Autonomy is a critical component of early childhood with important implications for children’s competence and well-being (e.g., Erikson, 1963; Mahler, Pine & Bergman, 1975; Sroufe & Rutter, 1984). Although parental autonomy support is associated with the development of early autonomy (e.g., Endsley, Hutcherson, Garner & Martin, 1979; Frodi, Bridges & Grolnick, 1985; Landry, Smith, Swank & Miller-Loncar, 2000), the mechanisms underlying these associations are largely unexplored. Mothers’ emotions and the affective climate of parent-child interactions may be critical factors by which parenting influences early autonomy. This study (a) examined the degree to which discrete, naturally occurring maternal emotions regulate four indicators of autonomy during toddlerhood: co-regulated goal-directed behavior, low aimlessness, self-assertion, and positive initiative, (b) explored mechanisms through which maternal emotion exerts an influence on children’s autonomous behaviors, and (c) isolated the contribution of mothers’ emotions to children’s autonomous behaviors over that of mothers’ autonomy-supportive behavior. Several important findings emerged. First, maternal emotions, both felt and expressed, were related to children’s autonomous behaviors--mostly in ways predicted by emotion and relationship theories. In general, mothers’ frequent joy and infrequent anger, sadness, and fear predicted high autonomy. Second, the affective climate of mothers’ interactions with their toddlers predicted children’s autonomous behaviors over and above mothers’ autonomy-supportive behavior, suggesting that parental emotion is a unique aspect of autonomy support. Finally, different forms of early autonomy were predicted by different emotions in mothers, emphasizing the complexity of autonomy and the need to better define and measure this construct. / text

The purpose with this study was to find out about the preschool toddler’s peer-cultures. I also wanted to understand how these peer-cultures were shown. My questions are as following: What is it that the children interpretive and reproduce in their play? How do children gain access to play? How do children exclude each other? What position of status can be seen in children´s play? I used observations as the method to find the answer to these questions. These observations where implemented during five occasions at two different preschools. Through these observations I have been able to see that peer cultures do exist among these children and that children uses different strategies to get access to play and to exclude one another. The children exclude others by simply telling: no you cannot play with us. To get access to the play, children used to circle the interaction and then use a nonverbal entry. Teachers must be aware of the fact that children with higher status wants to decide over the others, which been clear to me during this study. With this knowledge teachers will be able to prevent children from exclusion at all time. / Mitt examensarbete handlar om kamratkulturer på småbarnsavdelningen, alltså barnen i åldern 1-3 år. Jag ville se hur kamratkulturer visade sig bland dessa barn. Mina frågeställningar var:  Vad är det barnen tolkar och reproducerar i sin lek?  Hur gör barn för att få tillträde till lek?  Vilka olika uteslutningsmetoder använder barn?  Vilka statuspositioner syns i leken? För att ta reda på detta använde jag mig av observation som metod. Dessa observationer genomfördes vid 5 tillfällen på två olika förskolor. Genom dessa observationer har jag sett att kamratkulturer förekommer bland de yngsta barnen. Jag har kunnat se att barnen använder sig av olika strategier till tillträde samt olika metoder till uteslutning. Barnen utesluter genom att antingen säga: ”nej du får inte vara med” eller att putta bort barnet som utesluts. Det fanns även strategier för tillträde, där det var vanligast att barnen gjorde en icke-verbal entré i samband med att de omringade lekutrymmet. Det har även blivit tydlig för mig att det barn som har högre status i gruppen bestämmer och det gäller då för pedagogerna att vara medvetna om detta. Genom detta kan vi hjälpa barn att inte alltid bli uteslutna.

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The value of post-infancy breast feeding for growth and nutrition has been the subject of debate and controversy. We followed a cohort of 264 western Kenyan children for six months prospectively (mean age 14 months at baseline) to investigate the influence of breast. feeding on growth. Only 14 (5%) children had been weaned by enrolment, and 173 (66%) were still breast feeding at follow-up. For analysis, children were classified into three groups of breast feeding duration as a proportion of the study: 0--49% (n = 42), 50--99% (n = 49), and 100% (n = 173). General Linear Models procedures were used for multivariate analysis. Adjusted means showed that children in the longest breast feeding group gained 3.4 cm (p < 0.001) and 360 g (p < 0.01) more than those in the shortest breast feeding group, and 0.7 cm and 230 g (p < 0.05) more than children in the intermediate group. The greatest benefits of breast feeding for linear growth were observed in households that had no latrine and whose water consumption was below 10 L/person/day. Our results support the recommendation that children in developing countries be breast-fed for at least two years.

Examining responses to violations of communication may provide insight into children’s communicative competencies not apparent during reciprocal interactions. In this study, the caregivers of 18-month-old typically developing children, 30-month-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and 30-month-old children with Down syndrome followed our suggestion to playfully violate communication with their children in two contexts: requesting and social interacting. Caregivers of children with ASD made fewer bids and violations, which their children accepted less often than typically developing children; they also used instrumental behaviors more often when responding. Children with Down syndrome responded to their caregivers similarly to typically developing children, and used more high-level communicative behaviors in the requesting, versus social interacting, context. This study highlights the bidirectional nature of parent-child interactions, and suggests that violations of communication may serve as a “press” to elicit child behaviors not present during reciprocal communication.

Together with a research group from Mälardalen University’s department of Health, Care and Social Welfare, a prototype for an iPad app was created that aims to solves some of the current issues in healthcare for toddlers. The prototype would then be used by the research group to test with toddlers and examine whether the toddlers’ knowledge of basic medical treatments was increased. Due to varying linguistic backgrounds and abilities, the iPad had to be completely free of words, communicating only through sounds, images and animation. In this study, a research question was developed: What design aspects of illustrations and animations make them identifiable and ensure basic usability in an interactive iPad app that does not contain any written or spoken words for children between the ages 3 and 5? In order to find the answers to this question, an expert review was conducted, relevant design principles were studied to learn more about usability guidelines and animation for children, a prototype was created and iterative participatory tests were conducted with children of the same age as the target audience. These methods showed that there is a lack of usability guidelines when it comes to designing usability for a young audience. However, the usage of an expert review method prior to creating an app proved to be an effective way to see different design strategies in action and evaluate them. The participatory tests indicated that the usage of two different gestures is challenging for young children, and that instructions for these two gestures have to be different from one another.

Den kvalitativa studiens syfte var att beskriva och förstå barns kommunikation och interaktion vid användning av iPad. Observationer har skett på tre olika förskolor som aktivt använder iPad i sin verksamhet. Studien har utgått ifrån sociokulturella teorin om att barn lär av varandra i interaktion.   I studiens resultat har det framkommit att barn interagerar när de satt flera barn runt gemensam iPad. Det framkom också att en interaktion sker barn- iPad då barn vid flera tillfällen verbalt kommunicerade med appen. Kommunikationen runt iPaden gick genom det styrande barnet både verbalt och icke verbalt. De icke styrande barnen gav instruktioner till det styrande barnet som de sedan såg på skärmen om det genomfördes. Då verbala instruktioner inte utfördes gjorde barnet en icke verbal handling i form av eget handlande.   I diskussionen jämförde vi studiens resultat med teorier och tidigare forskning. Användandet av iPaden i den pedagogiska verksamheten och en närvarande pedagog är av betydelse för att lärande ska ske. Interaktion och kommunikation uppstod i aktiviteten, men pedagogens roll är att utmana barnen. / The qualitative study was designed to describe and understand the child's communication and interaction when using the iPad. Observations have been made on three different pre-schools that are actively using the iPad in their activity. The study has been based on the socio-cultural theory that children learn from each other in interaction.   The results of the study have revealed that children interact as they sat several children around common iPad. It also emerged that an interaction occurs child - iPad when children on several occasions verbally communicated with the app. The communication around the iPad went by the governing child both verbally and nonverbally. The non-steer kids gave instructions to the governing child, which they saw on the screen if it was implemented. When verbal instructions were not carried out did the child a nonverbal action in the form of own actions.   In the discussion, we compared the results of the study of theories and previous research. The use of the iPad in the educational activities and having a currently teacher are important for learning to happen. Interaction and communication emerged in the activity, but the educator's role is to challenge kids.

Abstract Detta är en uppsats i medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap och har för avsikt att undersöka den amerikanska kontroversiella realityserien Toddlers &amp; Tiaras som handlar om skönhetstävlingar för barn i USA. Serien har blivit utsatt för mycket negativ kritik, denna har främst riktats mot barnens föräldrar, deras barnuppfostran och sätt att handla samt det att skönhetstävlingarna tillåter en sexualisering av väldigt små barn. Syftet med denna uppsats är således att undersöka på vilket sätt skönhet gestaltas bland deltagarna i skönhetstävlingar i TV-serien Toddlers &amp; Tiaras samt på vilket sätt föräldrarna i serien och tillika coacherna uppfostrar och kontrollerar sina barn. De frågeställningar vi valt att besvara är följande: Vilken syn på föräldraskap produceras i programmet? Vad finns det för likheter i representationen av skönhet i de båda avsnitten?I analysen har vi utgått ifrån två hela avsnitt av serien och har med hjälp av narrativ och semiotisk metod analyserat berättelsernas händelseförlopp samt fördjupat oss i kortare scener där vi trott oss kunna få svar på våra frågeställningar. Genomgående i uppsatsen har vi utgått ifrån ett socialkonstruktionistiskt teoretiskt perspektiv och därför menar vi att kön och genus är kulturellt skapta produkter. Resultatet visar att föräldrarna, i första hand mammorna, har en betydelsefull roll i programmet och de är tydliga i hur de vill att barnet ska prestera på scen. Om framträdandet inte går som planerat är de inte sparsamma med att öppet visa sin besvikelse över barnet. Mammornas önskan om att barnen ska lyckas i tävlingarna har i vissa fall gått så långt att de ”dopat” sina döttrar med koffeindrycker och diverse energitillskott. Det finns tydliga likheter mellan de olika programmen i hur skönhet representeras. Många yttre attribut är återkommande där flickorna alltid är kraftigt sminkade iklädda stora peruker och gnistrande smycken. I många fall kan vi urskönja en sexualisering av flickorna, både genom att iaktta enbart deras klädsel men främst i samspel med det flirtigt utmanande minspelet och kroppsspråket.

The aim of this study is to look at the environmental effect on toddlers’ social interactions during free play in two older and two newer preschools. Furthermore, we would like to investigate four preschool teachers’ thoughts about the indoor environment when it comes to toddlers’ interaction during free play. Qualitative methods containing interviews of the preschool teachers and observations of the children during their free playtime have been used to help us reach our conclusions. In addition, our theoretical conclusions have been derived from both the sociocultural perspective and the environmental psychology perspective. Our results have shown that variations in the preschool environment are of importance in the outcome of toddlers’ different social interactions. Teachers find the indoor environment of great importance and are working with it either with the preschool establishment or independently where time allows. The attitude and approach of preschool teachers on the indoor environment is also of great importance in encouraging positive social interaction in toddlers during free play.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2009. / Thesis directed by Julia M. Braungart-Rieker for the Department of Psychology. "April 2009." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-69).