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Individuals with mild neurocognitive disorder complete many activities of daily living independently; however, they may require the use of compensatory strategies while performing everyday tasks. Compensatory strategies, such as external memory aids, incorporate a strengths-based approach to enhance the functional needs of individuals. Although external memory aids have a strong evidence-base, limited assessment tools and interventions are available to facilitate the development of individualized treatment plans that promote sustained strategy use. To better support the everyday needs of individuals with mild neurocognitive disorder and to inform clinicians who are developing interventions, the current dissertation includes four paper that examine a functional framework for external memory aid assessment and intervention. The first paper examined a group intervention teaching three types of external memory aids on functional strategy use, perceived strategy use, and cognitive skills. The second paper identified individual preferences for experiences with external memory aids during and following intervention. The third paper examined individual changes in functional and perceived strategy use following a group-based intervention teaching external memory aids. Lastly, the fourth paper examined the content validity and internal structure of the Functional External Memory Aid Tool: a measure that explores external memory aid use with simulated everyday tasks. By understanding the weaknesses in currently used assessment and intervention practices and the unique preferences of clients, this multi-manuscript dissertation aims to enhance the immediate and long-term needs of individuals with mild neurocognitive disorder.

Cost and benefits of high individual growth rates are likely to vary across different environments leading to geographic differentiation in growth strategies. In ectotherms, habitats constrained by short growing seasons favour rapid growth and development leading to adaptive latitudinal clines in these traits. Geographic variation in growth strategies should be influenced by physiological variation as well as environmental factors, however many of these mechanisms remain largely unexplored. In my thesis, I studied hormonal correlates of growth strategies, and compensatory responses to phenological variation and environmental stress in anuran tadpoles. I tested the hypotheses that fast growing high latitude common frog Rana temporaria tadpoles have higher growth hormone (GH) expression, and low stress hormone (CORT) elevation in response to predator stress. I found no relationship between GH expression and latitude, but CORT response decreased with latitude after 24 hours of predator exposure. Lower CORT response at high latitude can be adaptive as it may enable the tadpoles to maintain high growth in time constrained habitats. I also found that breeding phenology affected latitudinal variation in growth, development and anti-predator strategies. Northern R. temporaria tadpoles were phenotypically more similar to southern tadpoles when breeding occurred early, suggesting that part of the latitudinal variation is plastic and affected by yearly variation in phenology. When time stress was manipulated by delaying hatching, tadpoles were able to compensate by increasing their development and growth during the larval stage, decreasing the cost of the delayed development. In the final study, I found that northern tadpoles showed stronger compensatory growth during the larval stage than southern tadpoles after being delayed by low food, however, temperature manipulation did not induce differences in the compensatory responses. In general, my results highlight the roles of both environmental and genetic variation in determining individual growth strategies. / Felaktigt tryckt som Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 735

It is desirable that language learners develop their strategic competence, which allows them to communicate the intended meaning when facing breakdowns in communication. One of the manifestations of strategic competence is the use of communication strategies. The present thesis aims to observe the use of communication strategies by Czech learners of English. It focuses on the types of communication strategies used in learner language and on the relationship between their use and proficiency, fluency and task types. The data were extracted from 14 transcripts of interviews with students of English philology recorded for the purposes of the multinational learner corpus of advanced spoken English LINDSEI (2010). The proficiency of the recorded subjects ranged from B2- to C2. 319 instances of communication strategies extracted from the transcripts were categorized on the basis of an adapted taxonomy, forming two main categories: compensatory strategies (55 instances), which compensate the lack of linguistic resources, and indirect strategies (264 instances), which enhance the effectiveness of communication and keep the channel of communication open. Compensatory strategies were further divided into analytic (36), holistic (3), linguistic (6) and cooperative strategies (10). Analytic strategies were the...

This diploma thesis explores problematic areas of patients with Huntington's disease in their performance during activities of daily living (ADLs) from the perspective of patients and their caregivers. The aim of the research was also to assess a possible correlation between cognitive impairment and the patient's performance in ADL. Twenty-five patients with their caregivers met the selection criteria for the research. There were used standardized assessment methods available in Czech: the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) and the questionnaire for caregivers called Bristol Activities of Daily Living Scale (BADLS-CZ). The statistical analyses consisted of methods of the nonparametric statistics, qualitative analysis was processed by data categorizing. Caregivers reported more problematic areas in ADLs which was significantly confirmed in the statistical hypothesis testing (p <0,05). A significant correlation was seen between the results of the questionnaire and the results of the MoCA assessment (rSp = -0,620; p <0,05). For various reasons, patients with Huntington's disease did not mention as many problematic areas in performing ADL as their caregivers. Therefore, it is appropriate in clinical practice to supplement the assessment of the patient's...

The present study investigates communicative strategies used by a group of four upper-secondary L2 learners of English. To be able to reach this goal, I have recorded and transcribed a conversation between these students in order to detect natural communication. The communicative strategies I have looked for were: pauses and hesitations, questions, code-switching and message abandonment. Previous research on communicative strategies is divided into two different fields. These two approaches define and classify communication strategies as either interactional or psycholinguistic.  The definition and classification of communicate strategies depends viz. on what kind of approach is used.

At a nexus between translation studies and didactics, the teaching of sight translation within the parameters of a foreign language course has as its primary aim to improve the communication skills of foreign language learners in general and of French learners at the University of Pretoria in particular. Contrary to the communication process in their first and second languages, students who try to speak a foreign language such as French are unable to express their thoughts freely. To compensate for their insufficient language knowledge and intuition, they tend to rely on their other languages as a reference for all communication. Although this natural reflex is part of the learning process, students' attempts to transfer words, phrases, and rules directly from one language to another can be detrimental to language performance. The problem does not lie in the fact that they translate mentally before speaking, but that they tend to translate literally. This is a highly inefficient communication strategy that results in a non-idiomatic, imperfect reflection of students’ actual knowledge of language. Unlike the above-mentioned mental transcoding and the so-called pedagogical translation generally practiced in the language class, the interpretive translation approach focuses on the reexpression of the meaning of the original text. This professional translation approach should be applied to all translation, including translation in the language class. Although the purpose is not to train professional translators or interpreters, students still need to learn to translate intelligently, whether verbally or mentally, without literally reproducing their reference languages. Since students are even more tempted than professionals to rely on the source language due to their limited language knowledge, they should explicitly learn to look for alternative means of expression available to them instead of transcoding this language. Sight translation is a very economical technique to teach this approach in language classes, as students learn to translate in their own words, using all their communication skills. Students learn how best to convey the meaning of the source text with the limited vocabulary and grammar skills at their disposal. When speaking, they also focus on the meaning of their utterances and use compensatory strategies when faced with a language problem, instead of copying from their reference languages or avoiding the problem altogether by switching to another language. In the space of little more than a year, the majority of the forty-four students who participated in the empirical research learned to communicate in a natural and authentic manner without undue interference from their other languages (mainly English). Those who have mastered the approach increasingly use efficient strategies to overcome language shortcomings, thus abandoning formal transfer to the benefit of their oral expression. In addition, a small number of talented students were identified to engage in further specialised translation and interpretation training. In conclusion, sight translation teaching in the classroom proved to be a highly beneficial method to improve translation and communication skills among French foreign language learners in the multicultural environment of the University of Pretoria. / Thesis (DLitt(French))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Modern European Languages / DLitt / unrestricted

Written and oral material produced by a group of low-achieving learners of English from the 2-year lines of the Swedish upper secondary school was analysed from the perspective of grammatical correctness and communicative ability. The grammatical analysis focussed on the verb phrase and tests included both free production in speech and writing and elicitation tests. Communicative ability was assessed ‘ ‘objectively* ’ by identifying such parameters as fluency, copiousness and span, and “holistically” by using non-expert evaluators.The scores thus obtained were correlated. Grammatical correctness was correlated with communicative ability both in speech and in writing and writing proficiency was correlated with speech proficiency with respect to both grammatical correctness and communicative ability.Our findings are that there is a positive correlation between grammatical correctness and communicative ability. A remarkable finding is that the percentage of correct verb phrases correlates very weakly with communicative ability in written data. In oral data, the correlation is in fact slightly negative. The learner’s competence in grammar is reflected in both his written and oral performance. On the other hand, there is no correlation between communicative ability in writing and communicative ability in speech.The study shows that a working command of a set of syntactic rules is essential for communication. Errors are, however, an integral part of the learning process. The major part of errors are accounted for by the learner’s use of compensatory strategies. Among these low-achievers, communicative ability in conversation is distinct from writing ability. / digitalisering@umu