There is no abstract available for this dissertation. / Department of Educational Psychology

The objective of the study was to determine whether diet diversity can predict the prevalence of infectious disease in children under 6-years in a rural African village. The study took place in Southern Madagascar. Dietary diversity, health and socio-economic interviews were administered to 77 mothers of children under 6 years old and who no longer breastfed. The diet diversity score was analysed along with socio-economic variables as predictors of the number of days a child had spent ill from an infectious disease in the past month. Meat and wild food variety, as well as education of the mother, childhood vaccinations and access to latrines and clean water were found to be important predictors of reduced disease risk in children. The study identifies conservation of natural resources and development of health and education facilities as priorities for the reduction of child mortality from infectious disease.

The present study was designed to investigate gender differences in the fragility of children's close, same-sex friendships. Based on past research, it was hypothesized that the close friendships of girls are more fragile than those of boys. A secondary goal of the study was to explore possible reasons for the sex difference in friendship instability. Students from 17 classes of grades one through six of an elementary school were interviewed about past friendships, and conflict resolution among current friends, within their class. The hypothesis that girls' friendships are more fragile was supported: The number of past friendship reported for girls was higher than that reported for boys across all grade levels. No explanations were found for the sex difference in fragility of friendships. Results are discussed in terms of the lack of explanations for gender differences in friendship fragility, as well as the implications of lower friendship stability on the psychosocial well being of girls.

Recent research has shown that children under two years demonstrate some early social understanding. Previous research has also demonstrated that mother talk about mental states is a factor in older preschoolers� later theory of mind understanding. In order to learn more about the predictive nature of mother mental state talk to very young children, this study examined the relation between mother talk about mental states at 15 and 24 months and their later mental state language and emotion understanding at 24 and 33 months. At all three time points, 71 mothers and 3 fathers (N=74) described pictures to their infants and mother talk was coded for mental and non-mental state language at 15, 24 and 33 months. In addition, at all three time points, children�s mental and non-mental state vocabulary levels were obtained via parental report. At the second and third time points the children were administered an emotion situation and a body emotion task. The mothers� ability to interpret emotion faces was also assessed. The results showed that mother use of desire language was more prevalent at 15 months, with references to thinking and knowledge increasing at 24 months. Partial correlations demonstrated that mother use of desire language with 15-month old children uniquely predicted a child�s mental state language and emotion situation task performance at 24 months, even after accounting for earlier child language, mother socioeconomic status, mothers� own emotion understanding, and other types of mother non-mental state language. Similarly, at 24 months of age, after accounting for potentially confounding variables, such as child language, mother use of think/know language as well as desire language were both predictors of children�s mental state language and emotion task performance at 33 months. The results further demonstrated that mothers� tendency to refer to the child�s (versus others�) desires at 15 months was the more consistent correlate of children�s mental state language and emotion understanding at 24 months. At 24 months a different pattern emerged with both references to the child�s and others� thoughts and knowledge correlating with child mental state language and emotion task performance at 33 months. It is proposed that Vygotsky�s zone of proximal development provides a framework within which maternal talk about specific mental states scaffolds the development of children�s later social understanding. I also suggest that such scaffolding motivates mothers to talk more about the child�s mental states when they are younger, before introducing talk that focuses on others� mental states.

Thesis (MPsych(Clin))--University of South Australia, 1995

It was identified that there was little published research into the lived experience of parenting a child with autism that utilised a qualitative approach. There was a paucity of material in the literature, beyond single parent accounts, for a nurse to turn to develop a beginning understanding of the experience. There was also little for a parent to compare their own experience with. This study of the lived experience of parenting a child with autism provides an exploration of the experience within the framework of a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. Initially nine parents were interviewed and the resulting transcripts analysed. This analysis was taken to four focus groups to allow the parent's voice to remain active in the refinement of the analysis. The parents reported a strong resonance with the analysis and the discussion fell silent. The experience identified was not that of a series of activities but profound changes to the self of the parent. This is considered in the discussion in the light of the existential challenge to the parent's being posed by the demands of parenting a child with autism. Chaos theory and its mathematical applications are considered as a potentially fruitful way to pick up the conversational relation with the question of, "what is the lived experience of parenting a child with autism"?

Typescript (Photocopy) / Bibliography: leaves 239-260 / ix, 260 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dept. of Psychology, University of Adelaide, 1990

[Truncated abstract] Intelligence in children increases with age until adult levels of performance are achieved. Dempster (1991) proposed that developmental changes in inhibitory processes underpin these changes in the development of intelligence. The evidence Dempster presented to support this thesis typically takes the form of noting changes in inhibitory performance that occur in the same time frame as changes in psychometric intelligence (Dempster, 1991, 1992, 1993; Dempster & Corkill, 1999). He also provides correlational evidence from studies in which intelligence scores are correlated with various inhibitory measures. One problem with much of the evidence presented by Dempster is that it does not distinguish between developmental and individual differences in inhibition and/or intelligence. Developmental differences are differences in performance between children at different ages. Individual differences are differences in performance between children of the same age. The majority of evidence Dempster provides concerns individual differences in inhibition and the relationship of these differences to intelligence rather than the relationship of any developmental differences to intelligence. Anderson (1987) suggests that the processes underpinning these two types of differences are not necessarily the same. For example, individual differences may be related to speed of processing, while developmental differences may be related to changes in inhibitory ability. Therefore, a more accurate test of Dempster’s thesis is to assess whether developmental changes in inhibition are related to developmental changes in intelligence, rather than whether individual differences in inhibition are related to intelligence. This was the primary goal of this thesis. A secondary goal was to address whether or not any developmental changes seen were primarily due to changes in inhibition or could be accounted for by changes in speed of processing. Measures which utilise difference score reaction time (RT) measures as inhibitory indices such as the stroop task do not typically account for this potential confound. A number of researchers have addressed this problem of difference score measures and proposed alternative analytic techniques (Christ, White, Mandernach, & Keys, 2001; Christ, White, Brunstrom, & Abrams, 2003; Faust, Balota, Spieler & Ferraro, 1999). Each inhibitory measure used in the current study will attempt to control for group and individual speed differences, either by utilising one of these alternative techniques or using regression analysis to identify the contribution of speed to the developmental shift in intelligence.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-73).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2005. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (ℓ. 72-83)