Thesis advisor: Penny Hauser-Cram / This study involves secondary analysis of data from the Early Intervention Collaborative Study (EICS; Hauser-Cram, Warfield, Shonkoff, & Krauss, 2001), a longitudinal investigation of children with disabilities and their families. Presented is a mixed methods investigation of the relationship between future planning issues and sibling relationship quality when the teen with a disability (DD) was in adolescence (15 and 18 years old). First, future planning issues were examined contemporaneously with sibling relationship quality using hierarchical regression. Second, future planning issues from when the teen with DD was 15 years old were investigated in their relation to change in sibling relationship quality from ages 15 to 18 using lagged OLS regression. Third, qualitative content analysis was used to analyze sibling responses to a series of open-ended questions concerning the future at age 15 (1 question) and age 18 (4 questions). Siblings were asked "what have you learned by living with your brother or sister?" at both time points. In the first set of analyses, discussion of the teen's needs with parents, teen functional skills, sibling gender match, and sibling expectation of future roles were found to significantly relate to sibling relationship cooperation when the teen was 18. Additionally, sibling birth order was related to sibling conflict at age 18. In the second set of analyses, sibling relationship closeness was found to decrease over adolescence and sibling pessimism at age 15 was found to negatively relate this decrease. Finally, in the results for the qualitative analysis, various themes in sibling responses are discussed. More specifically, patterns arose in the change of sibling responses: trends reflecting a decrease in sibling relationship closeness, trends reflecting increasing role asymmetry in the sibling relationship, and trends reflecting sibling development. Future research must further examine the sibling relationship by using a developmental perspective and by taking into account the dynamic nature of sibling roles. The findings support the design of family-based interventions that address future planning explicitly with siblings and parents. Finally, improving the current resources and support for siblings may potentially increase siblings' perception of sibling relationship quality in these sibling pairs. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2006. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-75). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR29592

published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

The purpose was to examine the ball catching strategies of 15 children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) compared to 15 of their peers without DCD, and 15 younger children matched on ball skills. A ball catching activity (catching 10 consecutive balls in five different positions) and the developmental sequences proposed by Haywood and Getchell (2005) were used to evaluate movement patterns. Children with DCD caught significantly fewer balls than their peers at the chest and above the head. Children with DCD demonstrated delayed arm action catching on the right and delayed body actions when balls were projected away from body compared to their peers. In addition, development of some body actions of children with DCD was different compared to younger children. Results suggested that children with DCD have not developed accurate and consistent movement patterns.

The present study was an effort to empirically subtype children's learning disabilities. A review of the literature was presented with a focus on current and historical subtyping attempts. A cluster analysis was performed on 1144 school-age learning disabled children who had completed extensive neuropsychological, intellectual, and achievement measures. Four interpretable clusters emerged which were seen as (1) Verbal-Sequential-Arithmetic Deficits, (2) Motor Speed and Cognitive Flexibility Deficits, (3) Mixed Language/Perceptual Deficits, and a (4) No Deficit Subtype. Not only did these clusters indicate unique profiles for each subtype across the sample, but developmental differences were also apparent between all four clusters. The current investigation suggested the utility of an empirical-neuropsychological approach to subtyping children's learning disabilities, while also portraying the importance of neurodevelopmental considerations of subtypes. Future directions in research were discussed. / Department of Educational Psychology

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Australia, 2006.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2005. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-115). Also available online.

Early recognition of real or potential developmental impairments in infants is an important public health role. Community health nurses have initial access to the infant population by the mandated newborn visit and the necessary skills and tools to assess infants for developmental impairments. This experimental study was undertaken to determine the effectiveness of scheduled nursing assessments of growth, development, vision, hearing and nutrition from birth to nine months of age. A secondary purpose was to determine the predictive validity of currently used pregnancy and infant profiles for subsequent developmental impairment. The null hypotheses tested were: I. That the scheduled, community health nursing assessments between birth and nine months of age will not detect any developmental impairments which have not already been detected by existing health services. II. That there is no significant difference in the number of developmental impairments detected at nine months of age, between a group of infants screened by the proposed schedule of assessments and a group not so screened. III. That there is no significant difference in the number of children exhibiting developmental impairments by nine months of age, between a group of "at risk" and a group of not "at risk" infants, using the criteria from the Vancouver Health Department's Pregnancy Profile and Infant Profile At Risk Criteria. One hundred infants from one health unit area were studied, alternately assigned to an experimental and a control group. The experimental group received three visits in addition to the newborn visit, at 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months, for various combinations of five types of assessments. The control group received only the usual newborn visit, but no control was used to prevent access to any other health services during the study period. Pregnancy and infant profiles were completed for the subjects in both groups at the initial visit. 9 month assessments of growth, development, vision, hearing and nutrition were completed for both groups. The data were subjected to descriptive analysis and statistical analysis by Fisher's exact test of probability, using 2x2 contingency tables. The findings supported scheduled community health nursing assessments of infants from birth to nine months of age. The pregnancy and infant profiles were found to be sensitive but not specific tools for prediction of subsequent developmental impairment. The three null hypotheses were rejected. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Nursing, School of / Graduate

Preference assessments provide individuals with an opportunity to make choices and thus, increase their autonomy. Furthermore, preference assessments are used to identify stimuli that can be used as reinforcers in behavior change programs. Two studies were conducted to examine the validity of vocal preference assessments used with adults with developmental disabilities. In Study 1, the concurrent validity between vocal and stimulus paired-choice assessments, with and without activity access following a participant's selection, was evaluated. Spearman's rank correlation coefficients were computed to evaluate the correspondence between assessments. Results showed that similarity in consequence (i.e., activity access) impacted the correspondence between preference assessment results; whereas, similarity in antecedent (i.e., assessment format) did not impact the correspondence between preference assessment results. In Study 2, the predictive validity of reinforcer effectiveness of the preference assessments from Study 1 were evaluated. Specifically, the reinforcing efficacy and potency of high-preference activities were evaluated using a progressive-ratio schedule of reinforcement, within a multielement design. Results showed the preference assessments that included activity access were more likely to identify reinforcers that were effective under increasing response requirements, than were assessments that did not include activity access.

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