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Introduction: It is no longer an exception that more and more preschools consist of children whose mother tongues are different from preschools’ main language. To move towards an egalitarian inclusive society, Early Childhood Education, in which most of the time children learn through play-based activities according to their knowledge, interests, and curiosity, can play an efficacious role in relation to second language children’s language development along with their general development. Purpose: The study aims to investigate how preschool educators who work with second language children’s language learning and development view play and its role in learning a second language. Method: Four preschool educators are selected using the focus group methods, who have experience working with children whose mother tongue is not Swedish, to collect empirical data through conducting semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Preschool educators’ views on the relationship between play and second language children’s language learning have been analyzed using thematic analysis. Theoretical connection: Play and interactions within the play, among second language children, preschool teachers, and other children who are native speakers as an opportunity for learning a second language, have been analyzed using Lev Semënovič Vygotsky’s sociocultural approach, which focuses on individual learning and development as something that takes place through people's interactions with objects, events, or other people. Artefacts, the zone of proximal development (ZPD), and scaffolding, which are some of the central concepts of Vygotsky’s sociocultural approach, are used to interpret and present the results of the study. Results: Among salient findings of the study, both free play and play as a planned activity are considered essential to children’s learning and development by educators. Imitation is one of the most common language learning tools used by second language children to learn the second language during play besides using the first language, non-verbal communication, and contextual use of the second language. All types of play are considered effective for stimulating language learning among second language children as long as the play is based on their interests and curiosity. Educators’ conscious involvement is beneficial for escalating language learning in second language children; however, children’s integrity and peace must not be compromised.

Denna studie syftar till att undersöka vilka vardagsföreställningar 4-5-åringar har kringnaturvetenskapliga fenomen, i detta fall regn och vattnets kretslopp. Detta undersöktesmed hjälp av individuella kvalitativa intervjuer, vilka videofilmades ochtranskriberades. Ett kodningsschema grundat på tidigare studier användes viddataanalysen. Resultatet visar bland annat att flertalet av barnen, fem av sju, har eninitial förståelse av vattnets kretslopp då de ofullständigt förklarar begreppenavdunstning respektive avrinning, samt att regn kommer från moln. Barnen förklararäven att det regnar på grund av att moln krockar, det blåser alternativt att Gud ellersolen släpper regnet. Betydelsen av att i undervisningen utgå ifrån och utmana barns ochelevers vardagsföreställningar diskuteras. / This study aims to investigate four to five-year-old children's conceptions of scientific phenomena, in this case rain and the water cycle. Individual qualitative interviews were videotaped and transcribed. For the analysis of the data a scheme of codes from previous studies was used. The result shows that most children, five of seven, have an initial understanding of the water cycle as they incompletely explains the concepts of evaporation and runoff, as well as that rain comes from clouds. The children also explain that the cause of rain is colliding clouds, windy weather or God or the sun releasing the rain. The importance of starting with children's and pupils' conceptions and beliefs and to build on these in education is discussed.

Much research demonstrates that alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and emergent writing are all significant predictors of later reading and writing outcomes, and that children with language impairments (LI) are particularly at risk for later literacy difficulties. Further, children with LI consistently demonstrate depressed emergent literacy skills in the areas of phonological awareness, print concepts, and alphabet knowledge; however, little is known about their emergent writing skills. Therefore, the purposes of this study were twofold: (1) to compare the emergent writing skills of preschool children with language impairment to their typically developing peers using a range of writing tasks and a detailed, consistent scoring rubric for each task; and, (2) to explore the relationships among emergent writing skills and alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and oral language. The participants included four groups of preschool children: 11 4-year-old children with LI; 11 4-year-old language typical (LT) children, age-matched to children with LI; 20 4-year-old children with typical language; and, 21 5-year-old children with typical language. Children with language impairment scored between 70 and 84 on the Language Index of Assessment of Literacy and Language (ALL) (Lombardino, Lieberman, & Brown, 2005), and children with typical language scored between 85 and 115. All children passed a bilateral hearing screen, scored within the normal range on a non-verbal intelligence screen, demonstrated an unremarkable developmental history relative to sensory, neurological, and motor performance, spoke English as their primary language, and had mothers with at least a high school education or equivalent. iii During two sessions, children were administered the ALL and five emergent writing tasks: Write Letters, Write Name, Write CVC Words, Picture Description, and Sentence Retell. The writing tasks and accompanying scoring rubrics were adopted from a previous study by Puranik and Lonigan (2009). Results indicated that children with LI demonstrated significantly less advanced letter and word writing skills than their language typical, age-matched peers. In addition, significant relationships between all emergent writing tasks and alphabet knowledge were observed for all children as well as significant relationships between oral language and phonological awareness for children with typical language. No significant relationships between any of the emergent writing tasks and phonological awareness or between oral language and alphabet knowledge were found. Further, results indicated the same developmental patterns exist in written as well as oral language for children with LI. This study has therapeutic implications for speech-language pathologists. In particular, emergent writing tasks need to be included in comprehensive assessment and intervention approaches for children with LI. Assessments need to yield accurate descriptions of emergent writing skills relevant to later literacy outcomes. Finally, integrated intervention approaches that combine initial sound awareness tasks with alphabet knowledge and emergent writing tasks may achieve the best learning outcomes.

Young children who are Hispanic, from low-income homes and have developmental delays are at a disadvantage for not having the basic early literacy foundation to become successful readers later in school (Ballantyne, Sanderman, D‘Emilio, & McLaughlin, 2008; Hammer, Farkas, & Maczuga, 2010; Ezell & Justice 2005; McCardle, Scarborough, & Catts, 2001). These challenges can be addressed in several ways. Early intervention including parent education and collaboration along with shared book reading are considered best practices and critical to improving child outcomes (NELP, 2008). In addition, children who have a solid foundation in early literacy skills including vocabulary development in their native language will later transfer to the development of vocabulary in English (Ballantyne et al., 2008). Yet, research on shared book reading practices within the home of Hispanics is minimal (Hammer and Miccio, 2006). It is necessary to expand the literature on how to adapt best practices to meet the needs of Hispanic families who are economically disadvantaged. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of parent training and coaching of dialogic reading strategies in Spanish on mothers‘ implementation of the strategies and total vocabulary expressed by the child during shared book reading within the home environment. In addition, the researcher explored parent receptiveness towards shared book reading strategies. The research design for the study was a single-subject multiple baseline across three motherchild dyad participants. The independent variable was the intervention which consisted of parent training video on dialogic reading, parent handouts, and researcher coaching. The dependent variables were the mother‘s implementation of dialogic reading strategies and the children‘s total expressed words during shared book reading. The mother-child dyads, originally from Mexico, lived in settled migrant community in central Florida. The three children regularly attended a iv local federally funded preschool and received services for speech and/or language. The results indicated that the mothers‘ implementation of dialogic reading increased after training and coaching and the children‘s expressed total vocabulary words also increased. Dyad‘s interests in the selected books, mother responsiveness during shared book reading, and duration of shared book reading may have impacted some of the variability in the results. Furthermore, mothers were unaware of the dialogic reading strategies prior to the intervention and reported positive feedback and a desire to learn more ways to help their children at home. Implications for research and practice include the need for parent education to support caretakers of young children with speech and/or language delays, involvement of parents in the intervention planning process including coaching options, adaptation of intervention to expand upon parent‘s funds of knowledge, complexity of code-switching and language differences, and greater collaboration between school and home.

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the strength of the relationship between childhood playfulness and adult playfulness. The relationship between adult playfulness and adult creativity was also examined along with the relationship between child playfulness and adult creativity. Exploratory interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of individuals to provide insight into subjects' perceptions of their own playfulness as well as life experiences they perceived to be related to stability or change in their own playfulness. Specifically, the researcher interviewed one subject in each of four categories: (1) low childhood playfulness scores but high adult playfulness scores (2) low childhood playfulness scores and low adult playfulness scores (3)high childhood playfulness scores but low adult playfulness scores and (4) high childhood playfulness scores and high adult playfulness scores. The Adult Behaviors Inventory (ABI) and the Student Self-Evaluation of Creativity (SSEC) were completed by 27 young adults from a pool of 103 subjects who had participated in a previous study in the period from 1985-1987, more than 15 years ago. The Adult Behaviors Inventory, an adaptation of the Child Behaviors Inventory (CBI) that was used to rate these subjects between 1985-1987, was completed by 31 mothers for a son or daughter. The total sample (n = 36) for this study consisted of 17 females (47.2%) and 19 males (52.8%). The mean age of the subjects was 20.32 at the time of the follow-up study. Participants were from well-educated middle class families, and 96.2% of the participants were enrolled in college or had completed a college degree. Pearson correlation coefficients computed to determine the strength of the relationships among variables of interest and they yielded these results: (a) Childhood playfulness during the preschool years as rated by mothers using the CBI was not significantly related to maternal ratings on the ABI, self-ratings on the ABI, or self-ratings on the SSEC. (b) Adult playfulness as self-reported by the same participants (now young adults) using the Adult Behaviors Inventory (ABI) was significantly related to maternal ratings on the ABI and self-ratings on the SSEC. Self-rated ABI scores were not significantly related to maternal or teachers' ratings on the CBI. (c) Adult creativity scores obtained from self-reports using the Students Self-Evaluation of Creativity Scale was not related to maternal or teachers' ratings on the CBI. Creativity scores on the SSEC were significantly related to both maternal and self-ratings on the ABI. (d) Adult playfulness as reported by each participant's mother was significantly related to self-ratings on the ABI and SSEC. Short structured interviews with a purposive sample of subjects representing low or high playfulness in childhood and adulthood indicated that the interviewees were able to accurately identify their own playfulness classification even though the survey questionnaire was designed so as not to make it obvious that playfulness was the focus of the study. Interview data pointed to possible links between life events and playfulness. / Master of Science

Vocabulary growth during the preschool years is critical for language development. Preschool children with developmental disabilities often have more difficulty with learning and developing language, therefore making more errors in vocabulary. It is important to recognize what type of errors children are demonstrating, especially as it relates to receptive and expressive language abilities. This study explores the error patterns preschool children with developmental disabilities make during receptive and expressive single word vocabulary tests. A secondary analysis of preexisting data was conducted from a sample of 68 preschool children with developmental disabilities ranging in severity. Based on a coding system developed by the author, errors were classified according to type. The majority of the errors children made were classified as No Response types of errors, with the second most common error being Semantic Perceptual errors of receptive and expressive picture naming tasks. Understanding the types of errors preschool children with disabilities make will help to enhance their language and therapy needed to thrive as a learner, especially as they begin elementary school.

Two phenomena form the basis for this thesis; bad lighting for children and our connection to nature. The former has somehow largely stayed unchanged through the years, the second one is rapidly changing for the worse. Lighting in spaces designed for children in Sweden often seem like an afterthought focusing on the quantitative aspects, ignoring the qualitative; following standards but often forgetting who the space is meant for. At the same time, cities are becoming denser, making nature something many people actively have to seek out to experience - children’s definition of nature is slowly changing.How can outdoor lighting for children become better? Using the Ringmuren preschool in Uppsala, Sweden, as a case study, this thesis proposes an alternative way of thinking when designing light for children and how it can encourage a connection to nature. The design proposal was made using interviews, site analysis, research and experiments inside a digital twin custom made for RIngmuren preschool. The direct result of this project is a digital twin and a lighting concept, but it also argues that the practicalities of analysing and designing lighting is one thing; getting the people in power to understand why good lighting is important is the first, and largest, hurdle. Producing good, affordable examples of good lighting design that can be applied to varying situations is a good place to start to at the least initiate a discussion.