D.Phil. (Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Magister Artium (Psychology) - MA(Psych) / The inclusive education system in South Africa is one that accepts children with many types of barriers to learning, whether these are physical, emotional or cognitive in nature. In 2001, the Department of Education published the White Paper 6 in order to address inclusive education in the South African context over a time frame of 20 years. It has been 15 years since the White Paper 6 was published, and many South African educators still face the same challenges as they did at the start of the Inclusive Education System. Managing children with barriers to learning comes with many challenges and uncertainties, and with the high prevalence of children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) globally, there is a strong need to understand what the condition entails and how to manage it effectively. A study like this is imperative in order to explore management strategies used by Grade 1 educators when working with learners presenting with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder symptoms in mainstream schools in the Western Cape. A further aim is to explore the support structures currently available to these educators as well as the support required by these educators. The study also aims to understand the challenges facing educators in these settings as there are limited research studies and literature available which focus on how to apply the inclusive education policies that exist in South Africa. The study used bio-ecological systems theory as a theoretical framework. A qualitative approach was used to conduct the study, including semi-structured individual interviews and data that was analysed by thematic analysis. A total of four local schools were included in the study, comprising of twelve interviews with Grade 1 educators from mainstream schools based in the Western Cape. The findings were as follows: many educators felt that they did not receive enough training on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, therefore lacking knowledge on how to apply management strategies to address this. Managing a diverse range of learners, lack of resources, lack of parental involvement, lack of assistance in the classroom, as well as distracted and disorganised children posed as challenges for educators working with learners presenting with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder symptoms. Some educators felt that class sizes were too big; helping non-English learners who displayed symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to reach their full potential was challenging; and covering all the content in the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) was overwhelming for some as it does not always allow space for learners who learn differently in the classroom. Educators teaching in lower-income communities struggled with parental support and generally had fewer resources available to them. Not all of the participants received sufficient support from other professional health practitioners, principals, and support at various levels of the education system in the Western Cape and Department of Education.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), according to the DSM-IV-TR, is a developmental disorder that is first identified in childhood, where children display inattention and hyperactivity, impulsivity or a combination thereof. This PhD study focuses on understanding and explaining how educators understand learners who may have ADHD in their classrooms. The main research question is: “How do educators experience learners in their classrooms who may have ADHD? ”The main research question was developed into sub-questions: 1) How do educators experience teaching and teaching the learner who may have ADHD? 2) How do educators manage their classrooms with learners in their classrooms, who may have ADHD? 3) How has the experience of educating learners who may have ADHD influenced or affected the educator? A narrative research design was employed, whereby 17 educators, from three different schools from Gauteng were interviewed. Informed consent was collected from all participants. The textual data was analysed using content theme analysis. The educators’ narratives varied according to teaching experience and maturity within the diverse context of the school environment. Five themes emerged from the data generated from the study. Findings from the study indicate that: (1) learners who may have ADHD appear to be treated differently from the other learners; (2) the educators’ keep learners who may have ADHD busy with different activities as one of the methods most commonly used in managing learners who may have ADHD; (3) the educators feel that learners who may have ADHD challenge them; (4) educators feel that they need to be able to share information with other educators on how to manage and support learners who may have ADHD and that they need outside assistance from a specialist and (5) the educators feel that parents do not pull their part in assisting educators and/or learners who may have ADHD. Subsequent to the theme analysis two interviews were then selected, instrumentally analysed and discussed in order to represent personalised accounts of educators’ experiences of learners who may have ADHD in their classrooms. Lastly, the themes have been presented as a narrative. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

Diagnosen Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) är en av de vanligaste diagnoserna inom sitt område. ADHD är en riskfaktor för flera folkhälsoproblem såsom missbruk, kriminalitet och psykisk ohälsa, varför diagnosen bör mötas av tidiga, hälsofrämjande och preventiva insatser samt stöttning till både individen och individens närstående.Det övergripande syftet för den föreliggande studien är att undersöka mående, relationer och missbruk (rökning, alkohol och narkotikabruk) hos ungdomar med diagnosen ADHD med ungdomar utan ADHD som referensgrupp.Data för 4112 stycken ungdomar som, läsåret 2015/2016, gick i årskurs 7 eller årskurs 1 på gymnasiet erhölls ur Elevhälsodatabasen (ELSA) i Värmland, Sverige. Samtlig data baserades på den enkät som, av ungdomen, ifylls i samband med obligatorisk hälsoundersökning. Data innehöll information om diagnos, mående, relationer samt missbruk och analyserades genom deskriptiv statistik och logistisk regression. Av samtliga hade 269 personer diagnosen ADHD.Resultatet visade att ungdomarna med ADHD hade generellt sämre mående (aOR = 6,7), sämre relationer (aOR = 4,94) samt att de i högre utsträckning nyttjade tobak (aOR = 3,49), narkotika (aOR = 10,66) och alkohol (aOR = 1,35).Den föreliggande studiens resultat var i linje med tidigare utländska studier och visade att ungdomar med ADHD är en riskgrupp för flera av de stora folkhälsoproblemen. Resultatet visar vikten av tidiga insatser för målgruppen för att främja hälsa samt förebygga ohälsa och riskbeteende senare i livet. / Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common diagnosis in its area. ADHD is a risk factor for several public health problems such as substance abuse, crime and mental illness and that’s why the diagnosis should be met with early, health promoting, preventing and supportive interventions to both the individual and his/her relatives.The over all aim of the present study is to examine well-being, relationships and substance abuse among adolescent with the diagnosis ADHD with adolescent without ADHD as reference.Data of total 4112 adolescent who, in the school year 2015/2016, were attending 7th grade or 1st grade in high school were obtained d from the Pupil Health Database in the county of Värmland, Sweden. Data included information about diagnosis, well-being, relationships and substance abuse and data were based on the questionnaire, filled out by the adolescent in connection with the mandatory health examinations. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and logistic regression and of all the adolescent 269 had the diagnosis ADHD.The adolescent with ADHD generally had lower well-being (aOR = 6,7), poorer relationships (aOR = 4,94) and they used more tobacco (aOR = 3,49), narcotics (aOR = 10,66) and alcohol (aOR = 1,35).The result of the present study confirmed earlier studies done in other countries and showed that adolescent with ADHD is a risk group for several major public health problems. The result shows the importance of early interventions for the target group to promote health and to prevent illness and risky behavior later in life.

Research has shown that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the commonest neurodevelopmental disorders which has a negative impact on a child. However, to date limited research has been conducted on learners, and specifically those learners with ADHD, within a National Education stream. Furthermore, running concurrently with this are new developments in education in South Africa. An inclusive educational policy favours the incorporation of all children into a mainstream scholastic setting, regardless of their diverse needs. In addition to educational changes for children with ADHD, many parents are presently unable to afford the medication commonly used to treat the disorder, resulting in both parents and teachers having to manage these children with limited professional support. It is widely accepted that early assessment and intervention are necessary in order to maximise a child’s potential. For this reason, the primary aim of this study was to explore and describe the developmental profile of children with ADHD on the Griffiths Mental Development Scales-Extended Revised (GMDS-ER). Further aims were to compare the performance of the clinical sample to a normal South African sample. In order to achieve these aims, a quantitative, exploratory-descriptive research design was employed. The sample (N = 38) of ADHD were selected by means of a non-probability, purposive sampling procedure, from various pre-school and primary schools in the Nelson Mandela Metropole. The normal sample (N = 38) was drawn from an existing database created during the revision of the Scales. Information was collated using the Conners 39 Item Teacher Rating Scale, biographical data, as well as the results of an assessment from the GMDS-ER. In this study the general performance of the ADHD sample on the GMDS-ER was found to be above average. Furthermore the performance of these children on the six Subscales of the GMDS-ER ranged from average to superior, with the poorest performance being on the Eye and Hand Co-ordination Subscale, and the best performance being on the Performance Subscale. Significant differences between the ADHD and normal sample were found on the General Quotient (GQ) as well as three of the six Subscales, namely, the Hearing and Speech, Eye and Hand Co-ordination and Performance Subscales. Generally, the results of the study suggest that a specific developmental profile for children with ADHD exists. Additionally, the study highlighted the success with which the GMDS-ER can be utilised on a specific clinical population.

Voice over IP (VoIP) is a key enabling technology for the migration of circuit-switched PSTN architectures to packet-based IP networks. However, this migration is successful only if the present problems in IP networks are addressed before deploying VoIP infrastructure on a large scale. One of the important issues that the present VoIP networks face is the problem of unwanted calls commonly referred to as SPIT (spam over Internet telephony). Mostly, these SPIT calls are from unknown callers who broadcast unwanted calls. There may be unwanted calls from legitimate and known people too. In this case, the unwantedness depends on social proximity of the communicating parties. For detecting these unwanted calls, I propose a framework that analyzes incoming calls for unwanted behavior. The framework includes a VoIP spam detector (VSD) that analyzes incoming VoIP calls for spam behavior using trust and reputation techniques. The framework also includes a nuisance detector (ND) that proactively infers the nuisance (or reluctance of the end user) to receive incoming calls. This inference is based on past mutual behavior between the calling and the called party (i.e., caller and callee), the callee's presence (mood or state of mind) and tolerance in receiving voice calls from the caller, and the social closeness between the caller and the callee. The VSD and ND learn the behavior of callers over time and estimate the possibility of the call to be unwanted based on predetermined thresholds configured by the callee (or the filter administrators). These threshold values have to be automatically updated for integrating dynamic behavioral changes of the communicating parties. For updating these threshold values, I propose an automatic calibration mechanism using receiver operating characteristics curves (ROC). The VSD and ND use this mechanism for dynamically updating thresholds for optimizing their accuracy of detection. In addition to unwanted calls to the callees in a VoIP network, there can be unwanted traffic coming into a VoIP network that attempts to compromise VoIP network devices. Intelligent hackers can create malicious VoIP traffic for disrupting network activities. Hence, there is a need to frequently monitor the risk levels of critical network infrastructure. Towards realizing this objective, I describe a network level risk management mechanism that prioritizes resources in a VoIP network. The prioritization scheme involves an adaptive re-computation model of risk levels using attack graphs and Bayesian inference techniques. All the above techniques collectively account for a domain-level VoIP security solution.

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Although drug therapy is the more common treatment of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), and has been shown to reduce symptoms, the benefits of the theraputic drugs are temporary, and the therapy can have adverse side effects. For these reasons, many prefer not to use drug therapy for ADHD. Alternative treatments have been shown to have some efficacy, especially when used in conjunction with drug therapy. Dynamic Systems theory suggests that an intervention which combines graphomotor exercises with music may have a positive effect on a child's behavior and attention. A 2 x 2 pretest-posttest design tested the hypothesis that both children diagnosed with ADHD as well as children without ADHD would significantly improve on measures of attention, behavior inhibition and handwriting when those children received the graphomotor and music intervention. The intervention was designed according to the instructions in the handbook "Training the Brain to Pay Attention the Write Way" authored by Farmer and published by Writebrain Press in Denver, Colorado in 1993.

The aim of this study was to describe the laryngeal anatomy, perceptual, acoustic and aerodynamic vocal characteristics of school-aged children with and without ADHD. The predisposition that children with ADHD have for laryngeal injuries are recurrent in nature and are more often than not overlooked as laryngitis. Previous studies have reported varied results on the prevalence rates of paediatric VFN within the school-aged ADHD population. A static, two-group comparison was used in the study to investigate the clinical, perceptual, acoustic and aerodynamic vocal characteristics of children between 7 and 9 years old with and without ADHD. The study replicated the protocol as executed by Barona-Lleo and Fernandez (2016) with additions. The Multidimensional Voice Program (MDVP) and the Voice Range Profile (VRP) as additions to the assessment of vocal parameters were used with which comparable dysphonia severity index (DSI) scores were calculated. Once-off clinical, perceptual, acoustic and aerodynamic voice assessments were conducted on 20 age-gender matched participants. The difference in assessment results between the vocal characteristics of children without a history of ADHD (control group) and those of children with ADHD (ADHD group) was then investigated and described. Forty five percent (n=9) of the total sample population had laryngeal pathology. Comparable parent reported etiological voice symptoms and vocal habits were seen across both groups. Both groups performed similarly across both perceptual and aerodynamic voice assessments. Acoustically, the control group achieved significantly higher producible pitches than the ADHD group (p=0.028) and were found to have more dysphonic DSI scores than their ADHD group peers (p=0.034). Prepubertal, school-aged children with or without ADHD may have similar vocal characteristics than previously thought. This variation in school-aged children warrants further research into larger sample sizes with this population with a special focus on the effect that CNS stimulants may have on the voice. / Dissertation (MCommunication Pathology)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / MCommunication Pathology / Unrestricted

Bakgrund: ADHD är en neuropsykiatrisk störning där symtomen kännetecknas av ouppmärksamhet, impulsivitet och hyperaktivitet. ADHD är en av de vanligaste diagnoserna bland barn och många barn som diagnostiseras har problem med utbildning och fungera socialt. Barnets symtom påverkar familjelivet och familjer med ett barn med ADHD visade sig ha mer utmaningar än andra familjer Syfte: Syftet med denna litteraturstudie var att beskriva föräldrars erfarenheter av att leva med ett barn som har diagnosen ADHD Metod: En beskrivande litteraturstudie. Totalt 10 kvalitativa vetenskapliga artiklar inkluderades. Artiklarna söktes i databaserna Cinahl och Medline via PubMed. Huvudresultat: I resultatet framkom att föräldrar som levde med ett barn med ADHD upplevde utmaningar som väckte många olika känslor i dem. Föräldrar fick inte alltid ihop livspusslet samtidigt som de skulle hantera barnets symtom, vilket resulterade i höga nivåer av stress. Föräldrar upplevde stigmatiserande attityder och ett missnöje mot vården och samhället. Föräldrar var överens om att det fanns en oförståelse kring ADHD och uppfattade vägen till en diagnos som en svår, ensam och lång process. Slutsats: Att vara förälder till ett barn med ADHD visade sig vara tufft och utmanande. Resultatet visade att det behövs mer resurser, utbildning och forskning för att kunna ge familjer hjälpen de behöver. Okunskap kan leda till skador, både för familjerna i hemmet, inom vården och framförallt barnen som lider av denna funktionsnedsättning. Med rätt professionell hjälp kan familjerna få en fungerande vardag. För att sjuksköterskor ska kunna ge den bästa möjliga omvårdnad krävs rätt förutsättningar och verktyg som sedan kan föras vidare till familjerna. / Background: ADHD is a neuropsychiatric disorder in which the symptoms are characterized by inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity. ADHD is one of the most common diagnoses among children and many children who diagnosed have problems with education and function socially. The child's symptoms affect family life and families with a child with ADHD were found to have more challenges than other families. Aim: The aim of this literature study was to describe parents' experiences of living with a child diagnosed with ADHD. Method: A descriptive literature study. A total of 10 qualitative scientific articles were included. The articles were searched in the Cinahl and Medline databases via PubMed. Main findings: The results showed that parents who lived with a child with ADHD experienced challenges that aroused many different emotions in them. Parents did not always get the puzzle of life together while dealing with the child's symptoms, which resulted in high levels of stress. Parents experienced stigmatizing attitudes and dissatisfaction with care and society. Parents agreed that there was a misunderstanding about ADHD and perceived the path to a diagnosis as a difficult, lonely and long process. Conclusion: Being the parent of a child with ADHD proved to be tough and challenging. The results showed that more resources, education and research are needed to be able to give families the help they need. Ignorance can lead to injuries, both for the families at home, in care and especially the children who suffer from this disability. With the right professional help, families can have a functioning everyday life. In order for nurses to be able to provide the best possible care, the right conditions and tools are required, which can then be passed on to the families.