Analizuojama globos namuose gyvenančių paauglių adaptyvaus elgesio ugdymo(si) problema, kaip svarbi asmens pozityvų psichologinį ir socialinį prisitaikymą lemianti sąlyga. Pristatomas teoriškai pagrįstas ir praktiškai pritaikytas globos namuose gyvenančių paauglių kompleksinis adaptyvaus elgesio ugdymo(si) modelis, apimantis santykio su savimi, santykio su kitais žmonėmis, probleminių situacijų sprendimo ir prosocialaus, save įtvirtinančio elgesio socialinėse situacijose sritis. Pateikiami konstatuojamojo ir ugdomojo eksperimento statistiniai duomenys. Remiantis diagnostinio tyrimo duomenimis, lyginamuoju aspektu analizuojami paauglių iš globos namų ir pilnų šeimų adaptyvaus elgesio ypatumai bei skirtumai. Taip pat lyginami nevienodomis sąlygomis gyvenančių paauglių adaptyvaus elgesio duomenys lyties ir amžiaus aspektu. Analizuojama, kaip kinta globos namuose gyvenančių paauglių adaptyvus elgesys, taikant pedagoginio poveikio priemones. Nustatytos bei eksperimentiškai patikrintos šių paauglių adaptyvaus elgesio ugdymo(si) galimybės. Mokslinės literatūros analizės ir disertacinio tyrimo išvadų pagrindu parengtos rekomendacijos specialistams globos namuose gyvenančių paauglių adaptyviam elgesiui ugdyti(tis). / The problem of developing adaptive behavior in teenagers living in foster care homes as an important condition, determining positive psychological and social adaptation of an individual is analyzed within the thesis. A theoretically grounded and practically applied complex model of developing adaptive behavior in teenagers living in foster care homes is presented, involving the spheres of intrapersonal relations with oneself, interpersonal relations with other people, problem situation solution and pro-social behavior anchoring oneself in social situations. The statistic data of declarative and developmental experiments are presented. On the basis of the diagnostic research, peculiarities and differences of adaptive behavior in teenagers living in foster care homes and in complete families are analyzed in the comparative aspect. The data of adaptive behavior in teenagers living under different conditions are compared in the aspects of gender and age. The change of adaptive behavior in teenagers living in foster care homes is analyzed while applying measures of pedagogical impact. The prospects for developing adaptive behavior in these teenagers are determined and tested experimentally. On the ground of scientific literature analysis and the conclusions of dissertation research, recommendations were prepared for the specialists in order to develop adaptive behavior in teenagers living in foster care homes.

abstract: A key factor in the success of social animals is their organization of work. Mathematical models have been instrumental in unraveling how simple, individual-based rules can generate collective patterns via self-organization. However, existing models offer limited insights into how these patterns are shaped by behavioral differences within groups, in part because they focus on analyzing specific rules rather than general mechanisms that can explain behavior at the individual-level. My work argues for a more principled approach that focuses on the question of how individuals make decisions in costly environments. In Chapters 2 and 3, I demonstrate how this approach provides novel insights into factors that shape the flexibility and robustness of task organization in harvester ant colonies (Pogonomyrmex barbatus). My results show that the degree to which colonies can respond to work in fluctuating environments depends on how individuals weigh the costs of activity and update their behavior in response to social information. In Chapter 4, I introduce a mathematical framework to study the emergence of collective organization in heterogenous groups. My approach, which is based on the theory of multi-agent systems, focuses on myopic agents whose behavior emerges out of an independent valuation of alternative choices in a given work environment. The product of this dynamic is an equilibrium organization in which agents perform different tasks (or abstain from work) with an analytically defined set of threshold probabilities. The framework is minimally developed, but can be extended to include other factors known to affect task decisions including individual experience and social facilitation. This research contributes a novel approach to developing (and analyzing) models of task organization that can be applied in a broader range of contexts where animals cooperate. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Applied Mathematics for the Life and Social Sciences 2016

This thesis aims to evaluate four artificial neural network architectures, each of which implements the sensory-motor mapping in an embodied, situated, and autonomous agent set up to reach a goal area in one out of six systematically varied T-maze environments. In order to reach the goal the agent has to turn either to the left or to the right in each junction in the environment, depending on the placement of previously encountered light sources. The evaluation is broken down into (i) measuring the reliability of the agents' capacity to repeatedly reach the goal area, (ii) analyzing how the agents work, and (iii) comparing the results to related work on the problem. Each T-maze constitutes an instance of a broad class of problems known as delayed response tasks, which are characterized by a significant (and typically varying) delay between a stimulus and the corresponding appropriate response. This thesis expands this notion to include, besides simple tasks, repeated and multiple delayed response tasks. In repeated tasks, the agent faces several stimulus-delay-response sequences after each other. In multiple tasks, the agent faces several stimuli before the delay and the corresponding appropriate responses. Even if simple at an abstract level, these tasks raise some of the fundamental issues within cognitive science and artificial intelligence such as whether or not an internal objective world model is necessary and/or suitable to achieve the appropriate behavior. For such reasons, these problems also constitute an interesting base for evaluating alternative ideas within these fields. The work leads to several interesting insights. Firstly, purely reactive controllers (as represented by a feed-forward network) may be sufficient, in interaction with the environment, to solve both simple and repeated delayed response tasks. Secondly, an extended sequential cascaded network that selectively replaces its own sensory-motor mapping achieves significantly better performance than the other networks. This indicates that selective replacement of the sensory-motor mapping may be more powerful than both modulation (as represented by a simple recurrent network) and replacement in each step (as represented by a standard sequential cascaded network). Thirdly, this thesis demonstrates that even reactive controllers may contribute to behavior, which, from an observer's point of view, may seem to require an internal rational capacity, i.e. the ability to represent and explore alternatives internally.

No description available.

Adaptive Behavior skills are the conceptual, social, and practical skills that individuals learn to be able to function in their everyday lives (AAIDD, 2008). Measuring adaptive behavior is a way to summarize the effectiveness with which individuals meet the standards of personal independence and social responsibility expected for their age and cultural group. This paper discusses the history and development of adaptive behavior as a construct, its measurement, and its relationship to intelligence. Previous research has examined the relationship between adaptive and intellectual functioning; this study investigates adaptive performance among children with disabilities while controlling for the influence of intellectual level. Children with autism, specific learning disabilities, and mental retardation were studied to determine how they fared in the adaptive subdomains of communication, socialization, and activities of daily living. Data for the study were gathered by reviewing archives from special education records in a large, urban school district. Results indicated a positive and moderate relationship between intelligence and adaptive behavior, but only in the autism group. The groups differed in their performance on the subdomains of adaptive behavior; however, the pattern of adaptive skills for each diagnostic group was unique. Children with autism were found to have deficits in socialization, children with learning disabilities were found to have deficits in communication, and children with mental retardation showed deficits in all domains. These patterns held up even when IQ was controlled; however, the groups no longer differed on communication skills, suggesting that IQ is most strongly related to communication. Finally, the study revealed that full scale IQ, activities of daily living, and communication skills discriminate mental retardation from the other groups while socialization skills discriminate autism from the other groups. Implications of these findings are discussed relative to assessment practices, differential diagnosis, program development, and progress monitoring. / School Psychology

The study investigated adaptive behavior, as measured by the Adaptive Behavior Inventory for Children (ABIC), in diagnosing mental retardation among elementary school age children who were referred for special education services. Specifically, the study attempted to determine whether or not those children diagnosed as not mentally retarded and denied special education services on the basis of the ABIC data were statistically different, on the variables of intellectual development, academic achievement, and classroom behavior, from those children who were diagnosed mentally retarded and accepted for special education services on the basis of the ABIC data. Further, the study investigated the relationship between adaptive behavior and the prediction of academic achievement in elementary school age children.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 1 in 6 children are diagnosed with a developmental disability or with developmental delays, which are associated with impairments in physical, language, cognitive, and/or adaptive behaviors. To fill a gap in the literature, the adaptive profile of young children initially served as developmentally delayed (DD) were analyzed to explore adaptive differences between different ethnicities and placement settings of children at the time of the initial referral prior to DD assessment. Archival data included 333 preschool aged children. The independent variables of eligibility status (DD or not DD eligible), ethnicity (White, Black, or Hispanic), and placement setting prior to testing (home, daycare, or school) and the dependent variable of Adaptive Behavior Assessment Scale-II Parent/Primary Caregiver Form General Adaptive Composite (GAC) standard scores were used. Three 1-way ANOVAs indicated a significant difference between the 2 levels of eligibility status. There was no difference for the 3 levels of ethnicity. There was a significant difference in GAC scores between public school setting versus home setting but not between daycare setting versus public school and home settings. To effect positive social change, knowledge from this study highlights the need to increase professional and public awareness of early identification of DD children; the importance in mandating competent care by highly trained individuals; and the impact of educating parents, daycare professionals, educators, and other providers about the role of social learning on development and mastery of functional life skills for all young children.

Orientador: Eleutério Fernando da Silva Prado / Banca: Eduardo Strachman / Banca: Ramón Vicente Garcia Fernández / Resumo: O presente estudo realiza uma avaliação das diferentes abordagens da racionalidade e suas implicações sobre a compreensão dos fenômenos econômicos. Neste sentido, utilizar-se-á um referencial teórico abrangente, pois a adequada compreensão desse tema exige aproximações teóricas de varias matrizes potencialmente complementares. Isso será feito com o intuito de oferecer um retrato não estilizado da racionalidade, seja na abordagem neoclássica, seja na abordagem de Herbert Simon. A concepção neoclássica se expressa através de postulados, que possuem baixa correspondência com a realidade, sobretudo, por pressupor processos cognitivos de maneira idealizada e incerteza na forma probabilística. Consequentemente, essa representação altera características importantes dos agentes e do ambiente. A concepção de racionalidade limita de Herbert Simon gera avanços nos campos explicativos e descritivos, principalmente para cenários bem estabelecidos. Em especial, permite conhecer como os agentes interpretam e representam diferentes problemas, além disso, contribui para elucidar qual o processo e as ações que ligam o objetivo ao resultado. Por conseguinte, gera avanços significativos em relação à compreensão ofertada pela teoria neoclássica, ademais essas pesquisas produziram como subproduto uma noção de complexidade, pois a racionalidade é limitada em virtude dos processos complexos que caracterizam o ambiente. Neste sentido, a utilização desse conceito em situações instáveis gerou avanços no conhecimento. Entretanto, é necessário aprofundar essa relação para se obter respostas para condições de incerteza forte, questão não restrita ao conhecimento econômico, já que se relaciona com o avanço da filosofia e métodos da ciência / Abstract: This dissertation makes an evaluation of different approaches of rationality and its implications about the understanding of economical phenomena. For that, it will be adopted a wide-ranging theoretical references, because the appropriate understanding of this subject demands theoretical approximation of various matrices with potential overlapping. This will be done in order to offer a non stylized portrait of rationality, either in a neoclassical approach or the Hebert Simon approach. The neoclassical notion is expressed through assumptions, which are fairly different from reality, due to the fact that presumes the cognitive process in an idealized way and also to associate uncertainty and probabilities. Consequently, this representation changes important characteristics of the agents and environment. The notion of bounded rationality of Hebert Simon generates improvement in the explanatory and descriptive fields, mainly for well-established scenarios. Especially, it allows knowing how the agents interpret and show different problems. Besides that, it contributes to elucidate which process and actions link the object to the result. In consequence, creates remarkable improvements in relation to the understanding offered by the neoclassic theory, moreover, these researches produce as a sub-product a notion of complexity, because rationality is bounded due to complex process that characterized the environment. For this reason, the use of this concept in unstable situations generates improvement of knowledge. Nevertheless, it is necessary to get deep into this relationship to obtain answers in circumstances of strong uncertainty, a matter not exclusive to economics knowledge because it is already related to the advance of philosophy and science methods / Mestre

Cette étude pilote est, à notre connaissance, le premier essai clinique qui vise à explorer les effets d’un programme d’accompagnement parental sur les CP chez les enfants de moins de 3 ans et à risque de TSA. Elle vise à évaluer les effets d'un essai contrôlé randomisé croisé portant sur un programme d’accompagnement parental de 12 semaines pour les enfants à risque de troubles du spectre autistique (ASD), sur leurs comportements problématiques (CP) et leurs comportements adaptatifs (CA). Les participants étaient 13 jeunes enfants (13 à 30 mois) et leurs parents. Ces dyades ont été assignées au hasard dans le “groupe d’intervention” (n = 8) ou dans le groupe “liste d’attente” (n = 5). L'intervention mise en place était basée sur le modèle du Early Start Denver for Parents (ESDM-P) et du Social Communication Emotional Regulation and Transactional Support (SCERTS). Les CP ont été évalués à l'aide de l’Évaluation Socioémotionelle des jeunes enfants (ESEJE) et les CA ont été évalués à l'aide du Système d’évaluation des comportements adaptatifs - 2ième édition (ABAS-II). Les analyses statistiques non paramétriques ne montrent aucun changement significatif au sein des groupes ou entre les groupes, pour les deux mesures. Même lorsque les participants, ayant tous reçu l’intervention, sont combinés en un seul échantillon (n =13), les résultats ne montrent aucune amélioration significative des CP et des CA. Les limites méthodologiques sont discutées. Plus d’études sont nécessaires afin d'évaluer les effets d’un programme d’accompagnement parental sur les comportements des enfants. / Abstract : Introduction: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairment in social interactions, social communication, and restricted or repetitive patterns of behaviors. Children with ASD exhibit more challenging behavior (CB) and less adaptive behavior (AB) than their peers without ASD. Having CP decrease exposition to positive social interactions, and decreases the opportunities for learning appropriate social behaviors. Parent-mediated intervention aims to provide parents with tools and strategies to promote social and communication skills in their child, and promotes AB. To our knowledge, no clinical randomized control trial documented the effect of a parent-mediated program on CB in children with ASD and aged less than three years old. Objective: Explore the effect of a 12 weeks parent-mediated program on CB and AB in children with ASD aged less than three years old. Method: This program includes strategies from the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM), and the Social Communication Emotional Regulation and Transactional Support (SCERTS). Participants were 13 families from Montreal and Eastern Township. The intervention groups (n = 8) received the intervention immediately, while the waiting list group (n = 5) waited an equivalent period of time before receiving the same intervention. CB were measured using the Infant-Toddler Social-Emotional Assessment (ITSEA), while AB were measured using the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System - Second Edition (ABAS-II). Results: When comparing the two groups, no differences were found for both outcome measures. Even when all participants were combined into one sample group, the intervention had no impact on the outcome measures. Conclusion: The intervention used in this study had no effect on CB and AB. Methodological limitations are discussed.

The problem of this study was to determine the relationship between measures of intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior among learning disabled children. The purposes of this study were to analyze the factorial structure of intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior among learning disabled (LD) children and to determine whether or not these constructs were significantly interrelated for this population. Data for the study were obtained by the use of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Revised (WISC-R) and Zeitlin's Coping Inventory (CI). To facilitate the investigation, four research guestions were posed. The population for the study consisted of 160 LD students from Cooke County, Texas. Scaled scores from the WISC-R and CI were analyzed on 48 girls and 112 boys, ranging in age from 6-3 to 16-2 years. Statistical treatment included separate factor analyses of WISC-R and CI scaled scores, the analysis by canonical correlation of data combined from both tests to investigate the possibility of significant interrelatedness, an analysis of combined test data for principal factors, and an exposition of central tendency measures from both tests.