This essay aims to explain Finnish students’ acquisition of Swedish as a second language: the focal point is the learners’ use of the possessive personal pronouns (hennes, hans and deras) and the possessive reflexive pronouns (sin, sitt and sina), and the placement of the Swedish negation in subordinate clauses. The theoretical background for the analysis of these linguistic structures is the Processability theory. This thesis suggests that the pronouns, which have not been earlier investigated through the Processability theory, are a part of the stage 4 of the theory, whilst the placement of negation in subordinate clauses is part of the stage 5. The basis for this thesis is a survey made in a secondary school in the north of Sweden and an upper secondary school in the north of Finland in autumn 2016. In other words two different groups of students have participated in the survey: one group studying Swedish as a second language in Sweden and one group studying Swedish as a foreign language in Finland. The analysis shows no linguistic differences between these two groups and for this reason there is no distinction made between them. The results reveal that the possessive personal pronouns are slightly more overused than the possessive reflexive pronouns. However, the results show that those students who have not commenced to process level 4 have not either began to process level 5. The learners’ utilization of the negation placement suggests that they first learn the preverbal placement of the negation in a main verb and afterwards the preverbal placement of a negation in an auxiliary verb. The results and conclusions given in this essay may be of some interest for other teachers and educational researchers.

The PEAK Relational Training System's Direct Training Module was examined to determine age appropriate development norm ages in which to compare to persons with disabilities. Fifty-one typically developing children between ages of 2-18 were scored for the PEAK direct training assessment module by novel implementers (parents, caregivers) as well as professional educational teachers and administrators. Assessment implementation brought scores from fourteen different adult individuals and fifty-one different children's assessment forms for this study. The inter-rater reliability showed consistency of results with the relationship between Peak and age. Inter-rater agreement had a high degree of agreement through the same age, male or female, grade levels with student assessments on the PEAK rating pyramid. These subjective reports may be related and have one advantage that data results may be displayed conveniently in graphical form. The results suggest that there was no correlation between PEAK Total Scores and sex with R-Squared of .49, and produced a significant fit to the data (p < .001). Total PEAK by Age Group with an One Way Anova being: F(4,45) = 23.57, p < .001 suggest that the differences between ages in terms of PEAK total Score was significant.

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Teachers of students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often struggle to find effective instructional methods to use with their students on a daily basis. The characteristic verbal, social, and behavioral limitations of children with ASD make finding effective teaching methods difficult. Though some intensive intervention methods, such as discrete trial teaching (DTT), have numerous studies demonstrating their effectiveness with students with ASD, the required one-on-one format makes it impractical to use in a classroom setting on a regular basis. Direct Instruction (DI) appears in the literature as a promising intervention for students with developmental disabilities. One benefit of DI is that, unlike DTT and similar interventions, it can be implemented in a group format. This group format provides a practical alternative for classroom teachers to use with their students with ASD. This study utilized a multiple probe across behaviors design to further investigate the use of DI to teach high school students with ASD how to answer “wh-” questions. The researcher used the Science Research Associates (SRA) Reading Mastery language program, which is a DI program designed to develop language skills. Three participants between the ages of 15 and 17 participated in 20-25 minute instructional sessions four times a week for eight weeks. Data were collected on each participant’s accuracy in answering “wh-” questions during baseline, acquisition (teaching), and maintenance conditions. The results indicate that DI was effective in helping participants acquire the language skills necessary to accurately respond to “what,” “where," and “who” questions. Implications for small group language instruction for students with ASD and recommendations for future research are discussed. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This diploma thesis focuses on integration of pupils with different maternal language to Czech primary schools. It concludes legislation of integration of foreign pupils in the Czech Republic. It suggests methodology and activities that can help foreign pupils to integrate to Czech school environment. It describes unsuccessful proces of integration as well. Practical part of this thesis is a case study that describes conception of integration in concrete primary school. KEY WORDS Integration of pupils with different maternal language, adaptation to different socio- cultural environment, individual approach, methodology of integration, inslusion, foreign pupil, Czech as the second language