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This study informs research on how private speech, which is typically seen as a cognitive ability, is utilized during an emotion-eliciting task. This research helps to bridge the divide between cognitive and emotional aspects of children's self-regulation by integrating how cognitive private speech strategies may be used to regulate emotion. Preschool-aged children (n = 116) completed a frustration task. Emotional expressions (anger and sadness), emotion regulation strategies (distraction and self-comforting behaviors), persistence (latency to quit and duration of on-task behavior), and children's private speech were coded. Whereas higher levels of nonfacilitative task-relevant private speech were associated with higher levels of both sadness and anger, social speech was positively associated with sadness, and inaudible muttering was positively associated with anger. Private speech, specifically vocalizations and task-irrelevant private speech, was also positively associated with the regulation strategies of self-comforting and distraction. Facilitative task-relevant private speech, however, was negatively associated with distraction. Finally, higher levels of social speech were associated with less persistence, while higher levels of facilitative task-relevant private speech was associated with more persistence. Findings from this study support the idea that private speech can have a regulatory effect during frustrating situations that children experience. Private speech occurred alongside emotions and regulation strategies in meaningful ways. Including measures of private speech in future studies on emotion regulation will add more detail and depth to researchers' understanding of children's regulatory abilities. In the future, interventions could be created to encourage children's use of private speech to enhance their emotion regulatory abilities. / Master of Science

M.S.

This study was planned to allow nursery school children to select and paint at easels with any of three colors, red, blue and yellow. The specific purpose of the investigation was to discover color preference based on: 1. The predominant color of the finished painting. 2. The order of colors selected in the painting process. 3. The number of times a color is selected during the rendering of each painting 4. Interactions between a. Order of choice of color and age b. Order of choice of color and sex c. Order of choice of color, sex, and age. The studies of various investigators agree only in part and disagree entirely at some points. Jastrow found that boys preferred blue and girls preferred red, whereas Grath states almost the reverse, that boys preferred red more than girls, and that girls preferred orange more than boys. Fiege reports that boys preferred black and brown more than girls. / M.S.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

D. Litt et Phil. / The major objective of this study was to develop and to investigate the merit of a stimulation programme for improving the abilities of preschool children with delayed fine-motor and/or language development. There are many different kinds of programmes available for stimulating the abilities of preschool children. Teachers, home-schoolers and mothers utilise these to supplement the preschool curriculum for their preschool children. It is believed that children with developmental delays are at risk for formal education and that stimulation can offset these delays ensuring that children are able to actualise their potential. An intervention programme was designed with the aim of improving school readiness abilities in children. Although many research studies support educational stimulation, to date, insufficient attention has been paid to researching stimulation programmes of this kind. Subtests from Sonnekus and Le Roux’s Group Test for the Evaluation of School Readiness were selected for the screening test. Subtests were selected to identify children with fine-motor and/or language delays. Two hundred and twenty-five children of five years of age turning six years during the course of the year were screen-tested at four different schools. Forty-three children achieving the lowest scores on the screening test at two of the most homogeneous schools in terms of socio-economic grouping were allocated to the experimental or control groups of the Pretest-Posttest Control Group design. The experimental group consisted of 21 participants and the control group, of 22 participants. Quantitative analysis involved determining statistically significant differences between pre-intervention and post-intervention test scores on the six subscales of the Revised Griffiths Scales of Mental Development and the Draw-a-Person test for the two groups of preschool children identified as fine-motor and/or language delayed. The effect of the intervention was also examined on male and female children separately. The male to female ratios were: Group 1: 15:6 and Group 2: 14:8. Overall, the gender ratio was 67,4 % male to 32,6 % female. The programme of stimulation includes vocabulary and language, eye and hand co-ordination, visual and auditory perceptual training, numerical and alphabetical stimulation, and reasoning skills. It was designed for implementation over 20 sessions, each of an hour in duration. The programme was completed in a school term, three sessions per school week for six weeks and two in the seventh week. The intervention programme was effective in improving certain school readiness abilities of children with delays in language and/or fine-motor co-ordination. The following statistically significant results were obtained: With regard to all the children exposed to the intervention programme, improved scores were obtained on the Personal-Social and Eye-Hand Co-ordination subscales of the Griffiths Scales and the Draw-a-Person test for the children. Negative scores were obtained on the Locomotor Scale. For male children, the intervention programme improved the scores on the Speech and Hearing and Eye and Hand Co-ordination subscales of the Griffiths Scales and Draw-a-Person test. Regarding female children, the intervention programme improved the scores on the Eye and Hand Co-ordination subscale of the Griffiths Scales and the Draw-a-Person test. Negative results were obtained on the Locomotor subscale for female children. The gender differences obtained confirm that differences exist between the genders at this stage of development. Consistent positive results were obtained on the Eye and Hand Co-ordination subscale of the Griffiths Scales and the Draw-a-Person test. The Eye and Hand Co-ordination subscale is a measure of visual-motor co-ordination. The Draw-a-Person test reveals the progression in intellectual development toward greater conceptual complexity and maturity. The intervention programme thus contributed to the school readiness abilities of the children. Generalisation of findings is limited for two main reasons. Original settings can never be replicated in educational research and extraneous variables (some measureable and some unknown) may have influenced outcomes. The study was finally evaluated using Payne’s (1994) model of programme evaluation and the Program Evaluation Standards (Sanders, 1994). Regarding Payne’s (1994) model of programme evaluation which involved an evaluation of the research design, data collection, data analysis, results and cost effectiveness, the study can be judged positively. A single negative aspect was the lack of pilot testing which would have served the researcher better in planning for more effective implementation. Positive affirmation for the study was further obtained in applying the Program Evaluation Standards (Sanders, 1994) of Utility, Feasibility, Propriety and Accuracy. This study endorses the belief that preschool development is best promoted by varied educational stimulation within a recognised preschool programme guided by qualified teachers. It is hoped that the development, quantitative analysis and assessment of this intervention programme has contributed to this most important field of preschool intervention and will serve to encourage further research in this area.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 121-127). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Auburn University. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 98-114).