Adolescent pregnancy has been a global phenomenon of great concern for a considerable time. Adolescent pregnancy and parenting can lead to negative consequences for both adolescents and their infants in health, psychological, developmental and educational spheres. In South Africa recent media reporting has pointed out that adolescent pregnancy at times culminates in infant abandonment. Adolescence is a difficult transition period and the added stress of pregnancy and parenting creates specific challenges. Adolescent parents’ conflicting roles as adolescents, striving for independence, and as parents, who have to care for their children in a selfless manner, have been shown to complicate their lives significantly. Research has indicated that adolescent pregnancy mostly occurs in resource-poor, black, rural, or semi-rural communities. Support for pregnant and parenting adolescents in such communities seems to be minimal, and research on experiences of adolescent pregnancy and parenting in the South African context is scant. Therefore the aim of this study was to explore late adolescents’ (18-22) experiences of their pregnancy and parenting during early adolescence (12-18). The research context was a resource-poor community, namely Sir Lowry’s Pass Village in the Helderberg basin in the Western Cape. The researcher wanted to shed light on the particular challenges and strengths of participants, to inform practice and make suggestions so as to promote support for such parents. From the findings of this study it became clear that participants found adolescent pregnancy and parenting to be a challenging experience. They made mention of various factors complicating their experience of pregnancy and parenting, such as their socio-economic circumstances; stigma experienced from the community, family, peers, and educational and health-related systems; loss and sacrifices; lack of support; and feelings of powerlessness. They felt overwhelmed by their parenting experiences as a result of lack of parenting skills, and the fact that their parental rights were often not respected. However, pregnancy and parenting were also viewed as positive and inspiring in that adolescent parents viewed their children as a source of comfort. Furthermore, they indicated that parenting was more manageable with support, and that becoming parents rendered them more responsible individuals. These findings concur with prior research on adolescent pregnancy and parenting. This study adds value to the field of adolescent pregnancy and parenting in that prior findings were corroborated, and that an adolescent father’s perspective was included. Research on adolescent fathers in the South African context is limited. This study provides a clearer understanding of pregnant and parenting adolescents’ needs and what they find supportive, which could assist health care professionals, welfare organisations, schools, and significant others in supporting them more adequately. / MA (Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Adolescent pregnancy has been a global phenomenon of great concern for a considerable time. Adolescent pregnancy and parenting can lead to negative consequences for both adolescents and their infants in health, psychological, developmental and educational spheres. In South Africa recent media reporting has pointed out that adolescent pregnancy at times culminates in infant abandonment. Adolescence is a difficult transition period and the added stress of pregnancy and parenting creates specific challenges. Adolescent parents’ conflicting roles as adolescents, striving for independence, and as parents, who have to care for their children in a selfless manner, have been shown to complicate their lives significantly. Research has indicated that adolescent pregnancy mostly occurs in resource-poor, black, rural, or semi-rural communities. Support for pregnant and parenting adolescents in such communities seems to be minimal, and research on experiences of adolescent pregnancy and parenting in the South African context is scant. Therefore the aim of this study was to explore late adolescents’ (18-22) experiences of their pregnancy and parenting during early adolescence (12-18). The research context was a resource-poor community, namely Sir Lowry’s Pass Village in the Helderberg basin in the Western Cape. The researcher wanted to shed light on the particular challenges and strengths of participants, to inform practice and make suggestions so as to promote support for such parents. From the findings of this study it became clear that participants found adolescent pregnancy and parenting to be a challenging experience. They made mention of various factors complicating their experience of pregnancy and parenting, such as their socio-economic circumstances; stigma experienced from the community, family, peers, and educational and health-related systems; loss and sacrifices; lack of support; and feelings of powerlessness. They felt overwhelmed by their parenting experiences as a result of lack of parenting skills, and the fact that their parental rights were often not respected. However, pregnancy and parenting were also viewed as positive and inspiring in that adolescent parents viewed their children as a source of comfort. Furthermore, they indicated that parenting was more manageable with support, and that becoming parents rendered them more responsible individuals. These findings concur with prior research on adolescent pregnancy and parenting. This study adds value to the field of adolescent pregnancy and parenting in that prior findings were corroborated, and that an adolescent father’s perspective was included. Research on adolescent fathers in the South African context is limited. This study provides a clearer understanding of pregnant and parenting adolescents’ needs and what they find supportive, which could assist health care professionals, welfare organisations, schools, and significant others in supporting them more adequately. / MA (Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

<p>The impact that preschool education has on children&rsquo;s cognitive abilities as they prepare to enter kindergarten is a subject that is not widely researched. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that are associated with cognitive development among preschool age children. This study was completed by conducting a quantitative study in which secondary data was obtained from an early education center Desired Results Developmental Profile (DRDP) from the 2014&ndash;2015 preschool year. The results found that the participant&rsquo;s age was positively associated with cognitive, language and literature, math and self and social development. The study also found that female participants had higher scores in the self and social developmental domain. Gender, ethnicity and home language were not significant to cognitive, English language and math development. Study findings have implications for social and behavioral sciences. The findings in the study were positively associated with the educational activities that preschool children receive as it relates to their cognitive developmental growth and readiness for kindergarten. </p>

<p> Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome (RTS) is a rare congenital neurodevelopmental disorder that often presents with corresponding speech and language delays. However, the available literature on communicative development in RTS is currently very limited. The purpose of this retrospective single-case research study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), an aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) system developed to teach functional communication to children with limited communication, on communicative abilities in RTS by providing a detailed profile of the intervention procedures utilized for a 6-year-old child with RTS. The aim of this investigation was both to contribute to the existing literature on the syndrome, as well as to document the success of the PECS system in children with RTS. Specifically, the current study explored the participant&rsquo;s communicative progression and development in the areas of (a) communication initiation, (b) vocalization, and (c) eye contact after Phases 1-4 of the PECS protocol were implemented. Data records from 26 evaluation and intervention sessions completed during the participant&rsquo;s Spring 2014 attendance at the CSULB Department of Speech-Language Pathology&rsquo;s Speech and Language Clinic were analyzed in order to evaluate the effects of the PECS protocol on the participant&rsquo;s communicative abilities. Results indicated that the PECS treatment significantly improved the participant&rsquo;s communicative abilities, namely, by increasing her initiation of communicative exchanges, increasing use of vocalizations and word/phrase approximations, and increasing eye contact with communication partners. The current study supports the use of the PECS protocol in children with RTS as a functional communication system.</p>

The aim of this thesis is to generate new knowledge about how children and teachers communicate scientific contents in preschool. The general research question is formulated as: How do the object of learning and the act of learning appear in communication about scientific contents in preschool? This thesis is a collection of three (previously published) empirical studies and takes shape in the encounter between a projected knowledge acquisition task for preschool and the educational tradition of preschool. The research approach is based primarily on phenomenography focussing on developmental pedagogy. The results are discussed in relation to situated learning and the assumptions about the task of preschool characterising the social practice that is brought to light. The thesis is based on the assumption that teachers are bearers of taken-for-granted ideas about what the ‘good preschool’ is, and that these ideas affect the way they interpret new tasks. The empirical basis consists of video observations from two preschools working with different thematic projects: Life in the tree stump and How soil is formed. The analysis is delimited to the verbal communication occurring between children and teachers about the scientific content. The children are aged between three and six years. All observations have been transcribed to text and analysed according to the following research questions: Study I: (i) What is communicated as the object of learning in the theme work about natural scientific phenomena in the preschool studied? (ii) What acts of learning appear in the communication of the object of learning? Study II is a re-analysis of the linguistic usage in the empirical data from Study I. Research questions of Study II are: is there any systematic pattern in the use of anthropomorphic speech regarding (i) who uses this language, (ii) when it is used and (iii) what it is used for? Study III is delimited to children’s perspective, and the research questions are: (i) What do children ask about during theme work with a natural scientific process in preschool? (ii) Can any tendency towards change be discerned with regard to what kind of questions children ask in the course of the theme work? The results have thrown light on what natural science is in these preschools, a questioning teacher, an education ideal as an interpretative framework and children’s meeting with the object of learning. The results are discussed in relation to a feasible didactic perspective based on the educational ideal of preschool and in relation to a critical didactic perspective concerning teachers’ will, courage and competence to make the content visible. Finally, with the implementation of the raised knowledge task for preschool in mind, prominence is given to the need of critical reflection over the role of language as maintaining a discourse and the concepts established. / Finansierad av vetenskapsrådet/utbildningsvetenskapliga kommittén: Nationell forskaskola i Barndom, lärande, ämnesdidaktik (FoBa), Dnr 721 - 2005 - 2717

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1992 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / Some Telemetry systems today receive a binary phase shift keying modulation format. Typically, to demodulate BPSK requires using a carrier synchronizer followed by a bit synchronizer. Demodulation of BPSK can be accomplished using digital signal processing techniques to implement both synchronizers. This paper describes a digital system that demodulates a 16 KHZ, 2KBPS BPSK signal. In order to evaluate these techniques, the theory of operation was evaluated. Additionally, a computer simulation of the demodulator was developed. The computer simulation was implemented using Pascal. The techniques were optimized to give maximum performance while requiring minimum hardware and power in an actual implementation.

<p> This qualitative multiple case study sought to discover third-grade teacher perspectives of the strategies used when effectively implementing Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI). Five exemplar third-grade teachers were purposefully selected based on recommendations from their principal and instructional coach. The purpose of the study was to learn how the implementation of the essential elements of CGI affected planning of mathematics lessons and how those elements were implemented into mathematics instructional practices. </p><p> The study utilized triangulation of data sources, including semi-structured interviews, observations, and document analysis. Based on the results from the first research question, planning for CGI lessons was found to be more difficult compared to planning for traditional mathematics lessons. The teachers spent more time developing word problems due to the lack of resources, because CGI is to be customized to meet the needs of the students. For the second research question, five themes emerged as strategies the teacher used for implementing CGI during class: 1) conceptualizing, 2) articulating, 3) using multiple strategies, 4) questioning, and 5) scaffolding. These strategies were employed by all teachers, but were differentiated by each teacher to best meet the needs of the students.</p>

No description available.

Translocation programmes, particularly when using the release of a captive reared population, often fail in their efforts to create a self-sustaining population. High mortality after release is a key issue and often associated with behavioural, physiological and cognitive deficiencies between the released population and their wild counterparts. Mitigation of these deficiencies is essential for successful translocation programmes. I showed that pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) that were reared in more naturalistic conditions early in life were better suited to the natural environment after they were released into the wild. Post release survival was improved with exposure to more naturalistic diets prior to release. We identified four mechanisms to explain this. Pheasants reared with more naturalistic diets: 1) foraged for less time and had a higher likelihood of performing vigilance behaviours; 2) were quicker at handling live prey items; 3) were less reliant on supplementary feed which could be withdrawn; 4) developed different gut morphology. Consequently birds reduced the risk of predation by reducing exposure time whilst foraging, while allowing more time to be vigilant, were better at handling and discriminating natural food items and not solely reliant on supplementary feed and had a better gut system to cope with the natural forage. Post release survival was also improved when pheasants were reared with access to perches. We identified three mechanisms to explain this. Pheasants reared with access to perches had: 1) a physiology to better enable the birds to fly to the higher branches and cope with prolonged roosting; 2) a higher propensity to roost off the ground at night; and 3) more accurate spatial memory. Consequently, birds were at a reduced risk of terrestrial predation by roosting at night, and accurately remember their new environment upon release. I also showed that these manipulations did not compromise the welfare of the individuals prior to release, as often feared when trying to create a naturalistic environment to a captive population. An additional mechanism that can affect the success of a translocation programmes, operating at the level of the population, considers the optimality of the mixture of released individuals that can influence a release programme. The personality of birds within a released population, tested prior to release into the wild, influenced their fate and dispersal. I suggest a number of release mechanisms that would aid the survival of a diverse range of behavioural types that are essential for the production of a self-sustaining population in a fluctuating environment. I showed that harem size is strongly influenced by the vigilance behaviour of its constituent members. Despite a shared interest in increasing harem size, their optimal size is influenced by trade-offs in individual vigilance behaviour, resulting in relatively small harems, perhaps leading to females associating with less preferred males, and males being surrounded by fewer females than they could mate with. The aim of this study was to provide the background to future work trying to promote developments to allow for better reproductive success. I finally discussed these results and how they add to the current knowledge of captive-rearing and release, and examine the wider implications of my results from the pheasant rearing system for reintroduction biology. I calculate the likely costs of interventions and extrapolated the potential economic and environmental benefits of implementing changes to the current methods of rearing.

This thesis will demonstrate how prosopographical methods can be used to provide a narrative of social change for the Quraysh tribe of Late Antiquity. By applying these methods to records of their marriage behaviour, it will be shown that the pre-Islamic Quraysh led a far more marginal existence than is widely thought, and that in the post- Islamic period they were surprisingly flexible with regard to their marriage practices and ideas on group membership. The first three chapters focus on historiography and methodology. Chapter One introduces the methodological preliminaries that lie at the heart of this research; these concern the nature of the data, the manner in which it is extracted and the way it will be structured within databases. Issues regarding the quality and reliability of the marital records as preserved in the nasab (tr: genealogical) literary tradition are also discussed in this section. Chapter Two provides a historiography of the nasab tradition, paying particular attention to the nature of its emergence and the possible effects of social and cultural contexts on the quality of the marriage data. This provides the groundwork for Chapter Three which focuses more narrowly on the work from which most of our data are extracted – the Nasab Quraysh of al-Zubayrī (d. 851). The remaining five chapters outline how the data within the nasab tradition can be analysed and incorporated into existing secondary scholarship. Chapters Four and Five establish that the data show a rapid rise in concubinage at the same time as the Arab military conquests of the seventh century. This has implications for our current consensus on the nature of marriage and identity in the seventh and eighth centuries. Chapters Six to Eight investigate the marriages made by the Quraysh to Arab women in the sixth to eighth centuries, and will show how practice adapted to context. To conclude, it will be argued that this investigation not only establishes the high quality of the marriage data as preserved in the nasab tradition, but also the enormous potential of prosopographical methods when applied to the study of early Islamic history.