The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on January 5, 2010). Vita. Thesis advisor: Dr. Judith C. Goodman. Includes bibliographical references

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2000. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 171-183). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-109).

published_or_final_version / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Specific language impairment (SLI) in bilingual Malaysian children is grossly underidentified for two reasons. First, there is an absence of locally-developed norm-referenced language assessment tools. The challenge in developing a local assessment tool comes from the inadequate knowledge of children’s English as it develops in the bilingual environment. Second, the characteristics of Malaysian English, a non-Standard form of English, are often confused with the features of SLI in monolingual children learning Standard English. To date, the literature has no information on SLI in bilingual children learning a non-Standard English because research mainly focuses on bilingual Standard English and monolingual non-Standard English. Spontaneous language sample is the recommended language assessment tool for bilingual Malaysian children because it provides quantitative and qualitative information for language development and assessment in communities with complex language environment. Phase 1 of the current study investigated the developmental sensitivity of four language sample measures (LSMs), including mean length of utterances (MLU), lexical diversity (D), the Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn), and frequency of code-switching (FCS), by examining the relationship between these LSMs and age in 52 bilingual Chinese-English Malaysian children with normal language development (NLD), aged between 3;06 and 6;09. Analyses showed a highly significant linear relationship with age in D (r=.536) and IPSyn (r=.451), moderately significant linear relationship with MLU (r=.364), but not in FCS. The findings suggested that MLU, D, and IPSyn were developmentally sensitive to non-Standard English in the bilingual Malaysian children studied. Phase 2 compared the same measures obtained from nine children with SLI and their age-matched controls from the NLD group in Phase 1. The SLI group had significantly lower MLU and the IPSyn scores than the NLD group. Discriminant function analysis indicated that the IPSyn alone classified children into SLI and NLD groups at 77.8% classification accuracy. The four misclassified children, two in the SLI and two in the NLD group, were aged below 4;06 years. MLU and the IPSyn showed potential as SLI markers for bilingual Malaysian children. Two types of error patterns were observed from the SLI group. The first pattern included verb and the copula -be omissions which were also observed in younger children from the NLD group. The second pattern was omission of prepositions which was not observed in younger NLD group, reflected linguistic transfer from the first language. Future research in this area is suggested to a) extend the age range of the study to include older children to further verify the diagnostic potential of LSMs, b) consider longitudinal research design so that language development over time can be described and c) include non-linguistic measures given reports of these measures as potential markers of SLI. As an initial study on bilingual children learning non-Standard English, the current study provided empirical data for charting language development and also suggested potential markers for SLI. The study can serve as the basic framework not only for further research on other bilingual non-Standard English-speaking groups but also for children with language impairment secondary to developmental disorders in the same language group. / published_or_final_version / Speech and Hearing Sciences / Master / Master of Philosophy

Early childhood caries is a condition of rapidly progressing rampant dental caries in infants and young children. It is considered as a major public health problem affecting pre-school children and it is the most common dental disease which affects 28% of children within two to five years of age. ECC not only induces pain and discomfort, but can also affect communication, nutrition status, learning abilities, speech and quality of life, which may progress into adulthood and pose a heavy burden on the healthcare system in long-term. In Hong Kong, over 50% of children were affected by dental caries in 2001 but over 70% of children had never been to a dentist for a regular check up at age five. Thus, much of the tooth decay was remained undetected and untreated. Dental caries can be preventable and achievable. Collaboration between families, early care and health care professionals is required to promote effective oral health care. Numerous studies have found that educational programs and workshops are effective in promoting oral health and can provide children a lifelong opportunity to be free from preventable oral disease. In order to promote oral health to achieve the mission of the Department of Health in Hong Kong- at least 65% of 5 years old children are free from caries by the year 2020, an evidence-based guideline for a community-based programme in oral health education was developed in the proposed setting after a critical appraisal of the reviewed evidence. The comprehensive intervention plan, including communication plan with stakeholders, training of staffs and pilot testing will be carried out to facilitate the implementation of the innovation. The oral health programme will be evaluated for its effectiveness in achieving the patient outcomes, health providers’ outcomes and system outcomes in the proposed settings. / published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing

published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Master / Master of Education

toc / Linguistics / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

According to international and national literacy studies (PISA, PIRLS) Swedish boys are inferior to Swedish girls when it comes to reading. There can be numerous reasons to that statement. One is that Swedish teachers require more knowledge about communication as an important component in literacy. In spite of this shortcoming, Swedish girls manage to gain sufficient literacy. Why is that? The aim of this survey was to examine if there were any differences between girls and boys regarding communication skills when they begin in school. The main questions taken in account were: Which differences and/or similarities in communication skills are discernible between boys and girls this particular preschool? How do boys and girls communicate with each other in different room contexts on this particular preschool?           To be able to answer the questions, I adopted observations and audio recordings from children aged five. I recorded the everyday talk among the children in order to ascertain their communication skills. I´ve tried to demonstrate that communication skills are more than just a function. The context in which the children interact with each other and with the pedagogues, along with communication expectations common in the society, is important to take in account when examine communication skills. My conclusion is that due to expectations about boys being none- speakers and girls being speakers, the children gain different communication skills. Boys and girls then use their dissimilar skills separate from each others. Boys tend to play far from the girls and the teachers, girls play with each other near the teachers. The separate contexts the children select to play within also provide different communication skills. Girls practise their, already better, skills among the pedagogues, who help them develop even more. Boys are denied such help from the pedagogues since they choose not to play with them. This might be one of many reasons why boys more frequently fail as readers.

This thesis is the result of a study that considers children’s encounters with others; participation and influence in a pedagogical outdoor environment in three different preschool playgrounds. More specifically, a study is under-taken of how children’s encounters are shaped in the pedagogically adapted outdoor environment of the preschool with the focus on how children’s par-ticipation and influence finds expression in the preschool playground’s dif-ferent facilities. The physical environment is seen as meaningful and the focus is on which affordances arise in the physical environment related to facility. The study’s theoretical approach is based mainly on G. H. Mead’s social psychological theory and the meeting with the other which is com-bined with theories that call attention to the significance of the facility. An ethnographic method has been applied. By way of two years’ field studies, with a total of 78 days spent in the three different environments, data has been collected through observations and photography and by listening to, and talking with, children and preschool teachers. To participate in the chil-dren’s everyday life has been a precondition for understanding children’s different encounters and meeting places in the preschool playgrounds. On the basis of the analysed results, the study shows that all three preschool playgrounds had pedagogical outdoor environments which were designed so that the majority of the facilities gave a variety of offerings, something that contributed to different children being able to relate to, and find, their own affordances in different facilities. The results of the study also show that the majority of preschool children in the studied activities were socially compe-tent and good negotiators. Thereby, they were shown to have good precondi-tions for participating and exercising influence in the day-to-day outdoor activities. At the same time, the study results demonstrate that the children’s agency and interaction at all three preschool playgrounds are determined on the basis of the level of recognition they received in their encounter with other children and in the encounter with teachers.