xvi, 200 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Early social emotional competence has been linked to school readiness, decreased challenging behaviors, and positive relationships with family and peers. Despite this compelling research, more young children are displaying increasingly challenging behaviors and poor social emotional outcomes, often linked to factors associated with poverty. An important component in addressing this issue is programmatic implementation of high quality, practitioner- and family-friendly assessment measures. It is critical that young children who may be at risk for early mental health concerns be identified early and the necessary interventions and goals be established to ensure that healthy relationships and positive behaviors result. The Social Emotional Assessment IV Measure (SEAM) is a new parent/caregiver-completed assessment measure that identifies key components necessary in assessing social emotional competence. This descriptive study closely examines the utility of the Toddler SEAM within a low income, diverse sample. The Toddler SEAM was tested with 50 diverse low-income parents/caregivers in order to establish baseline data and provide researchers with important feedback regarding the psychometric properties of SEAM. One hundred percent of study participants indicated that the SEAM is a beneficial measure and would be an important tool for themselves and other parents who want to learn more about children's social emotional development. Forty-eight participants (96%) felt that SEAM items were useful in teaching them more about their child's social emotional development. Forty-four participants (88%) felt that SEAM items were clear and easy to understand. Qualitative feedback was gathered regarding methods by which to improve SEAM items (i.e., wording, content) in order to make it more parent-friendly and comprehensive. The Toddler SEAM was also compared with the ASQ:SE, a social emotional screening tool with established reliability and validity within risk and non-risk populations. Correlations between the ASQ:SE 18-, 24-, 30- and 36-month intervals and the Toddler SEAM were all significant (p < .05). Internal consistency was high with a Cronbach's alpha level of .92, indicating that the SEAM is likely measuring the unitary construct of social emotional development. / Adviser: Jane Squires

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:30:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 6376.pdf: 2946353 bytes, checksum: e8a92681d328d3937344da8b90504115 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-07-02 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / Research on stimulus class formation in very young children can bring important contributions to our current understanding of relations between verbal operants and concept formation repertoire. The present research was composed of two studies. The first one had four experiments that investigated stimulus class formations with spoken word, dissimilar objects and objects with common features. The second one described relationship between toddlers spontaneous vocalizations and theirs performances during conditional discrimination tasks. Participants were 14 children aged 18 to 27 months were participants. Auditory-visual conditional discriminations were taught, stimulus equivalence class formation and generalization performances were tested. The training and testing consisted of matching to sample procedures (MTS). The samples were spoken words, tridimensional objects or stickers. The comparison stimuli were tridimensional objects or stickers. In training, correct responses were followed by access to the object, praise and stickers. Incorrect responses were followed by a blank page. The minimum learning criterion was three correct responses out of four trials for each relation within eight trials. Testing was presented with or without reinforcement (depending on the experiment). Seven children learned baseline relations. Three of them reached the learning criteria in tests which suggested stimulus class formation. One child maintained stimulus equivalence performances in follow-up testing after 90 days. Study 2 analyzed videos recorded from three experiments of Study 1with six participants aged 22 to 24 months. The participants who showed higher frequency of vocalizations also achieved the equivalence tests criterion. The participants who did not emit any vocalizations during learning trials did not reach conditional relations learning criteria. It were found in the studies, results in favor and against the Naming Theory suggesting that under certain circumstances, repertoires of language and performance equivalence can coexist independently. / Estudos sobre formação de classes de estímulos por crianças pequenas podem trazer importantes contribuições a respeito das relações entre repertórios verbais e formação de conceitos. No presente trabalho foram relatados dois estudos sobre a formação de classes de estímulos auditivos e/ou visuais. O primeiro foi composto por quatro experimentos que investigaram a formação de classes de estímulos contendo palavras faladas, objetos dissimilares e objetos com similaridade física. O segundo estudo analisou possíveis relações estabelecidas entre a emissão de vocalizações das crianças e seus desempenhos na formação de classes de equivalência de estímulos. Participaram dos dois estudos14 crianças com idades entre 18 e 27 meses. Foram ensinadas discriminações condicionais para relações auditivo-visuais e foi testada a emergência de desempenhos de equivalência e de generalização. O matching to sample (MTS) foi o procedimento o adotado nas atividades de ensino e teste. Palavras faladas, objetos tridimensionais ou adesivos exerceram a função de modelo. Os estímulos de comparação eram objetos tridimensionais ou adesivos apresentados em cadernos de papelão com bolsos de plástico transparente. As respostas corretas nas atividades de ensino tiveram como consequência elogios, brincadeiras e acesso ao objeto e adesivos. As respostas incorretas foram seguidas pela apresentação de uma página negra. O critério mínimo de aprendizagem foi de três acertos para cada relação aprendida, em sessões com oito tentativas cada. Os testes foram apresentados com e sem reforçamento, dependendo do experimento. Sete crianças aprenderam relações de linha de base auditivo-visual. Destas, três alcançaram critério de aprendizagem nos testes, o que sugere a formação de classes de estímulos. Para uma participante foi observada a expansão das classes com a inclusão de reforçadores específicos e manutenção dos desempenhos emergentes 90 dias após os ensinos. No Estudo 2, foram utilizados os registros videogravados das sessões de três experimentos do Estudo 1, relativo a a seis dos participantes com idades entre 22 e 24 meses. As crianças que emitiram vocalizações durante as tentativas tiveram sucesso nas tarefas de ensino e teste ao passo que crianças sem vocalizações não aprenderam as relações de linha de base. Os resultados obtidos sugerem que repertórios de linguagem e desempenhos de equivalência de estímulos podem coexistir de forma independente.

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This two-part dissertation investigated the home language experiences and language development of 35 toddler-aged children from low-income Mexican immigrant families. These children represent a rapidly growing demographic in the United States. Because early language abilities are closely linked to later academic success, understanding the characteristics of the early language learning experiences provided in the homes of Mexican immigrant children is a foundational step to supporting their strengths and needs prior to formal school entry. In the first study of this dissertation, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the children’s mothers regarding the everyday activity settings of their young children. Degree of maternal acculturation was also assessed. Commonalities and variations in mothers’ values, beliefs, and practices regarding language teaching and learning were revealed. The commonalities included attention towards children’s early behavior and social skills, collective child-rearing practices, emphasis on the family unit and Mexican identity, and support for Spanish-English language learning and educational success, among others. A limited number of variations were also found to be associated with mothers’ affiliation with Anglo-American culture. In the second study, naturalistic recordings of the toddlers' language input in the home were analyzed in-depth to describe features of the quantity and quality of the input to which children were exposed. A wide range of variability in children’s quantity and quality was found. In addition, the relative amount of Spanish and English spoken to children was determined. Spanish was the primary language used with children, although English was also used in most homes. Children’s productive vocabulary in both languages was further measured contemporaneously; total vocabulary size ranged widely across children. There were no associations revealed between the characteristics of children’s language input quantity and quality and their productive vocabulary, although quantity and quality were related to one another. Implications of both studies to early childhood researchers and practitioners focused on early language development, including speech-language pathologists, are discussed. / Communication Sciences

Social learning has given us insight into how children learn actions from others across different domains (e.g., actions on objects, pretend play, and tool use). However, little research exists to confirm whether young children can generate their own novel actions. Three different settings were chosen to offer a varied investigation of children’s ability to generate novel actions: generating multiple actions with novel objects; generating iconic gestures in order to communicate; and generating pretend actions using object substitution. Generating multiple actions with novel objects: The Unusual Box test was developed to investigate children’s ability to generate multiple actions with novel objects (Chapter 2). The Unusual Box test involves children playing with a wooden box that contains many different features (e.g., rings, stairs, strings), and five novel objects. The number of different actions performed on the box and with the objects (i.e., fluency) was used as a measure of their individual learning. Positive correlations between the fluency scores of 24 3- and 4-year-olds on the Unusual Box test and two existing measures of divergent thinking were found. Divergent thinking relates to the ability to think of multiple answers based on one premise. Furthermore, a large range of fluency scores indicated individual differences in children’s ability to generate multiple actions with novel objects. In addition, 16 2-year-olds were assessed on the Unusual Box test, twice two weeks apart, to investigate test-retest reliability and the possibility that the Unusual Box test could be used with children younger than 3 years. A strong positive correlation between the scores on the two assessments showed high test-retest reliability, while individual differences in fluency scores and the absence of a floor effect indicated that the Unusual Box test was usable in children from 2 years of age. Generating iconic gestures in order to communicate: Children’s ability to generate iconic gestures in order to communicate was assessed using a game to request stickers from an experimenter (N = 20, Chapter 3). In order to get a sticker children had to communicate to the experimenter which out of two objects they wanted (only one object had a sticker attached to it). Children’s use of speech or pointing was ineffective; therefore only generating an iconic gesture was sufficient to retrieve the sticker. Children generated a correct iconic gesture on 71% of the trials. These findings indicate that children generate their own iconic gestures in order to communicate; and that they understand the representational nature of iconic gestures, and use this in their own generation of iconic gestures. Generating pretend actions using object substitution: In order to determine whether children are able to generate their own object substitution actions and understand the representational nature of these actions, 45 3- and 4-year-olds were familiarized with the goal of a task through modelling actions. Children distinguished between the intentions of an experimenter to pretend, or try and perform a correct action. Children mainly imitated the pretend actions, while correcting the trying actions. Next, children were presented with objects for which they had to generate their own object substitution actions without being shown a model. When children had previously been shown pretend actions, children generated their own object substitution actions. This indicates that children generate their own object substitution actions, and that they understand the representational nature of these actions. An additional study with 34 3-year-olds, revealed no significant correlations between divergent thinking, inhibitory control, or children’s object substitution in a free play setting, and children’s ability to generate object substitution actions in the experimental setting.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-10-19T12:01:37Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Mônica Andrigo Moreira de Ulhoa Coelho.pdf: 2869552 bytes, checksum: e62b5c2bb3ae86f54aac6a298dd0f093 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-10-19T12:01:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mônica Andrigo Moreira de Ulhoa Coelho.pdf: 2869552 bytes, checksum: e62b5c2bb3ae86f54aac6a298dd0f093 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-09-29 / Fundação São Paulo - FUNDASP / The subject of this master´s dissertation is related to early childhood and resilience in infants (four weeks to 18 months old) and toddlers (18 to 36 months old). The study aimed at translating into Portuguese and transculturally adapting the early childhood assessment for infants and toddlers named ―Devereux Early Childhood Assessment for Infants and Toddlers‖ (DECA I/T), developed by Gregg Powell, Mary Mackrain and Paul LeBuffe, owned by The Devereux Foundation, edited and published by Kaplan Early Learning Corporation in 2007. DECA I/T assessment measures the social and emotional protective factors (attachment/relationship, initiative and self-regulation) to evaluate and indicate the strength of such factors in infants and toddlers. For the translation and transcultural adaptation of the assessment, the guidelines of Hambleton and Patsula (1998) and Souza and Rojjanasrirat (2010) were generally used. The procedure consisted of the following steps: (a) translation of the original instrument in English into Portuguese by two Brazilian, bilingual, independent translators, being one of them a sworn-translator, both of them familiarized with the Brazilian and American cultures, and without knowledge in Psychology; (b) comparison and consolidation of both translated versions by the researcher, who acted as a third translator, and review of the synthetized version; (c) back-translation of the consolidated version in Portuguese into English by another American, bilingual, independent translator, fluent in Portuguese, familiarized with the Brazilian and American cultures and not working in the Psychology area, followed by review and approval of the final version of the assessment in Portuguese by an Expert Committee; (d) application of the Portuguese final version in a pilot project. The translated DECA I was applied to and responded by 13 evaluators (six mothers, one grandmother, one father and five nursery caregivers of infants). A total of 12 infants were evaluated (one of them was evaluated by the father and the nursery caregiver). The translated DECA T was applied to and responded by 13 evaluators (six mothers, one grandmother, two room assistants, two educators e two teachers of toddlers). A total of 19 toddlers were evaluated (two room assistants evaluated two toddlers each, two educators evaluated three toddlers each, and two teachers evaluated three toddlers each). After application of the pilot project, the translation into Portuguese of DECA I/T was considered culturally adapted and apt for future validation / O tema da dissertação de mestrado é ligado à primeira infância e à resiliência em bebês (de quatro semanas a 18 meses de idade) e crianças (de 18 a 36 meses de idade). O objetivo do trabalho foi traduzir para o português e realizar a adaptação transcultural da escala de avaliação da primeira infância para bebês e crianças denominada Devereux Early Childhood Assessment for Infants and Toddlers (DECA I/T), criada e desenvolvida por Gregg Powell, Mary Mackrain e Paul LeBuffe, detida pela The Devereux Foundation, editada e publicada por Kaplan Early Learning Corporation em 2007. A escala DECA I/T mede os fatores de proteção sociais e emocionais (apego/relacionamento, iniciativa e autorregulação) para avaliar e indicar a força desses fatores em bebês e crianças. Para realização da tradução e adaptação transcultural foram utilizadas, em linhas gerais, as diretrizes e orientações de Hambleton e Patsula (1998) e Souza e Rojjanasrirat (2010). O procedimento consistiu das seguintes etapas: (a) tradução do instrumento original em inglês para o português por duas tradutoras brasileiras independentes e bilíngues, sendo uma delas juramentada, ambas familiarizadas com a cultura brasileira e americana e sem conhecimento em psicologia; (b) comparação e unificação das duas versões traduzidas pela pesquisadora, que atuou como terceira tradutora, e revisão da versão unificada; (c) retrotradução da versão unificada para o inglês por outro tradutor independente bilíngue, estadunidense, fluente em português, familiarizado com a cultura brasileira e a americana e não atuante na área de psicologia, seguida de revisão e aprovação da versão final da escala em português por Comitê de Especialistas; (d) aplicação da versão final em português em um projeto piloto. A DECA I traduzida foi aplicada e respondida por 13 avaliadores (seis mães, uma avó, um pai e cinco berçaristas de bebês). No total foram avaliados 12 bebês, sendo um deles avaliado pelo pai e pela berçarista. A DECA T foi aplicada e respondida por 13 avaliadores (seis mães, uma avó, duas assistentes de sala, duas educadoras e duas professoras de crianças). No total foram avaliadas 19 crianças, pois duas assistentes de sala avaliaram duas crianças cada, duas educadoras avaliaram, cada uma, três crianças, e duas professoras avaliaram, cada uma, três crianças. Após a aplicação do projeto piloto, a tradução para o português da DECA I/T foi considerada culturalmente adaptada e apta para futura validação

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:30:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 5494.pdf: 509039 bytes, checksum: 2c67d6e315ef4b907f1eaf7b6a7c9dd0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-08-30 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / This dissertation was based on four empirical research reports submitted for publication in specialized journals. The empirical researches laid the foundations for a theoretical analysis on Stimulus Control and discrimination learning by children about two-yearsold. Each of the four empirical reports have adjusted procedures for teaching discrimination, which have produced: 1) simple discrimination learning by children from 10- to 20-months-old; 2) simple discrimination and discrimination reversal learning by toddlers aged 15- to 23-months; 3) rapid listener behavior learning by a toddler aged 17- to 22-months; 4) identity conditional discrimination learning by seven toddlers aged 14- to 27-months and generalization from object-object relation with an abstract stimulus pair to the photo-object and video-object relations by a toddler aged 27- to 29-months. Based on the experimental data, the processes probably involved in the rapid discrimination learning by toddlers in their everyday interactions were brought out. Concerning vocabulary acquisition, responding by exclusion and ostensive learning were emphasized. Regarding concept formation, the processes of generalization between similar stimuli and equivalence class formation between dissimilar stimuli were addressed. The challenges in defining appropriated experimental procedures for investigating discrimination acquisition by toddlers in translational research were discussed. Additionally, we were concerned on the homology between the learning processes involved in the phenomena observed in everyday interactions of toddlers with their verbal community and the learning processes involved in the experimental procedures. / O trabalho de tese consta de uma análise da literatura sobre Controle de Estímulos e aprendizagem de discriminações por crianças em torno de dois anos de idade e dos procedimentos e resultados de quatro relatos de pesquisa experimental que foram discutidos à luz da literatura. Os relatos foram redigidos na forma de artigos e foram submetidos para publicação em periódicos especializados. Os quatro experimentos ajustaram procedimentos de ensino de discriminações que produziram: 1) aprendizagem de discriminações simples por bebês entre 10 e 20 meses de idade; 2) aprendizagem de discriminações simples e reversões das discriminações simples por bebês entre 15 e 23 meses de idade; 3) aprendizagem rápida de comportamento de ouvinte por um bebê entre 17 e 22 meses de idade; 4) aprendizagem de discriminações condicionais por identidade por sete bebês entre 14 e 27 meses; a demonstração de generalização da relação objeto-objeto com um par de estímulos abstratos para a relação foto-objeto e vídeo-objeto por um bebê entre 27 e 29 meses de idade. Face aos dados, destacaram-se os processos possivelmente envolvidos no ambiente natural dos bebês e que propiciam a aprendizagem rápida de discriminações: em relação à aquisição de vocabulário, enfatizaram-se o responder por exclusão e a aprendizagem ostensiva; na formação de conceitos, ressaltaram-se os processos de generalização entre estímulos similares e processos de formação de classes de estímulos equivalentes, que incluem estímulos dissimilares. Foram discutidos os desafios encontrados para a definição de procedimentos experimentais apropriados para a investigação da aquisição de discriminações por bebês na pesquisa translacional, discutindo-se a homologia dos processos de aprendizagem possivelmente envolvidos nos fenômenos observados no cotidiano de interações dos bebês e aqueles propostos no ambiente experimental.

Objectives: Within the last decade there has been growing emphasis on early diagnosis of autism. It has been proved, that early diagnosis of autism followed by an appropriate intensive intervention lead to the reduction of autistic psychopathology and significant improvement of the child's prognosis. Efforts to identify children at risk of autism as early as possible resulted in the development of many screening tools and some new diagnostic methods that could be used even before the age of two years. Despite many attempts of the researchers worldwide, we still lack general agreement on the optimal screening method. Abnormal sensory symptoms have a specific position among the early signs of autism. Difficulties with sensory processing have been associated with autism since it was first defined as a diagnosis; nevertheless evaluation of sensory symptoms is under-represented in autism screening tools. There has been a long lasting debate whether sensory symptoms are a component of core autistic deficits or a co-morbid phenomenon, however, new version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) has already included sensory dysfunction among the diagnostic criteria of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Methods: Over 90% of children with autism have sensory abnormalities and present with...

Abstract To be able to acquire, produce, and comprehend language, precise central auditory processing (CAP), neural processes utilized for managing auditory input, is essential. However, the auditory environments are not always optimal for CAP because noise levels in children’s daily environments can be surprisingly high. In young children, CAP and its developmental trajectory as well as the influence of noise on it have scarcely been investigated. Event-related potentials (ERPs) offer promising means to study different stages of CAP in small children. Sound processing, preattentive auditory discrimination, and attention shifting processes can be addressed with obligatory responses, mismatch negativity (MMN), and novelty P3 of ERPs, respectively. In this thesis the developmental trajectory of CAP from 2 to 4 years of age as well as noise-induced changes on it, were investigated. In addition, the feasibility of the multi-feature paradigm with syllable stimuli and novel sounds in children was evaluated. To this end, obligatory responses (P1, N2, and N4) and MMNs for consonant, frequency, intensity, vowel, and vowel duration changes, as well as novelty P3 responses, were recorded in a silent condition and with babble noise using the multi-feature paradigm. The participants were voluntary, typically developing children. Significant P1, N2, N4, and MMN responses were elicited at both ages. Also a significant novelty P3, studied at the age of 2 years, was found. From 2 to 4 years, the P1 and N2 latencies shortened. The amplitudes of N2, N4, and MMNs increased and the increment was the largest at frontal electrode locations. During noise, P1 decreased, N2 increased, and the latency of N4 diminished as well as MMNs degraded. The noise-induced changes were largely similar at both ages. In conclusion, the multi-feature paradigm with five syllable deviant types and novel sounds was found to be an appropriate measure of CAP in toddlers. The changes in ERP morphology from 2 to 4 years of age suggest maturational changes in CAP. Noise degraded sound encoding, representation forming, and auditory discrimination. The children were similarly vulnerable to hampering effects of noise at both ages. Thus, noise might potentially harmfully influence language processing and thereby its acquisition in childhood. / Tiivistelmä Kielen omaksumiselle, tuottamiselle sekä ymmärtämiselle on tärkeää tarkka keskushermostollinen kuulotiedon käsittely eli ne hermostolliset prosessit, joita käytetään kuullun aineksen käsittelyyn. Kuunteluympäristöt eivät kuitenkaan aina ole optimaalisia kuulotiedon käsittelylle, sillä melutasot lasten elinympäristöissä voivat olla hyvinkin korkeita. Pienten lasten kuulotiedon käsittelyä, sen kehittymistä ja melun vaikutusta siihen on tutkittu vähän. Kuuloherätevasteet ovat toimiva tapa tarkastella pienten lasten kuulotiedon käsittelyä eri näkökulmista. Äänen käsittelyä, esitietoista kuuloerottelua ja tarkkaavuuden siirtymistä voidaan tarkastella obligatoristen vasteiden, poikkeavuusnegatiivisuuden ja novelty P3 -vasteiden avulla. Tässä väitöskirjassa tarkastellaan kuulotiedon käsittelyn kehittymistä kahden vuoden iästä neljän vuoden ikään sekä melun vaikutusta siihen. Lisäksi arvioidaan tavuärsykkeitä ja poikkeavia ääniä sisältävän monipiirreparadigman soveltuvuutta lapsitutkimuksiin. Tutkimuksissa rekisteröitiin monipiirreparadigman avulla obligatorisia vasteita (P1, N2 ja N4); konsonantin, taajuuden, intensiteetin, vokaalin ja vokaalin keston muutokselle syntyneitä MMN-vasteita sekä novelty P3 -vasteita hiljaisuudessa ja taustamelussa. Tutkimuksen osallistujat olivat vapaaehtoisia tyypillisesti kehittyviä lapsia. Molemmilla tutkimuskerroilla P1, N2, N4 ja MMN poikkesivat merkitsevästi nollatasosta samoin kuin kaksivuotiailta tutkittu novelty P3. Kahden vuoden iästä neljään vuoteen P1- ja N2-vasteiden latenssi lyheni sekä N2, N4 ja MMN vahvistuivat, muutoksen ollessa suurinta frontaalisilla elektrodeilla. Melun aikana P1 heikkeni, N2 vahvistui ja N4-vasteen latenssi lyhentyi. Lisäksi MMN-vaste heikkeni. Melun aiheuttamat muutokset olivat samankaltaisia sekä kahden että neljän vuoden iässä. Johtopäätöksenä voidaan todeta viittä eri tavuärsyketyyppiä ja yllättäviä ääniä sisältävän monipiirreparadigman olevan toimiva menetelmä taaperoiden kuulotiedon käsittelyn tutkimiseen. Kahden ja neljän ikävuoden välillä tapahtuvat muutokset vasteissa kuvastavat kehityksellisiä muutoksia kuulotiedon käsittelyssä. Melu heikentää äänitiedon peruskäsittelyä, edustumien muodostumista ja esitietoista kuuloerottelua. Lapset olivat lähes yhtä alttiita melun vaikutuksille sekä kahden että neljän vuoden iässä. Melu voi siis haitata kielen prosessointia ja sen omaksumista.