Le clinicien se trouve parfois confronté à des sujets qui présentent une surdité supérieure à 90 dB HL au-delà de 1 kHz avec une audition résiduelle dans les fréquences graves. Pour réhabiliter les hautes fréquences, il existe aujourd’hui différentes technologies : amplification conventionnelle, compression fréquentielle, implant cochléaire et depuis une dizaine d’année la stimulation électro-acoustique EAS qui consiste à stimuler acoustiquement les sons graves et électriquement les sons aigus via un implant cochléaire. La première partie de cette thèse a consisté à identifier les facteurs qui influencent les capacités des patients sourds partiels à traiter l’information basse fréquence de la parole. Nous avons utilisé un test d’audiométrie vocale filtrée passe-bas. Nos résultats indiquent que les scores d’intelligibilité de la parole sont positivement corrélés avec la durée de la surdité. Ceci signifie qu’avec le temps, ces sujets malentendants apprennent à comprendre avec cette audition type filtre passe-bas, à tel point que certains ont des performances supra-normales pour l’utilisation des basses fréquences. Nos résultats montrent également une corrélation négative entre l’âge d’apparition de la surdité et les scores l’intelligibilité. Ce test pourra aider le clinicien à mieux cibler l’appareillage le plus adapté à chaque profil de patient. La seconde partie de cette thèse, consacrée à l’EAS, a consisté à évaluer par des simulations chez le normo-entendant, diverses stratégies de codage du son par l’implant EAS. Actuellement, la stratégie utilisée pour l’EAS est calquée sur celle de l’implant cochléaire et nos résultats suggèrent que cette stratégie peut être optimisée. / Clinicians may face patients who have a deafness superior to 90 dB HL above 1 kHz with good lowfrequency residual hearing. Today, several technologies are available to provide high frequencies: conventional amplification, frequency compression, cochlear implant since about 10 years Electric-Acoustic Stimulation EAS which consists in stimulating acoustically low frequencies while stimulating electrically high frequency sounds via a cochlear implant. The firt part of this dissertation consisted in identifying the factors which may influence abilities of partially deaf subjects to process low-frequency speech information. We used a low-pass filtered speech test. Our results show that speech intelligibility scores are positively correlated to the duration of deafness. This means that these hearing-impaired subjects learn to understand with this lowpass-like hearing, in such a way that some of them exhibit supranormal abilities for the processing of low-frequency sounds. Our results also show a negative correlation between the age at onset of deafness and speech intelligibility scores. This test may help the clinician to better evaluate which device would be best for every patient’s profile. The second part of this dissertation, about EAS, consisted in evaluating through simulations in normal hearing listeners, several coding strategies by the EAS implant. Now the strategy used for EAS duplicates the strategy used by cochlear implants and our results suggest that this strategy could be optimized.

This study investigates the impact of second language age of onset on the development of syntactic competence in bilinguals. Forty-five bilingual children were tested using a picture- matching task with relative clauses. In this paradigm, children are aurally presented with relative clauses of various kinds and are asked to match what they hear with the appropriate picture (out of four choices) on the screen. More specifically, our experiment compared the comprehension of subject- vs. object-extracted center-embedded relative clauses and contained sentences with noun phrases (NPs) that did or did not match in number (both NPs singular or plural = match, one NP singular, one NP plural = mismatch). We compared the performance of a group of Simultaneous bilinguals (two languages since birth), Early sequential bilinguals (first exposure to L2 - English between the ages of 1 to 4) and Late sequential bilinguals (first exposure to L2 -English after the age of 4 but latest at the age of 6 - primary school). The mean age of the participants at the time of testing was approx. 10 years of age. The results show that there is a varied pattern in the comprehension strategies used among the three bilingual groups. The group of Simultaneous bilinguals showed more reliance on the syntactic information contained in...

Emotionsreglering har de senaste åren fått alltmer uppmärksamhet och stöd som en faktor associerat med substansbruk. Däremot finns till författarnas vetskap ingen tidigare forskning som undersökt sambandet mellan emotionsreglering och substansbruk i ett rättspsykiatriskt urval. Syftet med denna studie var att beskriva substansbruket och utforska associationer mellan emotionsreglering och substansbruk i ett rättspsykiatriskt urval. Deltagarna (N = 98; 13 % kvinnor) rekryterades från en kohort av rättspsykiatriska patienter i Sverige från 2016-11-01 till 2020-11-30.  Data samlades in genom journalgranskningar, självskattningar och kompletterades med semistrukturerade intervjuer. För att beskriva substansbruk i gruppen användes deskriptiv statistik. Vidare användes instrumentet Difficulties in Emotional Regulation Scale (DERS) för att undersöka deltagarnas svårigheter med emotionsreglering. Som mått på substansbruk använde författarna debutålder av substanskonsumtion och antalet testade substanser. För att utforska sambandet mellan emotionsreglering och substansbruk användes korrelationsmatriser.  Resultatet visade att 64,3 % av deltagarna någon gång hade diagnostiserats med substansbrukssyndrom. Vidare hade 79.5 % av urvalet någon gång använt cannabis och hade i större utsträckning använt andra substanser jämfört med en generell svensk population. Studien fann inga signifikanta samband mellan emotionsreglering och substansbruk, vilket går emot tidigare forskning. Det motsägelsefulla resultatet kan bero på metodologiska skillnader och/eller att deltagarna hade andra gemensamma och inflytelserika erfarenheter i relation till emotionsreglering som påverkade resultatet. / Emotional regulation has in recent years gained more attention and support as a factor associated with substance use. However, to the authors knowledge, no research has examined the association between emotional regulation and substance use in a forensic psychiatric sample. The aims of this study were to describe substance use and examine associations between emotional regulation and substance use in a sample of forensic psychiatric patients. Participants (N = 98; 13% female) were recruited from a cohort of forensic psychiatric patients in Sweden from 2016-11-01 to 2020-11-30.  Data were collected through file information, self-reports and complemented with semi-structured interviews. The study used descriptive data to report the use of substances within the sample. Furthermore, the study used the instrument Difficulties in Emotional Regulation Scale (DERS) to examine the participants' emotional dysregulation. To measure substance use, the authors used age of onset of substance consumption and the number of substances tested as variables. Correlational matrices were used to explore the association between emotional regulation and substance use.  The results showed that 64.3% of the participants had at some point been diagnosed with SUD. Furthermore, 79.5 % of the sample had at some point used cannabis and had to a large extent used other substances. No significant associations were found between emotional regulation and substance use. The result goes against previous research, methodological differences may cause this contradiction. Another possible explanation is that the participants had other common and influential experiences in relation to emotional regulation that influenced the result.

This study examines the relationship between adolescent depressive symptomology and substance abuse. From a literature study six hypotheses were developed. A quantitative empirical study, undertaken in a South African high school, investigated the level of adolescent depressiVe symptomology and substance abuse, as well as the relationship between the two. The influence of various moderator variables was also examined. In line with most international studies, the relationship between adolescent depressive symptomotogy and substance abuse was found to be significant. This research has shown that adolescent depressive symptomology is significantly and positively correlated with earlier age at onset of substance abuse as well as frequency of usage. There appear to be gender differences in the way adolescents deal with their depression in terms of substance abuse. In addition, risk factors for depression and substance abuse were confirmed. Recommendations have been made based on these results / Educational Studies / M.Ed.

L'asma és una malaltia d'etiologia complexa, formada per factors genètics i ambientals, on la interrelació de ambdós factors mitjançant interaccions gen-ambient juga un paper clau. L'objectiu d'aquesta tesi ha sigut aprofundir en el coneixement del paper dels polimorfismes genètics, i la seva interacció amb factors ambientals, en la ocurrència d'asma, atòpia i hiperreactivitat bronquial. Aquest objectiu ha estat desenvolupat a través de la replicació de variants genètiques prèviament identificades, l'avaluació d'interaccions gen-ambient i la identificació de nous gens de susceptibilitat mitjançant un disseny basat en el genotipatge de variants genètiques all llarg del genoma en pools d'ADN. La tesi ha estat majoritàriament duta a terme dins l'estudi European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS) que està comprès per 5.000 individus seguits durant 9 anys, pels quals es disposa d'un qüestionari complet sobre símptomes respiratoris, avaluacions clíniques, informació sobre exposicions ambientals i mostres de ADN. Aquesta tesi a replicat l'associació del polimorfismes dels gens TNFA i NPSR1 amb asma. A més s'han establert les interaccions entre TNFA i obesitat, NQO1 i contaminació atmosfèrica, i NPSR1 i edat d'inici d'asma. L'anàlisi de pools d' ADN ha permès associar la regió on es situa el gen SGK493 amb atòpia. Aquesta tesi contribueix al coneixement de l'etiologia d'asma amb la identificació i replicació d'associacions genètiques i interaccions gen-ambient. / Asthma is a disease with a complex etiology, involving multiple genetic and environmental factors, and with an important role of the interplay of these factors through gene-environment interactions. In this thesis I aimed to advance our knowledge on the importance of genetic polymorphisms and their interaction with environmental data for the occurrence of asthma and related phenotypes (atopy and bronchial hyperreactivity). This objective was developed through the replication of genetic associations previously reported, the assessment of gene-environment interactions and the identification of new susceptibility genes using genome-wide analysis based on a pooling DNA strategy. The thesis was, mostly, performed within the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS). This cohort has information and DNA samples from approximately 5,000 adult subjects followed-up for 9 years, with extensive questionnaires on respiratory symptoms, clinical evaluations and information on environmental exposures. This thesis replicates previous effects on asthma of polymorphisms in TNFA and NPSR1 genes. In addition, interactions have been established between TNFA and obesity, NQO1 and air-pollution, and NPSR1 and age at onset of asthma. The approach based on genome-wide analysis of DNA pools identified the SGK493 region being associated with atopy. This thesis contributes to the understanding of the etiology of asthma through the identification and replication of genetic associations and gene-environment interactions.

This study examines the relationship between adolescent depressive symptomology and substance abuse. From a literature study six hypotheses were developed. A quantitative empirical study, undertaken in a South African high school, investigated the level of adolescent depressiVe symptomology and substance abuse, as well as the relationship between the two. The influence of various moderator variables was also examined. In line with most international studies, the relationship between adolescent depressive symptomotogy and substance abuse was found to be significant. This research has shown that adolescent depressive symptomology is significantly and positively correlated with earlier age at onset of substance abuse as well as frequency of usage. There appear to be gender differences in the way adolescents deal with their depression in terms of substance abuse. In addition, risk factors for depression and substance abuse were confirmed. Recommendations have been made based on these results / Educational Studies / M.Ed.