The thesis deals with possibilities and ways of child's development in their preschool age. The aim of this thesis is to prove a positive effect of controlled kinetic activities on the development of children's abilities, skills and knowledge at the age from two to four, namely in the frame of all five educational spheres RVP PV. There was used the method of an experiment consisting in a realization of a fourteen-day-search based on a schooling program using both kinetic and non- kinetic activities, on an input and output measuring the level of the same partial abilities, skills and knowledge for two eight-member-groups of children and also comparing acquired results. It was found out that kinetic activities of preschool children can be used within the educational process as one of its elements with comparable effect to using non-kinetic activities. Keywords Movement, ontogenetic evolution, child's development, preschool age, play

The thesis is devoted to the specificity of playing the piano preschool children. It combines the knowledge of developmental psychology, psychology of music and piano methodology with their reflection in practical teaching piano. The work is divided into five chapters, which i s based on key publications and developmental psychology of music in the Czech republic, theoretical works of contemporary piano teachers, piano course books and a survey carried out in the framework of a diploma thesis. The first chapter deals with the level of psychological development of preschool age and its reflection in piano lessons. The second chapter discusses the level of musical abilities of the child at the same age. Chapter three outlines further specifics in teaching pre-school children, dedicated to personalities of pupil and teacher as the main creators of the educational process, it refers to the methods used in teaching and not least about the role of parents in the education of their child. The fourth chapter summarizes the methodology selected piano teaching materials suitable for teaching children of preschool age. Final Chapter complements the work of the views of piano teachers on teaching preschool children.

v anglickém jazyce The diploma thesis was focused on the measurements of intensity of physical exercise of pre-school children. The main goal was to monitor the intensity of physical exercise (PE) of pre-school children (five to six years old). The partial objectives were: to compare the level of intensity of the PE outside and inside; to compare the level of intensity of controlled and free PE and to compare the intensity of PE between boys and girls during controlled and free PE. In the first part, the thesis presented findings about healthy exercise of pre-school children. In the second part, the actual measurements of the intensity of PE were included. Nineteen children participated in the measuring which was carried out by sporttesters Polar RS300X. The results showed that the lowest intensity was measured during the free PE inside and the highest intensity during the controlled PE outside. However, none of the activities brought the recommended degree of intensity. Keyewords: kindergarten, preschool, children, physical activity, intensity PA, measurement, heart rate monitor

Tooth decay is one of the most common chronic conditions that affect children in the U.S. Non-Hispanic Blacks are among the children facing the greatest racial and ethnic disparities in caries experience and treatment. Parents play a significant role in ensuring the success of preventative measures aimed at reducing prevalence of early childhood caries. It is therefore important for public health professionals to understand the oral health, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of Black parents in order to effectively design and tailor interventions for caries prevention among preschool children. The twofold purpose of this study was to: (a) determine whether attitudes, beliefs of Black parents predict behaviors about preventative measures against caries for their preschool children, and (b) determine whether the attitudes and beliefs about caries preventive behaviors vary between different ethnic groups of Blacks in Miami-Dade County. The cross sectional study utilized an oral health survey comprised of a modified version of the CDHQ, and the Nutrition Questionnaire for Children to examine attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of Black parents. The study sample included 192 African American, Haitian, and Afro-Caribbean parents of 3-5 year-old children in Miami-Dade County. Logistic regression and Chi Square analysis were used to answer the research questions and hypotheses. Perceived seriousness of decay, parental efficacy to brush child’s teeth, and chance control are significant predictors of children using toothpaste and parents brushing children’s teeth twice a day (pp Health educators can play a major role in designing and delivering quality oral health and disease prevention interventions for parents of preschoolers. Clearly there are opportunities to complement school-based oral health education for preschool children with a culturally appropriate parental component. The between group differences indicate that interventions need to be more specifically tailored to the racial/ethnic group intended to receive the intervention in order to have greater effectiveness.

Social kompetens handlar bland annat om att samspela med andra, skaffa sig vänner och lösa konflikter, men också om att uppnå egna sociala mål. Social kompetens är en viktig faktor för hälsa och utveckling under barndomen men även för framgång inom olika livsområden senare i livet. Syftet med denna studie var därför att undersöka hur social kompetens uppfattas och främjas i förskolan, samt att göra en jämförelse mellan åren 2004 och 2017 gällande uppfattningar och metoder. Studien byggde på 20 intervjuer med förskollärare. Resultatet visade att social kompetens beskrevs inom ramen för tre begrepp: interaktion, konformitet och självhävdelse. Metoderna som användes var aktiv närvaro, inkluderande grupper, spegling samt strukturerade övningar. Resultatet indikerade att medvetenheten om social kompetens har ökat och arbetsmetoderna utvecklats sedan 2004. Studien bidrar till att skapa en bild av hur man arbetar i förskolan för att främja barns sociala kompetens, och inbjuder till liknande studier.

Recent research in phonological awareness found a strong link between rhyming ability in preschool children and later reading achievement. The use of orthographic analogy, the ability to make inferences from similarities in spelling to similarities in sound, was proposed as the mechanism to explain this relationship (Goswami & Bryant, 1990). Literature was presented that suggested the need for further research. Four research questions were examined. First, can prereaders learn to read unfamiliar words on the basis of orthographic analogy after brief training with rhyming words? The evidence supported the view that they could. Second, will the ability to read words by orthographic analogy be enhanced by phonological training in onset and rime, and by the use of segmented text? The brief phonological training did not increase analogy word reading over the same training without it. However, using text segmented at the onset-rime boundary for training items did increase analogy word reading. Third, will reading by orthographic analogy vary according to the level of prereading skills (rhyming ability, phoneme identity, letter-sound knowledge)? The majority of children with high prereading skills learned to read analogy test words whereas most children with low prereading skills found the task too arduous. Fourth, will rhyming ability make an independent contribution to reading achievement? The results were equivocal. Rhyming ability did make an independent contribution to the number of trials taken to learn the training items. It did not when analogy word reading was the dependent variable. Phoneme identity accounted for most of the variance in analogy word reading. Further analyses found that the ability to identify the final phoneme was the best discriminator between children who learned to read analogy test words and those who did not. A possible explanation was that children used the final phoneme to determine the sound of the rime ending rather than the last two phonemes together. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

Estudios recientes, han demostrado que el apego y el clima emocional del ambiente de desarrollo pueden ser predictores del temperamento infantil. El presente estudio evaluó el rol predictor de la empatía, regulación emocional y alexitimia de los padres en el control intencional de 326 niños. Los resultados indican que el distrés personal en la madre predice al control inhibitorio, y que la preocupación empática del padre predice la sensibilidad perceptual, sin embargo los efectos son pequeños. Se reportan análisis suplementarios como la correlación del control intencional con la edad (no se observa la correlación esperada) y diferencias de sexo (se observan diferencias a favor de las mujeres); así como una evaluación psicométrica de todos los instrumentos empleados. Los resultados sugieren que determinadas características del ajuste emocional de los padres tienen un rol, aunque pequeño, en el desarrollo del control intencional. Esto es consistente con el hecho de que en la literatura la mayoría de los efectos reportados no son directos. Se presentan las limitaciones del estudio, y recomendaciones para estudios futuros. / Recent studies have shown that secure attachment and the emotional climate of the place where infants develop can be predictive of their temperament. The present study evaluated the predictive role of parental empathy, emotional regulation and alexithymia in effortful control of 326 children. Results show that personal distress in mothers predicts inhibitory control and that fathers’ empathic concern predicts perceptual sensibility, however, effects are mild. Supplemental analyses are also reported, such as the relation between age and effortful control (the expected correlation is not replicated) and sex differences (in favor of girls); as well as psychometric evaluation of the tests used. Results suggest that certain parental emotional adjustment characteristics can have a role, although mild, in the development of effortful control. This is consistent with the fact that most effects in the literature are not direct. Limitations of the study and recommendations for future research are presented. / Tesis

A child's ability to learn in school and school performance are affected by various factors. Variables that affect learning and academic performance in 46 children, 4 - 7 years old, were examined. Children, parents, and teachers completed questionnaires rating children's attitudes and behavior toward school. Children completed a computerized matching-to-sample (MTS) task. The MTS trained the children to form 3 stimulus classes. One stimulus class included three arbitrary stimuli, the others contained a positively or negatively valenced stimulus, a school-related stimulus, and an arbitrary stimulus. Class formation performance was assessed. Rate of learning predicted attitudes toward school, school attitudes predicted academic performance; however a hypothesized mediation effect of attitudes was not demonstrated. No significant differences in rate of forming stimulus classes containing emotionally valenced and school stimuli were found. Future directions for intervention in the early education of students who have poor attitudes toward school are discussed.

The aim of the study is to increase knowledge about how preschool teachers' different ways of communicating about scientific phenomena provide different conditions for children to create meaning from the content of the experiment. The study is part of a theoretical framework based on phenomenography and the sociocultural perspective. The data collection was carried out through qualitative observation, three observation sessions were carried out. On each occasion, a preschool teacher and three children aged 4-5 years participated. Altogether, nine children and three preschool teachers participated in the study. The data collection was carried out on a planned experiment focusing on the learningobject, gas and how it is formed. The results showed that the use of science and everyday concepts varied between preschool teachers, it also emerged that children's previous everyday experiences played an important role in their meaning-making of the science phenomenon. The results showed that the children experienced the material as well as the activity with their senses, linked to previous experiences. The results of the study also showed a change in the learningobject during the activity, the original learningobject branched out from all the experiments to new learningobjects based on the children's curiosity and interest. The conclusion from the study conducted is that the preschool teacher's choice of language use can affect children's ability to create the intended learning object. Another conclusion is that children's past experiences play a major and important role in their sense-making of new chemical phenomena.

The aim of the diploma thesis is to describe and evaluate the relation of mass proportionality and adiposity in the context of secular changes in body composition of Czech preschool children over the last 25 years. The study was conducted in the form of transversal research between years 2016-2018 at seven kindergartens from Prague and its surroundings and one from Ústí nad Labem. 551 children (271 boys, 280 girls), in age of four to six years, were examined. The data was supplemented by a set of 208 children (101 boys and 107 girls), which were part of a pilot study from 2013-2014. In total, the group comprised 759 children. The actual set of individuals was compared with a representative database of Czech preschool children from the 1990s. There was no significant difference in the parameters describing weight proportionality in current preschool children, however the proportion of the individual components of the body composition has changed. The fat component increased significantly in six-year-old boys, five- year-old and six-year-old girls. At the same time, we observed insufficient development of active body mass in relation to the reference group. These trends are also evidenced by the increase in the percentage of latent forms of obesity over the past 25 years. The lack of active movement...