Deux objectifs centraux sont au cœur de cette thèse menée sur la compréhension de récits chez des enfants d'école élémentaire (i.e., de 6 ans à 10 ans). S'agissant du premier objectif, la compréhension des différentes facettes de la dimension émotionnelle d'une histoire (i.e., émotion désignée, expression comportementale de l'émotion et émotion à inférer) est examinée ainsi que le type d'informations émotionnelles que les enfants privilégient pour produire des inférences prédictives (i.e., c'est-à-dire la capacité à anticiper sur ce qu'il va se passer dans la suite d'une l'histoire). Deux supports de présentation des histoires de littérature jeunesse ont été comparés (i.e., auditif vs. audiovisuel). Trois principaux résultats sont à considérer. Premièrement les enfants de 6 ans ont le plus de difficulté à se représenter la dimension émotionnelle ainsi qu'à produire des inférences prédictives. Deuxièmement, les émotions à inférer sont difficilement représentées par rapport aux émotions explicitées dans l'histoire (i.e., émotions désignées et comportementales). Troisièmement, le caractère généralisable des habiletés de compréhension de la dimension émotionnelle a été confirmé. S'agissant du deuxième objectif, il consiste en l'étude de l'appréciation (i.e., c'est drôle/c'est non drôle) et de la compréhension (i.e., niveau d'interprétation de l'information humoristique) des informations humoristiques et non humoristiques des histoires de littérature jeunesse. Deux types d'informations humoristiques ont été considérés : l'humour de situation (i.e., comique de situation) et un humour plus complexe qui nécessite la production d'une inférence (i.e., interpréter un jeu de mots). Les principaux résultats montrent que les enfants discriminent mieux les évènements non humoristiques que les événements humoristiques. Pour les évènements humoristiques, ils apprécient mieux l'humour de situation que l'humour qui requiert la production d'une inférence et ce d'autant plus qu'ils sont jeunes. Aussi, la situation audiovisuelle favorise l'appréciation de l'humour alors que la situation auditive favorise la représentation des informations non humoristiques. Enfin, pour interpréter l'humour, les jeunes enfants favorisent des explications de haut niveau alors que les plus grands n'ont pas de préférence. Les résultats seront interprétés à la lumière de la littérature existante sur ces deux domaines d'investigation. / The aim of this thesis was double. First, we explored how children aged 6 to 10 years monitor and represent the emotional dimension of stories. Three types of emotional information were distinguished: emotional label, emotional behavior and emotion requiring an inference. The two first studies examined the representation of these types of emotional information usually encountered in natural stories both in auditory and audiovisual context. The third study focused on children's ability to use emotional information to make predictive inferences (i.e., children had to anticipate what would happened next in a story). The main results indicated that young children (i.e., 6 years old) encountered more difficulties to make emotional inferences and predictive inferences than the olders. Moreover, results showed that children more accurately represented emotional label and emotional behavior than emotional inference. Finally, the results revealed that the ability to understand the emotion was generalizable across different media. The second purpose of this thesis was to study how children aged 6 to 10 years identify, appreciate and understand humorous and nonhumorous passages in auditory and audiovisual natural stories. Two types of humorous information were considered: protagonist's humorous behaviors (i.e., explicit humor) and implicit humorous information that required the ability to make an inference. The main results revealed that children more easily identified nonhumorous passages compared to humorous ones. Furthermore, the audiovisual situation favored the identification of humorous passages and auditory situation promoted the identification of nonhumorous passages. Finally, to interpret humorous situations, young children use more often high explication level and old children use similarly high and low explication levels. These findings were discussed regarding literature.

The proportion of older adults living with cognitive impairments is increasing rapidly. This shift will likely increase mortality rates, reduce perceived quality of life, and cause economic burden to patients and health care systems. Currently evidence of highly effective and noninvasive interventions that prevent or slow the onset of cognitive impairment are limited. This study aims to better understand what drives cognitive aging variability among musicians versus non-musicians. Music playing has been shown to improve brain and cognitive functions by engaging networks of brain areas, simultaneously involving cortical mechanisms associated with executive, high-level cognitive and motor functions, and multiple sensory systems. Literature suggests strong correlations between cognition and music ability. However, studies in the past have not concretely operationalized music training. Here we test the general hypothesis that music training improves neural mechanisms associated with core cognitive functions (e.g. working-memory and attention). A multi-source study was designed to control level of music involvement and genre by examining professional, classically trained orchestral musicians, establishing cognitive and neuropsychological profiles in an effort to better understand the potential for music training to protect older adults from cognitive decline. Specific hypotheses involved attentional inhibition theory and increased ability of musicians to perform attention and working memory tasks. Twenty-nine professional musicians were recruited who completed five neuropsychological exams. The scalp electrophysiological signals from 14 channels were recorded wirelessly while each musician performed a modified delayed match-to-sample task, imagination of music playing, and resting states. Musicians completed neuropsychological screening (MoCA) a music and life span questionnaire as well. Musicians tested above normative ranges in cognitive ability indicated through MoCA. Musicians’ scores were compared with average or normative scores of participants at similar ages in previous studies using the same measures and current musicians performed significantly faster and more accurately on four of five neuropsychological measures. Regression and ANCOVA showed strong positive correlations between theta oscillation in bilateral frontal sites (F3, F4) and both number of years of private music lessons and number of hours of music practice. Correlations between EEG recordings taken during music imagination exercise at posterior (01, 02) sites and the number of years of private music lessons participants took, the age participant started to take music lessons and the number of years they played their musical instrument were found. Current new findings reveal that professional musician’s cognitive scores and neural activity are associated with superior cognitive ability via enhancement of neural mechanisms of current target material and inhibition of distractions. Music training is apromising noninvasive method to control cognitive challenge, which merits further research to determine how it can be used as a beneficial cognitive training method for aging individuals. Future studies should examine neuro-cognitive differences between professional musicians and individuals with lower levels of music involvement to examine dose effects of music or the amount of music needed to protect aging adults from cognitive decline.

Det nu föreliggande examensarbetet har haft som syfte att undersöka och bidra med kunskap om hur några lärare beskriver språkutvecklande undervisning för elever inom SFI-undervisningen spår 1 och hur de beskriver att specialläraren med språk-, skriv- och läsutveckling kan fungera som stöd i det språkutvecklande arbetet. Undersökningen genomfördes på en SFI-utbildning på spår 1, med fyra lärare och fem undervisningsgrupper i kurserna A-D. Undersökningens empiri baseras på fem observationer, en Diamond ranking och en fokusgruppsintervju. Undersökningen har haft en kvalitativ ansats och sociokulturell teori och en modell "SFI-undervisningens ABC" som stöd och grund för empirins analys. Lärarna beskriver att de i sin språkutvecklande undervisning utgår från elevernas kunskaper och att de genom att träna tala, lyssna, skriva, läsa och förstå arbetar för en språkutvecklande undervisning. Resultatet visar också att det finns behov av att få tillgång till en speciallärare språk-, skriv- och läsutveckling på SFI eftersom det är en komplex undervisningssituation för både lärare och elever inom SFI-utbildningen. Resultatet visar att elevernas heterogena språkbakgrund ställer stora krav på den undervisande läraren som måste förhålla sig till många modersmål och dess inverkan på språkinlärningen i svenska som andraspråk. Ett resultat visar också att modellen "SFI-undervisningens ABC" som stöd används i den observerade undervisningen till viss del, men det finns behov att arbeta för att implementera den ytterligare. I undersökningens resultat framkommer att både lärare, språkstödjare och speciallärare tillsammans kan bidra till att öka kunskapen om och motverka risken för att både elever och lärare hamnar i språklig och pedagogisk sårbarhet. / The purpose of this survey has been to investigate and contribute knowledge about how a few teachers describe language development teaching for students in SFI teaching track 1 and how they believe that the special needs teacher with language, writing and reading development can function as support in that work. The survey was conducted on an SFI education on track 1, with four teachers and five teaching groups in courses A-D. The survey empirics are based on five observations, a Diamond ranking and a focus group interview. The survey has had a qualitative approach with a sociocultural theory and a teaching model of The ABC of SFI teaching as support and basis for the empirical analysis. The teachers describe that their language development teaching is based on the students' knowledge and that by practicing speaking, listening, writing, reading and understanding in a multimodal and translanguaging way, they work for a language development teaching. The results also show that there is a need to have access to a special needs teacher of language, writing and reading development at SFI, as this is a complex teaching situation for both teachers and students in the SFI education. It also shows that the students' heterogeneous language background calls for a high level of proficiency in teaching on the teacher, who must relate to many native languages and its impact on language acquisition in Swedish as a second language. The result also shows that the teaching model of The ABC of SFI teaching as support is used in the observed teaching to some extent, but there is a need to work to implement it further. The results of the survey show that both teachers, language supporters and special teachers together can contribute to increasing knowledge about and counteracting the risk that both students and teachers end up in linguistic and pedagogical vulnerability.