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...

Incidental language acquisition has been a topic of interest in the field of education, cognitive psychology, and behavior analysis (Horne & Lowe, 1996; Carey & Bartlett, 1978; Greer & Speckman, 2009). Researchers in the area of verbal behavior and derived relations have developed multiple perspectives that overlap in many ways (Greer & Ross, 2008; Greer & Speckman, 2009; Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, and Roche, 2001). Despite the overlap of these perspectives, research to date has been conducted independently. Fienup (2019) acknowledges the overlap in the respective work and suggest that integration can produce a more cohesive and comprehensive understanding of the development of verbal behavior. Study 1 included two experiments. In Experiment 1, the experimenter exposed 14 preschoolers with varying degrees of bidirectional naming (3 classified as having bidirectional naming (BiN), 8 as having unidirectional naming (UniN), and 3 as having no incidental naming (NiN) to two conditions, 1) directly reinforcing speaker (tact) responses and testing for the emergence of listener (point to) responses, and 2) directly reinforcing listener responses and testing for the emergence of speaker responses. The experimenter rotated between two conditions. Results suggested that participants with BiN readily derived speaker and listener responses, participants with unidirectional naming (UniN) readily derived listener, but not speaker responses, and participants with NiN had difficulty acquiring directly reinforced responses and deriving responses. In Study 1 Experiment 2, six participants with unidirectional naming (UniN) were selected from Experiment 1. Multiple Exemplar Instruction (MEI) and stimulus-stimulus pairing procedures were implemented to induce the capability of BiN. Following the acquisition of BiN, the experimenter replicated the repeated measure design of directly reinforcing speaker or listener responses and testing for the emergence of corresponding responses. Upon the acquisition of BiN, participants derived both listener and speaker relations, suggesting that the development from UniN to BiN is associated with the stimulus control for speaker responses following direct reinforcement for listener responses. Study 2 addressed the limitations of Study 1 and replicated the procedures with new participants and new science educational content. The experimenter selected 6 participants that demonstrated BiN and 5 that demonstrated UniN. Data support the findings of Study 1, suggesting that degrees of bidirectional naming are associated with degrees of derived relational responding.

This research study investigated the effectiveness of the application of child-centered play therapy procedures and skills by trained fifth grade students in play sessions with kindergarten children who had adjustment difficulties. Specifically, this research determined if play sessions with trained fifth grade students facilitated change in kindergarten children's self concept, internalizing behavior, and externalizing behavior and their parents' stress level.

In Experiment I, I tested the effects of a vicarious reinforcement procedure on the establishment of conditioned reinforcement for observing books (CR+ for observing books) using a pre- and post-intervention embedded with a multiple probe design across two dyads. All four participants could textually respond to kindergarten or first-grade level high-frequency words but choosing and prolonged looking at books (observing books) did not function as a preferred activity for them. The independent variable was the establishment of CR+ for observing books using a vicarious reinforcement intervention. During the intervention, the participants observed a peer confederate reading books while the confederate received frequent social approvals from the experimenter; the participants did not receive social attention (social praise from the experimenter) and were denied access to books during the intervention. The dependent variables were the rate of acquisition of textual responses and the duration participants spent observing printed words. Results in the first experiment showed three of four participants had an accelerated rate of acquisition of textual responses after books functioned as conditioned reinforcers. Two participants spent a longer time observing printed words after the establishment of CR+ for observing books. However, since denial and observation are components of vicarious reinforcement it is unclear whether vicarious reinforcement effects rather than observation by denial are responsible for the putative vicarious reinforcement effect. In the second experiment, I analyzed the necessity of social attention within the procedure and also investigated the sufficiency of the denial component. More specifically, I removed the vicarious reinforcement and isolated the effects of the observational conditioning-by-denial intervention (OCDI) on establishing CR+ for observing books in Experiment II. I selected six beginning readers who were in the process of learning to textually respond to high-frequency preschool words. The dependent variables were the rate of acquisition of textual responses, discriminative remembering (i.e., conditioned seeing), and measures of an observational learning repertoire. During the OCDI, two participants and a peer confederate were asked to perform the same task. Contingent upon correct responses, the confederate received books for emitting correct responses while the participants did not. Following the OCDI, all participants acquired CR+ for observing books and five of the participants demonstrated an increase in their degree of observational learning repertoires. Results from the second experiment showed all six participants had a faster rate of acquisition on learning new sight words, and they also demonstrated more accurate discriminative remembering responses after the establishment of CR+ for observing books. These findings are discussed with regard to the educational significance of CR+ for observing books as an empirical definition of reading readiness for young children. In addition, the findings call in to question whether prior literature on vicarious learning is in fact not necessarily a function of seeing response-consequence relations since the effect may be a result of observation under denial conditions.

This study examined the relationships between family structure (organization and control), family process (cohesion, expressiveness, and conflict) with parenting sense of competency (parenting efficacy) for mothers (n = 138) engaged in Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) related activities. Family structure in this study looked at how the family system is organized regarding clarity of family rules. In addition, family processes of the research participants looked at daily family routines and interactions. General parenting self-efficacy, task-specific self-efficacy for nurturance, and task-specific self-efficacy for teaching which are the dependent variables, looked at the degree to which parents feel competent and capable of solving problems related to these processes in the parent-child relationship. Research questions were answered using multivariate analysis of canonical correlational analysis (CCA) to examine the associations between the independent and dependent variables. Results showed significant relationship between family structure variables of control and organization and parents' self-report of their general efficacy and their task specific efficacy for teaching and nurturing. The study also showed an inverse relationship between process variable of conflict and overall self-efficacy of parents' and their task specific efficacy for teaching and nurturing.

Behavior of 84 parent-child dyads engaged in separation in preschool settings are presented. A factor analysis and correlation matrix revealed patterns of child-parent-teacher interaction, child-parent tactile-affiliative behavior, and child dependency-attachment behavior. The main pattern showed high parent-teacher gazing, smiling, and approaching interaction and high teacher smiling and gazing activity toward the child. A teacher-mediator theory in which the teacher's presence is important as an anxiety-lessening factor in child-parent leave-taking behavior is suggested and discussed to both interpret the findings and for further leave-taking research.

A descriptive -exploratory study on the influences of age and sex on the food preferences of preschool children was undertaken to add to the knowledge of the effects of self-selection on the foods chosen and the order in which they were eaten. Twenty-eight preschool children (fourteen two-year-olds and fourteen four and one-half-year-olds) were given two trials in which they named, selected, and ate foods from a predetermined array of seven food items. The results indicate that there is a difference in the order in which the children of this study ate the food items. Both age groups selected candy first, however, the older children revealed the more middle-class value of deferred gratification by saving the candy to eat until last, while the younger children revealed the more immature tendency toward immediate gratification by eating the candy first. Another finding was that sex appeared to be a factor in the order in which foods were selected and eaten. Boys ate candy first twice as many times as girls ate candy first. While the older boys saved candy until last significantly more than the younger boys, the older girls saved candy until last significantly more than the older boys. The girls showed more maturity than the boys in this study. The other finding was that for naming the food items, the girls were able to name more items correctly than were the boys, suggesting faster language development among girls. Also age was a factor in naming the food items. The older children named more of the foods and answered rapidly, while the younger children were slower in giving names to the foods and seemed to depend frequently on touch to help confirm their identification.

Assessment of speech sound production in young children provides the basis for diagnosis and treatment of speech sound disorders. Standardized single-word articulation tests are typically used for identification of speech sound errors because they can provide an efficient means of obtaining a speech sample for analysis and comparison to same-age peers. A major criticism of single-word articulation tests is that they may not accurately reflect speech sound production abilities in conversation. Comparison of performance in single-word and conversational contexts has produced conflicting results in the available research. The purpose of the present study was to compare speech samples obtained using an extensive single-word naming task with samples of continuous speech elicited by sentence imitation. It was hypothesized that there would be differences in overall speech sound production accuracy as well as differences in types and frequency of errors across the two sampling conditions. The present study is a pilot investigation as part of the development of the Phonological and Bilingual Articulation Assessment, English Version (PABA-E; Gildersleeve-Neumann, unpublished). Twelve preschool children ages 3;11 to 4;7 (years;months) from the Portland Metropolitan area participated in this study. Participants were monolingual native English speakers and exhibited typical speech sound development as measured by the GFTA-2 (Goldman-Fristoe, 2000). Hearing acuity for participants was within acceptable limits, and participants' families reported no significant illnesses or developmental concerns that would impact speech sound production abilities. Mean t-scores for percentage of consonants correct (PCC) in the single-word samples were significantly higher at the .05 level than those for the sentence imitation samples. There was no significant difference between the percentage of vowels produced correctly (PVC) in the two sampling conditions. Similar types of error patterns were found in both the single-word and continuous speech samples, however error frequency was relatively low for the participant population. Only the phonological process of stopping was found to be significantly different across sampling conditions. The mean frequency of occurrence for stopping was found to be significantly higher in continuous speech as compared with the production of single-words.

Many bilingual Spanish-English preschool aged children are impacted by speech sound disorders; and research has shown that bilingual speech sound systems develop differently than monolinguals'. Research has also shown that, for monolingual English and Spanish speakers, parent reports can be a valid tool for identification and single-word assessments can effectively diagnose speech disorder, yet little, if any, normative data or information about the validity of parent reports as an identification tool exists for bilingual Spanish-English speakers. The purpose of the present study was to create bilingual speech normative data for English single-word assessment scores for percent consonants correct (PCC), percent vowels correct (PVC), and the index of phonetic complexity (IPC). It also sought to determine correlations of speech scores and parent reports, which was done as an extension of Stertzbach's 2005 study with monolingual Spanish speakers. Fifty-six bilingual Spanish-English 4-year-olds were administered a single-word assessment in English and normative data was generated from the PCC, PVC, and IPC scores. That normative data was correlated with Likert values from the parent surveys to establish the validity of the report as an identification tool, and finally, the disordered scores (as determined by the normative data) were explored in relation to previous suspicion or diagnosis of disorder. The normative data showed 89% of speech scores falling within the typical range for both PCC and PVC and 93% for IPC. Pearson coefficients were computed by regression analysis and parent reports were deemed a valid tool for identification based on statistically significant correlations (at the .05 level) for 6 of 10 questions. Previous suspicions of disorder, based on parent report or examiner questionnaire, were 87.5% and 91% accurate, respectively, while current diagnosis, based on the presence of an existing Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP), was 93% accurate. The results were consistent with previous research showing the prevalence of speech disorder as well as the validity of the parent report.

Syftet för detta arbete har varit att se hur personal inom förskolor kan stödja barn som har svårigheter inom matematik och språk. Men också om det går att tydligt se och om man kan diagnotisera svårigheterna. Samt vilka verktyg man kan använda sig av om man ser tecken på att något barn har några inlärningssvårigheter såsom dyslexi och dyskalyli. Studien utgår från två frågor som besvaras och den första lyder: Vilken typ av allmäna och särskilda inlärningssvårigheter inom språk och matematik erfar förskollärare hos barn som är 5-6 år? Den andra frågan lyder: Hur skapar förskollärare sätt för att stödja dessa barn med särskilda inlärningssvårigheter? Den metod som har använts för att besvara studiens forskningsfrågor är en enkätstudie som personal inom förskolan har svarat på. Det var åtta förskollärare som svarade på den utskickade enkäten. Efter analys delades svaren in i olika teman. Slutsatsen blev att det är enklare att se barnens svårigheter inom språk till exempel i formen av ett annat modersmål eller försenad språkutveckling. Det uppmärksammades också att det finns många olika stöd som förskolorna använder sig av såsom att läsa böcker eller att använda sig av bilder. Att se svårigheter inom matematiken upplevdes som mycket mer abstrakt men att det upplevdes som enklare att jobba med matematik utifrån barnens egen nivå. Exempel som lyftes var till exempel att använda sig av matematiska begrepp i vardaglga situationer. Dessutom lyfts vikten av att vuxna bör använda sig av de korrekta matematiska begreppen så att barnen lär sig dem.