With the growing presence of Latino families across the United States, service providers must remain cognizant of this group’s unique sociocultural characteristics. Culturally competent service provision requires child welfare professionals to remain aware of the stressors often faced by this population. Immigration and acculturation issues, language and cultural barriers, poverty, discrimination, fear of deportation, and lack of access to a variety of services are a few of the stressors that are commonly experienced by this group. Linguistically competent practice requires service provision to be in a families’ native language; however, there are many other factors to consider even when doing so. Cultural unfamiliarity, inadequate bi-lingual worker training in professional terminology, and issues with translators and interpreters are all factors to be considered. It was hypothesized that the relationships between clients and workers may depend on shared culture, that cultural differences due to different backgrounds and countries of origin may hinder working relationships. Through qualitative face to face interviews, this study gained insight into Spanish-speaking client and worker perspectives on their working relationships. The study aimed to understand the advantages and limitations to matching clients and workers solely on shared language. Findings suggest that cultural similarities or differences were not the primary relationship concerns for either workers or clients. Rather, both clients and workers expressed more salient concerns related to the lack of resources for translation and interpretation, the absence of worker Spanish-language training, clients’ limited willingness/ability to advocate for themselves, and increased workload and supervisory lack of support. It is recommended that supervisors take part in mandatory trainings aimed at managing such complex caseloads, that workers receive continuous Spanish language training in professional terminology as well as case management training tailored towards this specific population, and that a more uniform and informative approach is developed when working with these families. Although the present study attempts to address the knowledge gap involving client perspectives, additional research should focus on client experiences more heavily. Further research is also needed in assessing the adequacy of county-made language certification tests and worker perception of language competency while out in the field.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate observed parenting practices among first-generation Spanish-speaking Latinos living in Utah. Participants included 50 families with a child between the ages of 4 and 9. Parents and their child engaged in a behavioral observational task that was coded for parenting dimensions and styles to determine if they predict child outcomes among Latino families. Parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist to assess for behavioral problems. Observations were coded using the Parenting Scale, developed specifically for this study. In general, parents received high ratings on warmth and demandingness, and lower ratings on autonomy granting. Parenting dimensions significantly predicted internalizing problems. Findings lll also suggested that autonomy granting exerted an influence on total behavioral problems. The application of parenting style categories to Latino parents was not useful. Implications for prevention and intervention methods for Latino families were discussed as well as directions for future research .

A non-concurrent multiple baseline design across eight participants was used to determine whether working through Hayes and Smith's (2005) book would help those with public speaking anxiety. Hayes and Smith (2005) is based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. It encourages people to accept internal experiences as opposed to avoiding and struggling with them. For the purposes of this study, the book was divided into nine components, which participants discussed with the researcher. They also completed measures daily, during baseline and over the intervention period, as well as a battery of tests pre-baseline, mid and post intervention. The multiple baseline data showed that self-reported willingness to approach public speaking situations increased while self-reported avoidance decreased over the intervention. The pre and post measures also showed avoidance of internal experiences decreased significantly after the intervention. These outcomes are in line with changes suggested to result from engaging in such a therapy. The pre and post results also showed that quality of life increased significantly from mid to post-intervention. However, engagement with values did not change. While this measure is expected to change after such an intervention, this result may have occurred because the ideas about values were introduced last in the book. The intervention also led to significant decreases in anxiety, significant changes in thoughts about public speaking and significant increases in anxiety control as shown by the test battery. These findings are positive but are not predicted by processes posited for this therapy. However, there was no control group so these pre vs post comparisons must be interpreted with caution. Despite this limitation, the results suggest that the book, together with therapist contact, can help those with public speaking anxiety.

This study investigated the effect of speaking rate on aerodynamic and acoustic measures of velopharyngeal (VP) function in 27 adult speakers (14 M, 13 F). The pressure-flow method (Warren & Dubois, 1964) was used to collect aerodynamic data of /m/ and /p/ segments in the word “hamper” and the utterances “Mama made some lemon jam” (MMJ) and “Buy Bobby a puppy” (BBP). A Nasometer was used to collect nasalance scores and nasalance distance for MMJ and BBP. Measures were collected under 4 speaking rate conditions (normal, fast, slow, and slowest). Results indicated that nasal airflow and VP orifice area were unaffected by speaking rate whereas intraoral pressure decreased as speaking rate slowed. Nasalance was greater for BBP at slow speaking rates and nasalance distance (MMJ – BBP) decreased at slow rates. The data was interpreted with respect to expectations set forward in the literature on normal and disordered speech motor control.

This study investigated the effect of speaking rate on aerodynamic and acoustic measures of velopharyngeal (VP) function in 27 adult speakers (14 M, 13 F). The pressure-flow method (Warren & Dubois, 1964) was used to collect aerodynamic data of /m/ and /p/ segments in the word “hamper” and the utterances “Mama made some lemon jam” (MMJ) and “Buy Bobby a puppy” (BBP). A Nasometer was used to collect nasalance scores and nasalance distance for MMJ and BBP. Measures were collected under 4 speaking rate conditions (normal, fast, slow, and slowest). Results indicated that nasal airflow and VP orifice area were unaffected by speaking rate whereas intraoral pressure decreased as speaking rate slowed. Nasalance was greater for BBP at slow speaking rates and nasalance distance (MMJ – BBP) decreased at slow rates. The data was interpreted with respect to expectations set forward in the literature on normal and disordered speech motor control.

The aim of this study is to investigate whether upper-secondary school students, studying English as a foreign language (EFL) in Sweden, prefer to learn from Native English speaking teachers (NEST) as opposed to Non-native English speaking teachers (NNEST). Furthermore, the present study seeks to identify, from the EFL learners’ perspective, why certain characteristics of both NNEST and NEST are felt to be more prestigious than others which in turn might affect the students’potential to acquire a desired identity.

After the researcher listened to the voices of curriculum, texts and teachers, who found that language fields of mandarin in primary school was generally ignored the teaching of 'listen and speak'. And also, very few relevant researches can be found. Therefore, second grade pupils of primary school, taught by the researcher, were selected as the collective subjects of the study. Based on the example of ¡¥Talking Carnival¡¦ (the material complied by the researcher), to proceed with 21 sections of ¡¥Listen and Talking Courses¡¦. Furthermore, via the mode of action research, to probe into the following three directions and degree actively is the main purpose of this research: 1.To probe into the relevant and essential factors of ¡¥Listen and Talking Courses¡¦ teaching design. 2.To interpret the process of curriculum implementation and reflective revision of ¡¥Listen and Taking Courses¡¦. 3.To evaluate the study effect and restriction of ¡¥Listen to and Taking Courses¡¦ Relating to three study programs- ¡¥Knock the Door¡¦¡B¡¥Open the Door¡¦ and ¡¥Enter the Door¡¦, the researcher tracked and reflected on the teaching design¡Bcurriculum implementation and revision was all explained in the process of research. In addition, via all the qualitative data collection (observational records¡Breflective journals¡Bpupils¡¦ scrapbooks¡B pupils¡¦ mood-diary¡B parents/pupils investigated questionnaires and etc.) to interpret¡Banalyze¡Bconclude and summarize. And, the result of study is found as follows: A: The part of teaching design: 1.Curriculum design adopted the naturalistic process. (Glatthorn, 1987). According to build up high-quality experiences of talking, synchronously, to proceed the choices of goal¡Bactivity and material. 2.In accordance with the teaching of listen and talking, to carry out goal management and analysis in order to conform to the principles of curriculum¡¦s vertical organization. 3.In the initial stage, it could be started by imitation. It could be revised, gradually; it can be built up to personal style. 4.The curriculum of ¡¥Listen and Talking¡¦ for lower grade pupils can be designed as game activities, which can fit in with the pupils development of body and mind. B: The part of curriculum implementation: 1.Examine teachers¡¦ viewpoints: to establish a new relationship (as teacher and also as a friend). The efficiency of teaching at random is greater than the existing plan. Had students to try making mistakes, then, to propose the possible solution. Five kinds of teaching concepts, such as interactive question-and-answer drill¡Blittle stimulation¡Bgreat motivation and etc., was the way to promote the teaching efficiency of ¡¥Listen and Talking¡¦. 2.Convey pupils¡¦ viewpoints: the learning of initiative¡Bthe function of game-teaching, the promotion of cooperative learning¡Bthe production of scaffolding¡Bthe display of multiple intelligences are all additional learning of the curriculum of ¡¥Listen and Talking¡¦ C: The part of the efficiency and restriction: 1.Implementing innovative curriculum of ¡¥Talking Carnival¡¦, the ones that can really build and construct pupils¡¦ concentration¡Bmemory¡Bimitation¡Blasting¡Bsensitivity¡Bcomprehension. 2.Implementing innovative curriculum of ¡¥Talking Carnival¡¦ can really improve pupils¡¦ speak ability and promote fluent speaking and steady demeanor. 3.Because of the restriction of curriculum materials and activity design, there is limited space of the development in the area of ¡¥speaking response and the power of expression¡¦. Besides, the full text adopted the narration and based on 208 talking groups¡¦ establishment as a main body, to link from ¡¥initial¡¦¡B¡¥conversation¡¦¡B¡¥appearance¡¦¡B ¡¥performance¡¦ ¡B¡¥seminar¡¦ and ¡¥spread¡¦. Due to this innovative way of writing, with any luck, it can offer a new life for this study. Key Words: Speaking Teaching, Listening Teaching, Curriculum Implementation, Action Research.

Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, 2002. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 126-137).

In Chinese, a large percentage of the vocabulary consists of compound words where exemplars in the same taxonomic category often share the same head noun (Chen & Chen, 2006; Chow, McBride-Chang, Cheung, & Chow, 2008). This structural characteristic may facilitate an early understanding of the noun taxonomy. The current study aims to investigate taxonomic development in a group of Mandarin-English speaking children in the United States. A contrast association task (i.e., "A dog is not a ____") and a category association task (i.e., "A dog is a kind of ____") were used to elicit responses from different levels of the taxonomic hierarchy (e.g., coordinates, superordinates). Participants were 25 bilingual children aged 3 to 8 and 25 English monolingual age matches. It was predicted that the bilingual group would produce more task-specific taxonomic responses (i.e., coordinates in contrast association; superordinates in category association) than their monolingual counterparts. The results, however, were somewhat opposite to this prediction. Monolinguals were found to, in general, perform better in the category association tasks and the two groups performed similarly in the contrast association task. When English vocabulary size was taken into consideration, there was no statistically significant difference between the monolingual and bilingual children on the category association task. Factors which possibly explain such a difference between the two language groups in the two tasks, or the absence of a significant difference when vocabulary size was incorporated as a covariate are discussed. / text

No description available.