The purpose of this study was to determine whether children sing more accurately when taught songs on a neutral syllable or when they are taught with the original text. The subjects (N = 89), ages 3 to 5 years old, were enrolled in three preschools in Eastern Maryland. The children were randomly assigned to groups and then each group was randomly assigned to one of two treatments. The Text Method retained the text of all songs sung during the treatment period. The Neutral Syllable Method removed the original text of all songs sung during the treatment period and replaced it with a neutral syllable such as loo or lah. The subjects participated in two 30 minute classes per week for eight weeks. Lesson activities included singing, moving, listening to music, and playing a variety of small, hand-held percussion instruments. The Singing Accuracy Test (Posttest I) was administered individually to each child during the study's ninth week. The test required the child to echo the test song in phrases and then the song in its entirety. A second treatment occurred during week 11 in order to present the song material to the subjects in the opposite manner. A second test (Posttest II) concluded the study in week 12. Repeated Measures ANOVAs, t-Test for Independent Samples, t-Test for Correlated Samples, and Newman-Keuls Post-Hoc Comparisons were used to measure mean differences and interaction in the data. Results of the study indicated no significant difference of scores between the treatment groups due to the method of instruction. However, a closer investigation comparing differences between age groups revealed that the 4-year-old children scored significantly higher when singing the text of the song. Finally, a significant difference was found for all subjects when comparing phrase performance scores to whole song performance scores for Posttest I and Posttest II. The results suggest that 4-year-old children sing more accurately when performing songs with text. Further, it appears that young children are more accurate when singing a song in phrases then when singing a song in its entirety.

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have deficits in communication and delays in language development, but there have been few studies of their vocabulary. This study compared longitudinal parent report data from the MCDI collected for 49 children with ASD over three years with data from the MCDI norms. It focused on three aspects of lexical development: (1) change in lexical composition as evident in percentage of predicates/nominals; (2) order of emergence for predicate types and (3) predictive value of lexical variables for later grammatical development. ASD Groups were matched to typically developing group norms on total MCDI scores for each comparison. Subsequent analysis indicated: (1) no differences in the percentages of predicates/nominals for the two groups at 3 time points; and, (2) virtually identical orders of emergence for different predicate types with the exception of three meaning type categories—quantitative predicates, cognitive/affective predicates and predicates involving causal acts to change experiential states. Cognitive/affective predicates were found to come in somewhat later in ASD groups while quantitative predicates and predicates involving changes in experiential states came in earlier in ASD groups. This study also found (3) that lexical variables, especially number of predicates, strongly predicted grammatical complexity one year later, a process common in typical language development. The study concludes that lexical development in ASD follows the normal course, albeit later and more slowly. It also suggests that communication deficits in this population are rooted in challenges with social acts rather than from an inability to match meanings to words.

<p> The purpose of this historical narrative study was to discover how the World's Fair of 1876 advanced the kindergarten movement in the United States. Historical documents, photographs, and drawings were used as data sources. The following questions guided this study: "What were the purposes of the kindergarten exhibits at the World's Fair?" "Who were the individuals that demonstrated the kindergarten at the first Centennial World's Fair and how did they influence the kindergarten exhibits at the next fair in 1893?" and "How did commercialism associated with the fair affect the kindergarten movement?" </p><p> The kindergarten exhibits at the Centennial World's Fair had a profound effect on the way in which Americans viewed the kindergarten. At once viewed as a foreign import, the kindergarten became Americanized and more accepted by the majority of visitors. The fair exhibits also united the kindergarten pioneers in an effort to present an organized exhibit at the World's Fair of 1893. Even though the proliferation of commercialized kindergarten materials exhibited at the Centennial World's Fair often distorted the Froebelian kindergarten pedagogy, these materials increased the public's awareness of the kindergarten movement and all of its benefits.</p><p> Keywords: kindergarten, Froebel, Centennial World's Fair, feminism</p>

<p> Personal handheld media use, in particular the smartphone has increased in the last few years. Research has highlighted the increase of smartphone use among elementary age children but there is little information about how younger children use this tool and how parents feel about using technology with preschoolers. The purpose of this study was to investigate how preschool age children use the smartphone and to further explore parents' perceptions of this popular form of technology. The current study surveyed 141 parents about their practices and beliefs regarding their preschooler's smartphone use. Results revealed that preschoolers' smartphone use is prevalent, that the smartphone is being used for various purposes, and that parents have positive as well as negative feelings about their children's use. These results support the need for future research on the role of technology in very young children's learning.</p><p> <i>Keywords:</i> Smartphone, digital media, mobile technology, preschool children</p>

<p> Early intensive behavior intervention programs are designed to educate children diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Programs provide one-to-one instruction in highly structured learning environments, eventually moving students into less restrictive placements. General education classrooms are the placement of choice for most students with ASD. The popularity of these programs has made large gains in the last decade due to the documented success of students receiving services. The United States Surgeon General and the National Academy of Sciences Research Council provided additional support for these programs through their endorsement. However, little research exists to demonstrate if the gains made in early intervention programs are sustained over time. A cross case analysis using qualitative methods was used to examine the perceptions and experiences of parents whose children received early intensive behavior intervention services. Data were collected through participant interviews and document analysis. Findings revealed that all students had maintained their placements in general education classrooms and two students were no longer receiving Special Education services. Students had established support networks and friendships with peers.</p>

<p> This qualitative research examined how two early childhood educators initially integrated tablet technology in the curriculum through classroom observation, interviews and a review of documentation. The overall question was: how are early childhood educators initially integrating tablet technologies in the curriculum? The researcher also asked three sub-questions to further delve into developmentally appropriate practice while choosing apps. The three sub-questions ranged from what the early childhood educators believed about the impact of tablet technology within the curriculum, to how the early childhood educators were choosing developmentally appropriate apps. </p><p> The results of the research were the early childhood educator were initially integrating tablet technology at a cautious pace, but were not aware if the apps were developmentally appropriate. The researcher observed for seven weeks with 14 observations per educator. The observations and unobtrusive documentation showed that the iPads were used as a teacher driven goal. The children did not get to choose an app during the 7 weeks study. Each educator had an app in mind for each observational period. The researcher observed that many of the children, in one particular room, never had an opportunity to use the iPad. </p><p> The data collection strategies for this study were unobtrusive documentation, interviews, and unobtrusive observations. The unobtrusive documentation was the lesson plans submitted by one of the educators and app lists. The researcher arranged pre- and post-interview for the two educators. Though the unobtrusive documentation, observations and interviews, the researcher answered the initial research questions as well as the three sub-questions.</p><p> Seven themes emerged from the data. The themes included: a slow and cautious pace of integrating technology, the limited access to iPads, evidence of the lack of emphasis in lesson planning, need for more and continuous professional development, a trial and error approach to app selection, educators reliance on others for app selection, and uninformed app selection.</p>

Since 1987, the Kerry Wood Nature Centre has run a nature preschool for three-five old children. This study shows the affect it had on the environmental attitudes of former participants, who were 10-12 years old at the time of this study. Interviews and questionnaires with former participants, their families, and a control group investigated: (1) their current environmental attitude and behaviours; and (2) from whence these attitudes and behaviours arose. Past participants had a significantly greater connectedness-to-nature score than their peers did, even several years after leaving the program. The Nature Nursery program, along with other factors, made a measurable and persistent change in the attitude of these children. "Opportunity" in terms of location, parenting, companionship, and time emerged as being important in determining attitude. Children and parents overwhelmingly reported better feelings and behaviour after playing outside. Recommendations to improve early childhood environmental education programs are included.

The texts and records of the household performances of early modern women collected and examined in this thesis, which together have not yet been the subject of any extended scholarly work, reveal that women performed in the household far more often and in many more ways than is yet acknowledged in scholarship. These texts and records also show that the household could be an amenable performance space for early modern women, both amateur and professional, aristocratic and not. This reconceptualization of the place of women’s performances in the household, I argue, necessitates an adjustment of received ideas of the ethical and moral status of those performances as well as a reevaluation of the household itself. I reassess the equation between theatrical performance and immorality and interrogate the “inheren[t] subversive[ness]” that one critic argues is found in all women’s household plays. While I maintain that women’s household performances could have multiple significations, this thesis focuses on performances that permitted women to shape their own reputations positively in household space, where women were agents influencing domestic life through their theatre. Chapter 1, the Introduction, outlines the critical field, positions women within the performance tradition of the household, and discusses the status of their performances, centering on the relationship between theatrical performance, agency, and feminine virtue. Chapter 2 focuses on royal progress entertainment, discussing the performances of domestic virtue of Queen Elizabeth’s female hosts which not only had the capacity to be received as virtuous, but worked to promote familial and class legitimacy. Chapter 3 talks about the banquets created and served by women, identifying those banquets as a form of theatre, and linking women’s creativity with their embodiment of domestic ideals through the performance of hospitality. Chapter 4 discusses touring women performers as accepted, acknowledged, and skillful theatre professionals who were licenced by the state to perform and who were permitted to perform in households and towns across England. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-27 15:08:00.304

In the vestry of the cathedral church of Santa Maria in Toledo hangs a large painting by El Greco entitled El Espolio, the ‘Disrobing of Christ’. Executed shortly after his arrival in Spain the painting marks a major stylistic departure from the artist’s earlier work and would command attention on that basis alone. The subject, while iconographically obscure, is, at another remove, utterly familiar as a Passion scene tied to a well known iconographical canon. Compositionally, the Christ figure predominates but the ‘legionnaire’ occupies a contrasting and almost equivalent space in his carapace of steel. These figures beg for further elaboration I will argue that this painting can be read as a nexus between a reformed liturgy and a post-Tridentine programme of Church renewal in Spain allied to a monarchical programme of nación under Philip II (1527-98) that was essentially one and the same. The salient questions needing a response are these: How, in a vestry, can we expect such a subject to have much impact beyond the very limited audience it was designed for? This is the crux of the matter in many ways. What in the painting suggests more than the straightforward analysis of the subject matter? What in the times suggests another reading of this great work of art? The pursuit of the answers to these questions constitutes the driving force behind this investigation. Biography, the intellectual and artistic formation of the artist, are positioned with reference to the intellectual ferment of the period, the religious upheaval iii in Christendom, the advances in the understanding of the nation state. More specifically, the altered relationship between the monarchy and the church in Spain, following the Council of Trent (1545-63)will be shown to have a reflection in El Espolio. El Greco’s work has mostly been treated as the product of a painter of the spirit, of religiosity, even of mysticism. El Espolio has been interpreted here within a broader frame of reference and the argument suggests our understanding of El Greco’s oeuvre has been somewhat narrow. / Thesis (Master, Art History) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-15 16:13:04.047

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