Bakalauro darbe analizuojami bendrieji vaikų kalbos raidos dėsningumai ir neišplėtotos kalbos samprata bei jos ugdymo gairės. Tyrimo tikslas – atskleisti, kaip vyresniojo ikimokyklinio amžiaus neišplėtotos bei nesutrikusios kalbos vaikai geba skirti kalbos leksinį, gramatinį bei fonologinį taisyklingumą. / Bachelor thesis analyzes the common patterns of children's language development and concept of underdeveloped speech and its development guidelines.The aim was to reveal how senior preschool aged children with underdeveloped and developed speech are able to distinguish language lexical, grammatical and phonological regularities of language.

There is minimal research into behavioural interventions for typically developing preschoolers (2-5 years of age) with sleep problems. Often these children are not considered as a distinct developmental group and are incorporated into sleep intervention studies for infants or school-aged children. Yet preschoolers do differ in their language, social and cognitive abilities. The present study examines an intervention tailored to the developmental abilities of four preschool children with sleep problems. It utilised positive reinforcement in order to create a less restrictive intervention than those based on extinction alone. This was combined with a range of other behavioural strategies such as parental presence, standard and graduated extinction to reduce a variety of sleep problems. Problems targeted included bedtime refusal, co-sleeping, night waking and a possible diagnosis of sleep terrors. Behavioural interventions effectively reduced sleep problems in all four participants. Parental report demonstrated acceptance of strategies implemented and satisfaction in intervention outcomes.

The aim of this study was to investigate how preschool teachers think about preschool science, what they consider science to be and how they deal with specific curricular objectives related to science. Science is a part of our everyday life, it is a prerequisite for understanding everyday phenomena and how the world is working. Nevertheless it is often dropped in favour of other subjects in Swedish preschools. The eight preschool teachers participating in this study are all working in the same municipality in the western part of Sweden with children aged 1- 5 years. The method used in this study was interviews. The interviews were recorded to facilitate the transcriptions. The results show that preschool teachers find that science is an important subject that should be introduced to the children early on in life. They also show that preschool teachers consider science to have a preventive effect on the learning to the children, and it is needed for them to understand everyday processes and phenomena. When working with the curricular objectives linked to science, the result show that preschool teachers perceive nature as an asset to develop the children’s knowledge and interest for scientific concepts. Factors that impact the work with science in preschool could, according to the educators, be lack of knowledge, the children’s age or their attitude towards the subject. Conclusions that can be drawn from this study are that preschool teachers draw on the children’s interests when teaching science. They also find it important to use the correct terms at an early stage. / Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur förskollärare tänker kring naturvetenskap i förskolan, vad de anser att naturvetenskap är och hur de arbetar med specifika läroplansmål som är kopplade till naturvetenskap. Naturvetenskap är en del av vår vardag, den behövs för att förstå vardagliga fenomen och hur världen fungerar, ändå väljs den i svenska förskolor oftast bort till förmån för andra ämnen. De åtta förskollärare som deltog i studien arbetade i samma kommun i Västsverige med barn i åldrarna ett till fem år. Metoden som användes var intervju. Intervjuerna spelades in vilket underlättade efterarbetet. Resultatet visar att förskollärare anser att naturvetenskap är ett viktigt ämne som bör introduceras för barnen tidigt i livet. Det visar också att förskollärare anser att naturvetenskap har en förebyggande betydelse för barnen och den behövs för att kunna förstå vardagliga processer. Vid arbetet utifrån läroplansmålen som är kopplade till naturvetenskap, visar resultatet att förskollärare ser naturen som en tillgång för att utveckla barnens kunskaper och intressen för naturvetenskapliga begrepp. Faktorer som påverkar arbetet med naturvetenskap i förskolan kunde enligt förskollärarna vara kunskapsbrist, barnens ålder eller barnens attityd. Slutsatser som kan dras utifrån studien är att förskollärare utgår från barnens intressen i naturvetenskapligt arbete. De anser också att det är viktigt att benämna med de rätta begreppen.

Individual differences in early literacy skills can be attributed to children’s previous history of emergent literacy experiences during their preschool years. The purpose of this qualitative study was to learn about the emergent literacy experiences of one Libyan American preschooler and one Syrian American preschooler and how their families support these experiences in their bilingual homes. Through the lens of social theory of learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) and sociocultural theory (Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky, 1978), this multi-case study was designed to explore family literacy practices with a preschooler in a naturalistic setting. The questions guiding this study were: (1) How did the texts, tools, and technologies available in two bilingual home settings impact the emergent literacy practices of a Libyan American child and a Syrian American child? (2) What support did family members provide for these two children as they developed emergent literacy practices in their bilingual home settings? Data sources included a demographic questionnaire, digital-recordings of family literacy practices with a preschooler, audio-recorded in-depth interviews with the parents, home visits, the preschoolers’ writing samples, and photographs of literacy activities, materials, and the home environment. The recorded family literacy practices and interviews were transcribed and analyzed to identify emerging themes. Both within-case analysis and cross-case analysis were conducted. Findings revealed that the preschoolers in both families use a multimodal process such as talking, drawing, singing, chanting, recitation, technologies, and sociodramatic play in their daily literacy experiences. The parents are not concerned with teaching their children specific literacy skills; but they naturally use techniques for keeping them on task and questioning skills to enhance oral language and comprehension development. These families’ home literacy practices are Americanized by living in the mainstream social group, and English is frequently used among the family members. However, their bilingualism and religious literacy practices enrich and vary their children’s emergent literacy experiences and their family literacy practices. The significance of this study resides in the importance of getting to know individual families’ backgrounds to better understand and respect the cultural practices of family literacy.

An understanding of ownership is an important aspect of child development because it helps to promote harmonious social interactions. People are typically restricted from using objects belonging to others. Respecting others’ ownership rights is necessary for socially appropriate behaviour. Because of the frequent property disputes that children engage in, it might be expected that preschoolers’ appreciation for ownership is limited and that adult input is needed to teach children about ownership rights. In three experiments, I demonstrate the opposite. Preschoolers value ownership rights more strongly than do adults and support ownership rights in property entitlement disputes between a possessor and an owner. An additional two experiments demonstrate that although children strongly value ownership rights above other principles of entitlement, they show some flexibility in their reasoning about ownership rights when provided with sufficiently compelling reasons to consider disregarding these rights. These findings show developmental differences in children’s ability to determine when ownership rights should be disregarded. Older children and adults disregard ownership rights when they are provided with compelling enough reasons do so, whereas younger children often uphold owners’ rights to the exclusion of all other factors. Together, these studies challenge the intuitive view that children learn about ownership from adult input. Rather than strengthening children’s appreciation of ownership rights, adult input may serve to teach children about situations where it is socially appropriate to disregard ownership.

This thesis examined relations between preschoolers's oppositional strategies and their social cognitive skills and behavioral competence. There is a gap between theoretical formulation and empirical investigation regarding children's oppositional behaviors in the literature. Although positive functions of oppositional behavior have been proposed by theorists, research has focused primarily on its negative nature. The present study intended to show that opposition was not a homogeneous construct and that certain noncompliant strategies were not destructive but rather healthy and desirable. Forty-nine mothers and their preschool children (age 3 to 5) participated. Mother-child interaction data were collected using naturalistic observation in a structured setting. Children's oppositional strategies were classified into four categories: aversive opposition (e.g., temper tantrums), passive noncompliance (e.g., ignoring), simple refusal, and negotiation. While social cognitive skills (perspective-taking and social problem-solving) were measured through experiments, behavioral competence was indexed using a questionnaire filled by day-care teachers. The data were analyzed using correlation and regression procedures. Results showed that aversive opposition was more likely to be seen in the children who were less able to see other's feelings and to generate problem-solving solutions, and who were less competent in a day-care setting. Passive noncompliance was more likely employed by the children who did poorly at a day-care setting, however, they were not necessarily deficient in social cognitive skills. Negotiators were more likely to be the children who were better at affective role-taking and social problem-solving and were more competent in a day-care setting. Finally, simple refusal had a weak and ambiguous relation to social cognition and competence. These results and their implications were discussed in the light of the existing literature on children's opposition. / Graduate

Background: The first five years of life, called the early years is a period of rapid and vital physical, behavioural, emotional and social development. Physical activity (PA) is one of the behaviours which develop during the early years, and high levels of PA during the early years have been shown to be related to multiple health outcomes. The importance of PA of young children (children during the early years) has been highlighted by a number of national governments. In order to better inform future interventions and public health policies, a greater understanding of the correlates and determinants of young children s PA is vital. Previous research has been limited through measurement inconsistencies, and few studies have been conducted within multi-ethnic communities, where many young children in the United Kingdom are born. Thesis Aims: 1) to systematically review published research in order to establish currently known correlates and determinants of PA in the early years and identify gaps within the literature. 2) Calculate an accelerometer wear-time criteria to reliably measure young children s habitual PA. 3) Investigate the validity and test re-test reliability of a new parental proxy reported PA questionnaire. 4) Investigate the levels and correlates of moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) in toddlers (1-3 year olds) from a predominately bi-ethnic and bi-linguistic population. Methods: Aim 1) nine electronic databases were searched to identify previous research which investigated associations between an exposure/variable, and a quantitative measure of PA. Correlates/determinants of total PA (TPA), MVPA and light-intensity PA (LPA) were reported using an ecologic model. Aim 2) to calculate a wear-time criteria for young children a simple stepped process was used whereby statistical tests were run to determine the minimum length of wear for one day, if there were any differences between weekdays and weekend days, and the presence of reactivity. Intra-class correlation models and the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula were used to calculate wear-time reliability. Aim 3) this study was undertaken by 196 parents completing a proxy report questionnaire on their child s PA and sedentary behaviour after seven days of their young child (mean age 3.2 ,SD: 0.8 years) wearing an accelerometer. A total of 156 (79.6%) questionnaires were completed in English and 40 (20.4%) were completed in transliterated Urdu. Of the 196 parents, 109 parents completed the EY-PAQ a second time seven days apart from the first EY-PAQ completion; this was to assess test re-test reliability of MVPA and sedentary time. Validity analysis used all data and data falling with specific proportion boundaries for MVPA (2%-41%) and sedentary time (30%-94%). Reliability was assessed using intra-class correlations (ICC) and validity by Bland Altman plots and rank correlation coefficients. Aim 4) this study was undertaken by conducting a cross-sectional analysis using 24 month olds and their mothers data collected as part of the Born in Bradford (BiB) birth cohort sub-sample study called BiB1000. The outcome variable was daily minutes of MVPA measured by the EY-PAQ. Numerous independent variables covering the layers of an ecological model were selected. Univariate linear regression models accounting for sex, age, language and season were conducted to examine the differences between White British and South Asian children s daily minutes of MVPA and each of the EY-PAQ s domains, and the proportion of time spent in MVPA within each of the EY-PAQ s domains. A series of univariate linear regression analyses were performed to examine and identify correlates of MVPA (for the whole sample, and separately for White British and South Asian children). Significant variables found in univariate analyses were then included in hierarchical multivariable regression models (based upon the ecological model), in order to examine the percentage of variance accounted for in daily minutes of MVPA. Results: Aim 1) The systematic review identified a large volume of published research. All studies took place in high income countries and few studies (6%) were of high quality. A small number of correlates and determinants of TPA were identified. The only correlate of MVPA was sex and no determinants of MVPA or LPA were found. PA correlates/ determinants were relatively consistent between objective and subjective PA measures and few studies investigated correlates of toddlers or between children with White and South Asian ethnicity. Aim 2) No differences in accelerometer-determined time in TPA, MVPA or sedentary time were observed between weekdays and weekend days within this sample of young children. Similarly, there was no evidence of reactivity to accelerometer use. For young children living in Bradford, an accelerometer wear-time of a minimum of six hours on any three days was shown to provide reliable estimates of accelerometer-determined time in TPA, MVPA, and sedentary time. Aim 3) The test re-test reliability of the EY-PAQ was moderate for sedentary time and fair for MVPA. The EY-PAQ had poor agreement with accelerometry with both sedentary time and MVPA before the application of boundaries. Post application of boundaries the EY-PAQ still had poor agreement with accelerometer-determined sedentary time but good agreement for MVPA. Limits of agreement were wide for all variables and language and ethnicity did not confound results. Aim 4) Bradford toddlers were found to be very active and no difference was observed between proxy-reported time spent in MVPA between White British and South Asian children. However, White British toddlers were found to have spent significantly more time in reported MVPA while walking for transport compared to South Asian toddlers; while South Asian toddlers reportedly spent significantly more time of MVPA in the home compared to White British toddlers. Correlate models were only statistically significant when multi-layers of the ecological model were included; and correlates differed for South Asian and White British children. Conclusions: There is a need for more high-quality studies exploring correlates/determinants across all layers of the ecologic model, and research investigating MVPA correlates/determinants of toddlers and between ethnicities is sparse. The work reported within this thesis has produced a reliable wear-time criterion for use to estimate accelerometer-determined PA and sedentary time in young children living in a bi-ethnic community. This criterion can now be used in future accelerometer studies (validation, observational and intervention) and the stepped-process offers researchers a method to derive sample-specific wear time criteria. The EY-PAQ is a promising habitual population-level measure of young children s MVPA from a bi-ethnic community. In situations when objective methods are not possible for measurement of young children s MVPA, the EY-PAQ may be a suitable alternative. Levels of toddlers MVPA did not differ by ethnicity but the contexts and correlates did. Therefore, future interventions should seek to maintain and maximise high levels of toddlers MVPA and tailor interventions by ethnicity. The research conducted within this thesis will inform the development of surveillance systems, interventions and public health polices to improve young children s PA levels, particularly children living in a bi-ethnic community.

xviii, 147 p. A print copy of this title is available from the UO Libraries, under the call number: KNIGHT LB1131 .P64 2008 / Identifying children with developmental delays or disabilities as early as possible is a growing concern and has increased focus on the development of valid, reliable screening tools. The previous editions of the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ) have been investigated and found to be valid and reliable for screening children at risk for delay and in need of further evaluation. This study examined the psychometric properties of a newly revised third edition, including the utility of the addition of a "monitor" scoring category with preschool age children. Participants included 59 child/parent dyads ages 45-65 months with either no known risk factors ( n = 39) or one or more risk factors ( n = 20). Results from data analyses evaluating the psychometric properties were promising. Validity was investigated by examining concurrent validity using the Battelle Developmental Inventory, 2 nd Edition (BDI-2). Classifications (i.e., "typically developing" or "identified") of child's performance based on the domain scores of the ASQ were compared to the classifications of the child's performance based on total developmental quotient scores of the BDI-2. Percentage of agreement between classifications (91%) was computed. Based on BDI-2 and ASQ agreement, specificity was 91%, sensitivity 100%, and positive predictive value 20%. Reliability was examined with test-retest, inter-observer, and internal consistency. Intraclass correlations (ICC) and percent agreement were used to calculate test-retest and inter-observer reliability. ICC for test-retest ranged from .29 to a .88 when comparing individual domain scores from time one to time two. Percent agreement was calculated by comparing classifications at time one to classifications at time two, with 96% agreement. ICC for inter-observer reliability ranged from .22 to 1.00, with a percent agreement of 100%. Internal consistency means were calculated at: communication .66, gross motor.70, fine motor.52, problem solving .35, and personal-social .61. Results from the analyses addressing the utility of a "monitor" scoring category and using learning activities suggested that (a) parents and teachers found the activities easy to understand and use, and (b) the learning activities would be effective with a child scoring in this category. / Adviser: Jane K. Squires

Selective attention refers to the ability to enhance the processing of relevant stimuli, while suppressing the processing of irrelevant distractors. The neural mechanisms of selective attention are vulnerable in children from lower socioeconomic status families, yet these neural mechanisms can also be enhanced with evidence-based, targeted training. The series of studies presented in this dissertation investigated the individual differences in development and neuroplasticity of selective auditory attention in association with nonverbal cognitive abilities, in relation to genetic influences, and in the context of gene x intervention interactions. To this end, a multi-method approach was adopted, combining several methodologies such as event-related potentials (ERPs), behavioral measures, molecular genetics, and a randomized, controlled intervention design. In the first study, individual differences in neural mechanisms of selective auditory attention were studied, in association with nonverbal cognitive abilities. More robust ERP selective attention effects were associated with superior nonverbal IQ performance. These results indicated a noteworthy relationship between neural mechanisms of selective attention and nonverbal IQ performance in lower socioeconomic status (SES) preschoolers. In the second study, the relationship between 5-HTTLPR polymorphism and neural mechanisms of selective auditory attention was assessed. ERPs of selective attention effect were larger in children who carried at least one short allele of 5-HTTLPR, in comparison to long-homozygotes. These results associated being homozygous for the long allele with weaker neural mechanisms of selective attention in lower SES children. In the third study, these genetic influences were investigated in the context of an effective family-based training program previously shown to improve neural mechanisms of selective attention in lower SES preschoolers. The long-homozygote children, who initially displayed more attenuated ERPs of selective auditory attention than their short-carrier peers, showed robust ERPs of selective attention at posttest, but only if they were randomly assigned to the training program. These findings demonstrated that an effective family-based training could moderate the genetic influences of 5-HTTLPR on the neural mechanisms of selective attention. Taken together, the studies presented in this dissertation contribute to elucidating individual differences in development and neuroplasticity of selective auditory attention in lower SES preschoolers. This dissertation includes unpublished co-authored material.

abstract: Research suggests that some children with primary language impairment (PLI) have difficulty with certain aspects of executive function; however, most studies examining executive function have been conducted using tasks that require children to use language to complete the task. As a result, it is unclear whether poor performance on executive function tasks was due to language impairment, to executive function deficits, or both. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether preschoolers with PLI have deficits in executive function by comprehensively examining inhibition, updating, and mental set shifting using tasks that do and do not required language to complete the tasks. Twenty-two four and five-year-old preschoolers with PLI and 30 age-matched preschoolers with typical development (TD) completed two sets of computerized executive function tasks that measured inhibition, updating, and mental set shifting. The first set of tasks were language based and the second were visually-based. This permitted us to test the hypothesis that poor performance on executive function tasks results from poor executive function rather than language impairment. A series of one-way analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) were completed to test whether there was a significant between-group difference on each task after controlling for attention scale scores. In each analysis the between-group factor was group and the covariate was attention scale scores. Results showed that preschoolers with PLI showed difficulties on a broad range of linguistic and visual executive function tasks even with scores on an attention measure covaried. Executive function deficits were found for linguistic inhibition, linguistic and visual updating, and linguistic and visual mental set shifting. Overall, findings add to evidence showing that the executive functioning deficits of children with PLI is not limited to the language domain, but is more general in nature. Implications for early assessment and intervention will be discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Speech and Hearing Science 2015