy of repetitive questioning, which functions to direct and constrain the interaction and results in the child’s withdrawal and discordant interaction. This tendency to withdraw, however, seems to function as a means by which the child is able to actively resist positioning by others, and thus constitutes himself in a position of greater power. Furthermore, his use of the pronoun ‘I’ and collaborative negotiation of the words yours and mine suggest the active co-construction and positioning of himself as a separate person in relation to his co-participants. This research informs intervention efforts and encourages the co-participants to reflect on how interaction is co-constructed between themselves and the child.

This exploratory study examined the nature of the relationships between two preschool teachers and four of the children in their care. Of particular interest was the influence of primary attachment models or mental representations of each individual, on the interactions between teachers and children. Data on the teacher-child interactions were gathered through classroom observations and in depth interviews. Parents of the children were interviewed to obtain information on the children's primary attachment models. Findings support the conclusion that early attachment models were influential in defining current teacher-child relationships. These findings have implications for the training of teachers and for further research. / Ph. D.

In recent times the potential impact of preeclampsia on the cardiovascular health of offspring has been identified. This thesis explores the relationship between preeclampsia and offspring cardiovascular phenotype during the first three decades of life. A systematic review and meta-analysis provided evidence that there was increased blood pressure and BMI in the offspring of preeclamptic pregnancies (n = 45,249). There was however limited data on metabolic features and inadequate characterisation of the degree of prematurity or growth restriction in existing literature. I therefore studied data on two birth cohorts with up to 28 years of detailed prospective follow up (n = 2868 and n = 926). Those born very preterm to preeclamptic pregnancies had transient perinatal reductions in insulin and cholesterol, although extreme prematurity was the only determinant of variation in cardiovascular risk in later life, with changes in both metabolism and blood pressure. In those born closer to, or at term, gestation was no longer relevant and an independent impact of preeclampsia on blood pressure was evident, so that by age 20, those born at term to preeclamptic pregnancies were four and a half times more likely to demonstrate clinically-apparent hypertension. I then investigated whether there were changes in other features of cardiovascular phenotype, independent of blood pressure, in preterm neonates born following preeclampsia (n = 46). At 3 months of age preterm infants born to hypertensive pregnancies had subclinical alterations in cardiac strain, independent of gestation or birth weight but not differences in blood pressure, or microvascular structure. These findings highlight preeclampsia and prematurity as key, independent perinatal factors, important in determining cardiovascular phenotype and risk during early life. Preeclampsia is associated with a specific lean, hypertensive phenotype, associated with cardiac functional alterations; these findings begin to define a distinct at risk population who may require targeted preventative interventions.

[pt] Ser criança, ser adulto, ser professor: encontros, diálogos e desvios com crianças de seis a dez anos, tem como objetivo conhecer o que falam crianças de seis a dez anos da experiência de ser criança no mundo contemporâneo e de como se dão as relações entre elas e os adultos. O referido objetivo se desdobra em questões que orientam a investigação: o que as crianças falam sobre ser criança? Como revelam em seus discursos e brincadeiras a compreensão que têm de si, dos outros e do mundo social? O que as crianças falam da relação delas com os adultos, jovens, idosos? Que temas, conversas e perguntas as crianças trazem? As crianças falam da escola, dos professores? O que as crianças falam sobre a realização de pesquisas com elas? Que assuntos consideram importantes como temas de pesquisa? A escuta das crianças aconteceu em dois campos empíricos: dentro e fora da escola. Dentro da escola, o diálogo se deu com crianças dos primeiros anos do Ensino Fundamental em uma instituição da rede pública municipal do Rio de Janeiro. Fora da escola, o encontro com as crianças ocorreu em uma instituição não governamental sem fins lucrativos, empenhada na formação e na produção artística cultural. O estudo teve como estratégias metodológicas a observação e a realização de entrevistas coletivas. A investigação aborda as contribuições dos Estudos da Infância como campo interdisciplinar de conhecimento, que fornece elementos para pensar a infância e a criança no âmbito das Ciências Humanas e Sociais. A pesquisa problematiza as condições que a contemporaneidade tem oferecido para as relações entre adultos e crianças. A atualidade desta reflexão, que indica a contemporaneidade como tema de análise, traz para o debate as contribuições da antropologia filosófica de Martin Buber e de Walter Benjamin, interlocutores teórico-metodológicos desse estudo. A tese discute a concepção de infância fundamentada na obra de Benjamin. As análises destacam: (i) a categoria ser criança, considerando o que dizem e percebem desta condição e os significados de ser criança para elas; (ii) as crianças como depoentes privilegiados de sua condição, nos dão pistas sobre o mundo que construímos para elas e sobre as relações estabelecidas entre elas e os adultos; (iii) temas, conversas e indagações trazidas pelas crianças. Na escuta das crianças a tese enfatiza a necessidade de pensar a criança como semelhante ao adulto na sua humanidade, valorizando-a, em busca de estabelecer com ela uma relação de alteridade. No mundo contemporâneo, o olhar da criança como outro olhar é precioso para a história do homem. / [en] Being a child, being an adult, being a teacher: encounters, dialogues and deviations with 6-10 year old children aimsto cognize 6-10 year old children s discourses about their experience of being children in a contemporary world and how the relationship between them and adults happen. The research objective is unfolded into issues which conduct the investigation: what do children say about being a child? How is it revealed in their speeches and plays their understanding about themselves, about the other and about the social world? What do children say about their relationship with adults, young people and elders? Which topics, discourses and questions do children bring? Do children talk about school, about the teachers? What is the children s opinion about conducting a research with them? Which issues do they believe to important as research themes? The listening to the children s discourses occurred in two empirical fields: inside and outside school. Inside school, the dialogue took place with children in the first grades of an elementary Rio de Janeiro city public school. Outside, meetings with the children were arranged in a nongovernmental and nonprofit institution which deals with artistic cultural-artistic formation and production. Observations and group interviews were used as the study methodological strategies. The research approaches the contribution of the Children s studies as an interdisciplinary field of knowledge, which provides elements to consider the child and the childhood in the scope of Human and Social sciences. The thesis questions the conditions that contemporaneity has offered to the relationship between children and adults. The topicality of such reflection, which results in the modernity as topic of analysis, bring out the debate on Martin Buber and Walter Benjamin s (theoretical-methodological interlocutors of this research) philosophical anthropology contributions. The study discusses the understanding of childhood based on Benjamin s work. The analyses underline: (i) the being a child category, taking into account what is said and perceived by children about this condition and the meanings they convey of being a child; (ii) the children, as privileged deponents of their own condition, offer us some hints on the world we build for them and on the relationship set between them and the adults; (iii) topics, conversations and inquiries raised by the children. When listening to the children s discourses, the present thesis stresses the necessity of considering the child as similar to an adult in respect to their humanity, valorizing the child, in the search of establishing with them a relationship of otherness. In the contemporaneous world, the child s eye as another eye is needed in the human history.