Planning for individuals with varying degrees of impairments has, over the past 40 years, challenged conventional approaches to community development. However, more recently there has emerged, both within research and greater society, a need to understand how the disabling nature of the built environment impacts our inevitably aging population. Recognizing such, this thesis research explores whether planning policies within the City of Waterloo reflect an age-friendly model of development. Moreover, recognizing that the aging population increasingly experiences some form of impairment, this research further utilizes universal design as means to more comprehensively review for an aging supportive model. The fundamental goal of an age-friendly approach is to address the needs of individuals at all stages of their life with an obvious emphasis on promoting longer independence. A number of literature sources were utilized in developing two separate analysis tools that focused on goal-oriented policies such as Official Plans as well as prescriptive planning policy including Zoning By-laws and Urban Design Guidelines. This research attempts to provide a means with which to determine the age-friendliness of planning policies, how age-friendly policies may incorporate provisions regarding accessibility, as well as changes that municipalities may wish to consider in the implementation of an age-friendly model.

Planning for individuals with varying degrees of impairments has, over the past 40 years, challenged conventional approaches to community development. However, more recently there has emerged, both within research and greater society, a need to understand how the disabling nature of the built environment impacts our inevitably aging population. Recognizing such, this thesis research explores whether planning policies within the City of Waterloo reflect an age-friendly model of development. Moreover, recognizing that the aging population increasingly experiences some form of impairment, this research further utilizes universal design as means to more comprehensively review for an aging supportive model. The fundamental goal of an age-friendly approach is to address the needs of individuals at all stages of their life with an obvious emphasis on promoting longer independence. A number of literature sources were utilized in developing two separate analysis tools that focused on goal-oriented policies such as Official Plans as well as prescriptive planning policy including Zoning By-laws and Urban Design Guidelines. This research attempts to provide a means with which to determine the age-friendliness of planning policies, how age-friendly policies may incorporate provisions regarding accessibility, as well as changes that municipalities may wish to consider in the implementation of an age-friendly model.

The diploma thesis deals with the topic of life goals and their relation to the age and generativity of the individual. In the theoretical part, the life goals are presented in the context of motivation and values, personal well-being and meaningfulness of life. Classification of life goals and selected life goals theories and research methods are also presented. In addition, the diploma thesis deals with the subject of lifelong development and significant milestones in relation to life goals. In connection with Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, concept of generativity and parenthood as one of the elements linked to generativity are also introduced. The empirical part of the diploma thesis aims at verifying the relationship between life goals of a person, his / her age and generativity, respectively, whether the preferences of the life goals are more related to the age of the individual or to his / her attained level of generativity, namely in the period of young adulthood and middle-age when generability is developing. Another sub- goal of the empirical part of the thesis is to find out the relation between the preference of life goals and parenthood. For the realization of the selected research task, a quantitative research project was used, using two questionnaire methods - Loyola...

The diploma thesis is of a special pedagogy type and focuses on speech therapy. The thesis deals with the role of parents during the development of communication skills of preschool children in particular. The thesis is divided into the theoretical part and the practical part. The introductory chapter of the theoretical part characterizes a child of preschool age with regard to the development of motor skills, cognitive processes and social skills. The second chapter discusses the issue of communication skills of preschool children in more detail. It includes risk factors for speech development, the most common impairments of communication skills of preschool children and the possibilities of speech therapy intervention. The third chapter is devoted to the family environment in connection with its influence on the development of a child's communication skills. This chapter describes the parental styles, risk factors of the family environment and support options related to the child's speech development. The practical part of the diploma thesis presents the results of a questionnaire survey, the main goal of which was to analyze the approach of parents to the development of communication skills of preschool children. It is therefore a research of a quantitative nature. The partial goals of the...

Title: The Level of Postural Maturation of Children in Athletic-preparatory Schools Author: Terezie Janečková Objective: There are more and more athletic-preparatory schools in athletic units and clubs nowadays. Athletic-preparatory school means a group of five or six-year-old children with one or two training lessons per week. Czech athletic association wants to spread an interest in athletics among parents and their children, to find athletic talents as soon as possible and develop them by this way. The recruitment of children at this age already exists in many sports, but it is new in athletics in the Czech Republic. But that does not go for everyone that this sport training at preschool age is the appropriate and healthy way for a child motor development. I would like to evaluate the influence of athletic-preparatory schools on the child motor development. Due to the fact that there are no tests to apply for this purpose in literaure, we have to compose our own set of tests, which are used in physiotherapy. The theoretic part of the work is a bibliographic search of accessible information about postural maturation and motor development. The experimental part of the work is an evaluation of the level of postural maturation of children in athletic-preparatory schools before their start of regular...

This diploma thesis introduces the options for motor skills assessment of preschool children in the pedagogical and health care setting. This thesis is divided into two parts - theoretical and practical part. In the theoretical part, the author describes the psychomotor development of a child with a focus on the preschool period. The following chapter provides an overview of pedagogical and healthcare professions that mostly focus on the psychomotor development matters. The following chapters analyse the options for motor skills diagnostics in preschool children, including an overview of the most commonly used tests. In the practical part, a set of diagnostic tasks was created for the purpose of rough estimation of motor skills levels of preschool children. The suggested task set was then put to a clinical trial in five kindergartens in two cities in the Czech Republic. The practical part consists of a description of individual tasks in the task set, their evaluation, description of the used sample of children, administration of the task set and collection of data in accordance with stated ethical principles of research. There data is then presented, analysed and the resolving power of the task set is evaluated. The addendum of the practical part contains suggested modifications of the diagnostic...

La tesi di dottorato qui presentata si situa all’interno del filone di studi sulla teoria della mente (ToM), intesa come la capacità di attribuire stati mentali a sé e agli altri e di prevedere e spiegare, sulla base di essi, il comportamento proprio e altrui. In particolare, abbracciando le prospettive più recenti, che assegnano un ruolo fondamentale per lo sviluppo della teoria della mente alla qualità della relazione affettiva, gli studi empirici misurano la ToM in bambini di età scolare sia attraverso compiti classici, quali le false credenze, sia nei suoi aspetti più qualitativi, quali le distorsioni e l’accuratezza della lettura della mente. La ToM è analizzata all’interno di significativi contesti di crescita extrafamiliari, quali la scuola per lo sviluppo tipico e la comunità alloggio relativamente ad una popolazione ancora poco indagata dagli studi sulla ToM, cioè i bambini vittime di maltrattamento. In particolare gli aspetti relazionali sono declinati sia in relazioni specifiche, bambino-caregiver professionale e bambino-bambino, sia più generiche, come le relazioni con il gruppo dei pari. La qualità della mentalizzazione viene studiata anche in relazione al rischio di patologia depressiva, alle strategie di coping utilizzate in situazioni di stress tra pari e su aspetti più affettivi, quali la qualità e la reciprocità dell’amicizia. / Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to impute mental states to the self e to the others as a way of making sense and predicting behavior. Recently ToM researchers gave a central role to the qualitative dimensions of child-caregiver affective relationships. So the empirical studies investigate ToM in school age children with classical measures, as false beliefs comprehension, and with more recent measures in order to capture qualitative aspects of mentalization, as distortion and accuracy. ToM is analyzed in important extra-familiar context, for example the school (typical development) and a community for maltreated children (critical development), on which there are few studies in ToM research. In particular, the relationships are delineated as specific interactions (child-caregiver; child-child), and more extended relationships, as peer relationships. The link among mentalization quality and depressive risk, coping strategies in stress peer situation are investigated. Moreover, ToM is examined in relation to affective aspects, as friendship’s quality and reciprocity of friendship.

為了探討注意力與年齡因素對計時行為的影響，本實驗選用事前知道計時派典（prospective paradigm）與不涉及人為時間單位之知識的計時複製方式。針對注意力的因素，本研究採用雙重作業以操弄注意力資源集中或分散，檢測其對計時作業的影響。另針對年齡的因素，本研究比較低年級小學生、高年級小學生、及大學生成人三種不同年齡組的受試。 本研究利用四種計時作業，針對三個不同年齡層的受試進行對兩種不等的時距計時資料收集。計時作業及年齡因子的實驗設計採受試者間設計，而時距因子則採受試者內設計。研究結果發現（1）低年級組的計時準確性較高年級組或成人組差；（2）受試在雙重作業的計時表現的確較單一作業差，這個計時受干擾的結果，在複雜的雙重作業又較在簡單雙重作業明顯，且年紀愈小的受試所受干擾影響愈大；（3）三年齡層受試在雙重作業中皆有低估目標時距的現象，其中以低年級在複雜雙重作業中的低估程度最明顯；（4）低年級組的計時能力之穩定性較高年級或成人組低；（5）在無需對不斷出現之無意義刺激作偵測反應時，三年齡受試的計時準確性未受影響。 這些結果顯示計時的誤差的確隨著注意力需分派於非時間作業的增加，受試所複製的時距也隨之縮短。這項由於注意力分散所致的計時誤差在國小低年級組最明顯，但隨著年齡的成長及腦發展愈臻成熟，這項影響效果愈趨式微，致使計時的表現愈正確。 關鍵詞：時間複製、年齡與發展、雙重作業、注意力、小學生、純量計時 / The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the attention and age on time estimation based on the prospective timing paradigm. Four timing tasks, with different degrees of attentional requirement, were utilized to test timing of reproducing the target intervals in three groups of different ages including the lower-grade (M= 7.5 years), higher-grade (M= 11.2 years) elementary school students and adult (M= 20.1 years). The subjects in this work were asked to estimate a stimulus duration lasting for 7 or 14 s, during which they are required to either do or do not perform a concurrent non-temporal task. Thus, the experimental design for the present study was mixed with between-subject factors (age and task) and a within-subject factor (target interval). The results showed (1) the lower-grade children performed less accurate than the higher-grade children; (2) all subjects had worse timing performance in the dual-task condition than the single-task or control condition, which effect was most evident in the lower-grade children; (3) all subjects reproduced shorter interval as compared to the target interval, which effect was most apparently observed from the dual-task for the lower-grade children; (4) the lower-grade children had less reliability in timing; and (5) the effect of age on the single-task and control condition is not significant. Together, these data indicate that concurrent non-temporal task cause temporal reproduction shorter, especially under high attention demand in lower-grade children. In addition to the influence by the task complexity, the accuracy of timing estimation depends on the age. Keywords: time reproduction、age and development、dual task、attention、elementary school student、Scalar expectancy theory(SET)

The thesis deals with the developmental period of preschool-aged and early school- aged children and their drawing of a figure. The theoretical part describes the children's development at this time and also their developmental oddities and determinants that influence the development. It follows up the children's drawing, its developmental stages and especially the drawing of a human figure. The practical part focuses on the drawing of a human figure created by children in kindergartens and elementary schools. It's divided into two stages. At the first stage there is the drawing evaluated according to the Draw-a-person Test written in 1982 by J. Šturm and M. Vágnerová. The discovered values are interpreted from the qualitative and quantitative point of view. The attention is paid to remarkable events at the second stage. The practical part validates or disproves given hypotheses. The whole dissertation, its contribution to research and use for pedagogical workers are summarized in the conclusion. Key words: Preschool-age, early school-age, children's development, development of a drawing, drawing of a human figure, draw-a-person test, evaluation, case study

Basic facial emotion recognition is suggested to be negatively affected by puberty onset reflected in a “pubertal dip” in performance compared to pre- or post-puberty. However, findings remain inconclusive. Further, research points to an own-age bias, i.e., a superior emotion recognition for peer faces. We explored adolescents’ ability to recognize specific emotions. Ninety-five children and adolescents, aged 8–17 years, judged whether the emotions displayed by adolescent or adult faces were angry, sad, neutral, or happy. We assessed participants a priori by pubertal status while controlling for age. Results indicated no “pubertal dip”, but decreasing reaction times across adolescence. No own-age bias was found. Taken together, basic facial emotion recognition does not seem to be disrupted during puberty as compared to pre- and post-puberty.