The following study looks to examine the effect of an iPad application on the English Language Arts (ELA) skills of listening comprehension for students with significant disabilities. The procedure was evaluated using a multiple probe across participants single case design. Outcomes were measured for improved ELA skills after intervention and were also measured for student engagement. Building upon the research of recent studies that have sought to develop and adapt grade-level literature for students with moderate and severe disabilities, this study seeks to find the effectiveness of an adapted text version of To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee for high school students diagnosed with intellectual disability and/or autism. The implementation of this adapted text included evidenced-based supports such as time delay, the system of least prompts and picture supports taught in conjunction with the use of the iPad application. The need for future research and implications for practice will be discussed.

Medicine has been called a science, as well as an art or a craft, among other terms that express aspects of its practical nature. Medicine is not the abstract pursuit of knowledge. Medical researchers and clinical practitioners aim primarily to help people. As a first approximation then, given its practical focus on the person, the most important question in medicine is: what works? To answer that question, however, we need to understand how we know what works. What are the standards, methods and limits of medical knowledge? That is the central focus and subject of this inquiry: how we know what works in medicine. To explore medical knowledge and its limits, this thesis examines the common notion that laughter is the best medicine. Focusing on laughter provides a robust case study of how we know what works in medicine; it also, in part, reveals the thin, perhaps even non-existent, distinction in medicine between empirically-grounded knowledge and intuition. As there is no single academic discipline devoted to laughter in medicine, the first chapter situates and charts the course of this unusual project and explains why inquiry into laughter in medicine matters. In the following chapters, we encounter claims from distinguished sources that laughter and humor are the best medicine. These claims are examined from a variety of perspectives including not only the orthodox view of evidence-based medicine, but also from narrative, evolutionary and complexity views of medicine. The rarely explored serious negative side of laughter is also examined. No view provides a firm foundation for belief in laughter medicine. A general conclusion from this inquiry is that none of the approaches effectively tame the complexity of medical phenomena; indeed each starkly reveals a greater complexity than found at first glance. A narrower conclusion is that providing a basis for claims about laughter in medicine poses its own specific challenges. A third conclusion is that, as things stand, none of the existing approaches seems up to the task of determining whether something such as laughter is the best medicine.

Medicine has been called a science, as well as an art or a craft, among other terms that express aspects of its practical nature. Medicine is not the abstract pursuit of knowledge. Medical researchers and clinical practitioners aim primarily to help people. As a first approximation then, given its practical focus on the person, the most important question in medicine is: what works? To answer that question, however, we need to understand how we know what works. What are the standards, methods and limits of medical knowledge? That is the central focus and subject of this inquiry: how we know what works in medicine. To explore medical knowledge and its limits, this thesis examines the common notion that laughter is the best medicine. Focusing on laughter provides a robust case study of how we know what works in medicine; it also, in part, reveals the thin, perhaps even non-existent, distinction in medicine between empirically-grounded knowledge and intuition. As there is no single academic discipline devoted to laughter in medicine, the first chapter situates and charts the course of this unusual project and explains why inquiry into laughter in medicine matters. In the following chapters, we encounter claims from distinguished sources that laughter and humor are the best medicine. These claims are examined from a variety of perspectives including not only the orthodox view of evidence-based medicine, but also from narrative, evolutionary and complexity views of medicine. The rarely explored serious negative side of laughter is also examined. No view provides a firm foundation for belief in laughter medicine. A general conclusion from this inquiry is that none of the approaches effectively tame the complexity of medical phenomena; indeed each starkly reveals a greater complexity than found at first glance. A narrower conclusion is that providing a basis for claims about laughter in medicine poses its own specific challenges. A third conclusion is that, as things stand, none of the existing approaches seems up to the task of determining whether something such as laughter is the best medicine.

Att hantera konsekvenserna av klimatförändringarna är en av mänsklighetens störstautmaningar. Forskare, förespråkare och andra aktörer har länge försökt kommunicera tillallmänheten om klimatförändringar, men det tycks vara svårare än väntat. En paradox haruppstått som innebär att ju mer fakta som presenteras, desto mindre oro. Ett tydligt exempelpå var och hur det kan komma till uttryck är i medier. Ytterligare en global utmaning är denpågående covid-19-pandemin. I ett tidigt skede observerade vi att medierapporteringen påolika sätt började koppla samman covid-19-pandemin med klimatförändringarna. Syftet meddenna studie är att undersöka hur klimatkommunikationen tar sig uttryck under covid-19-pandemin via debattartiklar. Metoden för undersökningen var en latent innehållsanalys ochresultatet analyserades med hjälp av Per Espen Stoknes modell om de fem psykologiskabarriärerna samt teori om strategier inom klimatkommunikation. Resultatet visar attklimatkommunikationen uttrycktes på olika sätt genom både barriärer och strategier, men attkommunikationen till överhängande del uttrycktes genom strategier. Studien kan ökaförståelsen för hur klimatförändringar kan kommuniceras för att skapa klimatengagemangoch kan därmed fungera som en språngbräda för fortsatt forskning. / Dealing with the consequences of climate change is one of humanity's greatest challenges.Researchers, advocates and other actors have long tried to communicate to the public aboutclimate change, but it seems to be more difficult than expected. A paradox has arisen whichmeans that the more facts that are presented, the less concern. A clear example of where andhow it can be expressed is in the media. Another global challenge is the ongoing covid-19pandemic. At an early stage, we began to observe how different types of media started to linkthe covid-19 pandemic to climate change. Based on the background of climatecommunication and this observation, the purpose of this study is to investigate how climatecommunication is expressed during the covid-19 pandemic via debate articles. A latentcontent analysis was performed and the results was analyzed with Per Espen Stoknes modelon the five psychological barriers and theory on strategies in climate communication. Theresults show that climate communication was expressed in different ways through bothbarriers and strategies, but mainly through strategies. The study can further increase theunderstanding of how climate change can be communicated to create climate commitmentand can thus serve as a springboard for further research.

The purpose of this study was to investigate and determine the effectiveness of teaching an English Language Learner (ELL) teacher to use a task analysis comprising story-based lessons with cultural contextual literature to promote emergent literacy skills for a middle school-aged Hispanic ELL student with an intellectual disability (ID). Using a single-case multiple probes across skill sets design, one student with an ID and an ELL teacher participated in this study. The student was taught by the ELL teacher using story-based lessons with cultural contextual literature to promote emergent literacy skills. Results indicated a functional relation between story-based lessons with cultural contextual literature and emergent literacy skills. Future research needs to be carried out across multiple participants in varying age groups. Implications for practice and limitations will also be highlighted.

This essay uses frame analysis to study changes in the descriptions of the hymen in Swedish printed press from 1989-2015. The study shows that the traditional story about the hymen has significant power in the dominant culture and affects the idea of what the hymen is and what is believed to be its functions. The study also showcases how our ideas about the hymen are socially constructed since the descriptions can shift widely but still be considered as the truth. The concept of the hymen has gone through a change over time, from a story of a hymen that breaks during first intercourse, to the hymen being a myth that doesn’t exist at all, to then emerge into the idea of the vaginal corona – another version of a hymen that is different from the traditional image. The study also shows that the traditional frame for describing the hymen does live on, and that the vaginal corona has not replaced the idea of the traditional hymen.