"Monesti on tullut ajateltua, että ihana, kamala kakara!" : Huomioidaanko päiväkodissa kansainvälisesti adoptoituun lapseen ja adoptioon liittyviä erityispiirteitä?

The purpose of this study was to examine the conceptions adoptive parents and kindergarten teachers have of adopted children in day care. Earlier Finnish research concerning international adoption has discussed adoption, adopted children and adoptive parents from the point of view of identity, racism and school. There has hardly been any research in Finland concerning adoption from the point of view of day care. The study focuses on how the special characteristics of adopted children are taken into consideration in day care. The ecological theory, in which a child's growth and learning environments are studied as part of the broader environment, provided the theoretical framework for the study. The study was based also on a second theory: intercultural competence or the capacity to interact with different people taking into consideration their individual characteristics and situations so that one understands and is understood. The first research problem consisted of describing the conceptions adoptive parents and day care teachers have of the special characteristics of adopted children. The second research problem was to examine adopted parents' expectations of kindergarten and of kindergarten teachers. The third research problem was to find out what kind of support day care teachers think they need when working with adopted children. The study focused on 20 adoptive parents and 15 kindergarten teachers. Research material was collected in the form of essay writings amounting to a total of 73 pages. The respondents wrote about their experiences with the help of a supporting questionnaire. The research method was qualitative and narrative. The results of the study show that adoptive parents have similar conceptions of adopted children's special characteristics concerning their character, social competence, adaptation and appearance. Adoptive parents had a better understanding of the dynamics of attachment than kindergarten teachers, in this study. When describing the special characters of adopted children, the teachers regarded adopted children in particular as needing special support. According to the results of the study, adoptive parents feel adoption matters and adoptive parenthood are something quite new and bewildering to day care teachers. Adoptive parents did not feel they got any support from the kindergarten in their parenthood. Adoptive parents regarded as particularly important the start of day care and the familiarisation process during which adopted children need time and special support due to earlier experiences of separation and abandonment. The findings of the study show that kindergarten teachers have little knowledge of adoption and the significance of adoption for a child's growth and development. Kindergarten teachers felt at a loss in dealing with adoption issues and clearly need additional support in the matter.

Search For Susceptibility Genes In Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder affecting 0.4-1% of the population worldwide. It is characterized by impairments in the perception of reality and by significant social or occupational dysfunction. The disorder is one of the major contributors to the global burden of diseases. Studies of twins, families, and adopted children point to strong genetic components for schizophrenia, but environmental factors also play a role in the pathogenesis of disease. Molecular genetic studies have identified several potential positional candidate genes. The strongest evidence for putative schizophrenia susceptibility loci relates to the genes encoding dysbindin (DTNBP1) and neuregulin (NRG1), but studies lack impressive consistency in the precise genetic regions and alleles implicated. We have studied the role of three potential candidate genes by genotyping 28 single nucleotide polymorphisms in the DNTBP1, NRG1, and AKT1 genes in a large schizophrenia family sample consisting of 441 families with 865 affected individuals from Finland. Our results do not support a major role for these genes in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia in Finland. We have previously identified a region on chromosome 5q21-34 as a susceptibility locus for schizophrenia in a Finnish family sample. Recently, two studies reported association between the γ-aminobutyric acid type A receptor cluster of genes in this region and one study showed suggestive evidence for association with another regional gene encoding clathrin interactor 1 (CLINT1, also called Epsin 4 and ENTH). To further address the significance of these genes under the linkage peak in the Finnish families, we genotyped SNPs of these genes, and observed statistically significant association of variants between GABRG2 and schizophrenia. Furthermore, these variants also seem to affect the functioning of the working memory. Fetal events and obstetric complications are associated with schizophrenia. Rh incompatibility has been implicated as a risk factor for schizophrenia in several epidemiological studies. We conducted a family-based candidate-gene study that assessed the role of maternal-fetal genotype incompatibility at the RhD locus in schizophrenia. There was significant evidence for an RhD maternal-fetal genotype incompatibility, and the risk ratio was estimated at 2.3. This is the first candidate-gene study to explicitly test for and provide evidence of a maternal-fetal genotype incompatibility mechanism in schizophrenia. In conclusion, in this thesis we found evidence that one GABA receptor subunit, GABRG2, is significantly associated with schizophrenia. Furthermore, it also seems to affect to the functioning of the working memory. In addition, an RhD maternal-fetal genotype incompatibility increases the risk of schizophrenia by two-fold.

"Secoituxesta järjettömäin luondocappalden canssa" : Perversiot, oikeuselämä ja kansankulttuuri 1700-luvun Suomessa

Bestiality was in the 18th century a more difficult problem in terms of criminal policy in Sweden and Finland than in any other Christian country in any other period. In the legal history of deviant sexuality, the phenomenon was uniquely widespread by international comparison. The number of court cases per capita in Finland was even higher than in Sweden. The authorities classified bestiality among the most serious crimes and a deadly sin. The Court of Appeal in Turku opted for an independent line and was clearly more lenient than Swedish courts of justice. Death sentences on grounds of bestiality ended in the 1730s, decades earlier than in Sweden. The sources for the present dissertation include judgment books and Court of Appeal decisions in 253 cases, which show that the persecution of those engaging in bestial acts in 18th century Finland was not organised by the centralised power of Stockholm. There is little evidence of local campaigns that would have been led by authorities. The church in its orthodoxy was losing ground and the clergy governed their parishes with more pragmatism than the Old Testament sanctioned. When exposing bestiality, the legal system was compelled to rely on the initiative of the public. In cases of illicit intercourse or adultery the authorities were even more dependent on the activeness of the local community. Bestiality left no tangible evidence, illegitimate children, to betray the crime to the clergy or secular authorities. The moral views of the church and the local community were not on a collision course. It was a common view that bestiality was a heinous act. Yet nowhere near all crimes came to the authorities' knowledge. Because of the heavy burden of proof, the legal position of the informer was difficult. Passiveness in reporting the crime was partly because most Finns felt it was not their place to intervene in their neighbours' private lives, as long as that privacy posed no serious threat to the neighbourhood. Hidden crime was at least as common as crime more easily exposed and proven. A typical Finnish perpetrator of bestiality was a young unmarried man with no criminal background or mental illness. The suspects were not members of ethnic minorities or marginal social groups. In trials, farmhands were more likely to be sentenced than their masters, but a more salient common denominator than social and economical status was the suspects' young age. For most of the defendants bestiality was a deep-rooted habit, which had been adopted in early youth. This form of subculture spread among the youth, and the most susceptible to experiment with the act were shepherds. The difference between man and animal was not clear-cut or self-evident. The difficulty in drawing the line is evident both in legal sources and Finnish folklore. The law that required that the animal partners be slaughtered led to the killing of thousands of cows and mares, and thereby to substantial material losses to their owners. Regarding bestiality as a crime against property motivated people to report it. The belief that the act would produce human-animal mongrels or that it would poison the milk and the meat horrified the public more than the teachings of the church ever could. Among the most significant aspects in the problems regarding the animals is how profoundly different the worldview of 18th century people was from that of today.

Pain in juvenile idiopathic arthritis : parents and children as agents of disease management

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is a severe childhood disease usually characterized by long-term morbidity, unpredictable course, pain, and limitations in daily activities and social participation. The disease affects not only the child but also the whole family. The family is expected to adhere to an often very laborious regimen over a long period of time. However, the parental role is incoherently conceptualized in the research field. Pain in JIA is of somatic origin, but psychosocial factors, such as mood and self-efficacy, are critical in the perception of pain and in its impact on functioning. This study examined the factors correlating and possibly explaining pain in JIA, with a special emphasis on the mutual relations between parent- and patient-driven variables. In this patient series pain was not associated with the disease activity. The degree of pain was on average fairly low in children with JIA. When the children were clustered according to age, anxiety and depression, four distinguishable cluster groups significantly associated with pain emerged. One of the groups was described by concept vulnerability because of unfavorable variable associations. Parental depressive and anxiety symptoms accompanied by illness management had a predictive power in discriminating groups of children with varying distress levels. The parent’s and child’s perception of a child’s functional capability, distress, and somatic self-efficacy had independent explanatory power predicting the child’s pain. Of special interest in the current study was self-efficacy, which refers to the belief of an individual that he/she has the ability to engage in the behavior required for tackling the disease. In children with JIA, strong self-efficacy was related to lower levels of pain, depressive symptoms and trait anxiety. This suggests strengthening a child’s sense of self-efficacy, when helping the child to cope with his or her disease. Pain experienced by a child with JIA needs to be viewed in a multidimensional bio-psycho-social context that covers biological, environmental and cognitive behavioral mechanisms. The relations between the parent-child variables are complex and affect pain both directly and indirectly. Developing pain-treatment modalities that recognize the family as a system is also warranted.

Vuorovaikutus ääniterapiassa : Keskustelunanalyyttinen tutkimus harjoittelun rakenteesta, terapeutin antamasta palautteesta ja oppimisesta

This conversation analytical study analyses the interactional practices adopted by speech therapists and their clients during their training in voice therapy. This study also describes how learning takes place during the therapy process. In contrast to traditional voice therapy studies, change is examined here by using qualitative research methodology, namely conversation analysis. This study describes the structures of interaction in voice therapy, shows how the shortcomings in the client s performance are evaluated and corrected and finally, how the voice training sequence and the participation changes during therapy. The database consists of 51 videotaped voice therapy sessions from six clients with voice disorders. The analytic focus is on the practices in one voice training exercise of the trilled /r/. All the sequences of this exercise (in total 36) and all adjacency pairs within (N = 627) were transcribed and analysed in detail. This study shows that voice training consists of successive model imitation adjacency pairs. This adjacency pair works as a resource in voice training. Furthermore, the use of this particular adjacency pair is an institutional practice in all therapies in this study. The structure of interaction in voice training sequences resembles the practices found in aphasia therapy and in speech therapy of children, as well as the practices of educational and counselling interaction and physiotherapy. More than half of the adjacency pairs were expanded to three (or more) part structures as client s responses were typically followed by therapist s feedback. With their feedback turns, therapists: 1) maintain training practice, 2) evaluate the problem of client s performance, 3) deliver information, 4) activate the client to observe the performance and 5) assist her in correcting the performance. This study describes the four different ways that therapists help their clients to improve the performance after encountering a problem. The longitudinal data shows that learning in therapy is manifested in the changing participation. As clients learn to identify their voice features, they can participate in evaluating or correcting their performances by themselves. This study describes the recurrent professional practices of voice therapists and shows how the institutional commitments of voice therapy are managed in and through talk and interaction. The study also provides detailed description of the management of help in voice training. By describing the interaction in training sequences, this study expands the conception of voice rehabilitation and how it can be researched. The results demonstrate that the learning process and therapy outcomes can be assessed by analysing interaction in therapy. Moreover, this analysis lays the foundation for a novel understanding of the practices in speech therapy and for the development of speech therapy theory. By revealing the activities of interaction, it also makes it possible to discuss them explicitly with speech therapy students. Key words: voice therapy, conversation analysis, institutional interaction, learning, change in participation, feedback, evaluation, error correction, self-repair

Language in Acquisition : Early Lexical Development and Associations between Lexicon and Grammar Findings from Full-Term and Very-Low-Birth-Weight Finnish Children

The aim was to analyse the growth and compositional development of the receptive and expressive lexicons between the ages 0,9 and 2;0 in the full-term (FT) and the very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) children who are acquiring Finnish. The associations between the expressive lexicon and grammar at 1;6 and 2;0 in the FT children were also studied. In addition, the language skills of the VLBW children at 2;0 were analysed, as well as the predictive value of early lexicon to the later language performance. Four groups took part in the studies: the longitudinal (N = 35) and cross-sectional (N = 146) samples of the FT children, and the longitudinal (N = 32) and cross-sectional (N = 66) samples of VLBW children. The data was gathered by applying of the structured parental rating method (the Finnish version of the Communicative Development Inventory), through analysis of the children´s spontaneous speech and by administering a a formal test (Reynell Developmental Language Scales). The FT children acquired their receptive lexicons earlier, at a faster rate and with larger individual variation than their expressive lexicons. The acquisition rate of the expressive lexicon increased from slow to faster in most children (91%). Highly parallel developmental paths for lexical semantic categories were detected in the receptive and expressive lexicons of the Finnish children when they were analysed in relation to the growth of the lexicon size, as described in the literature for children acquiring other languages. The emergence of grammar was closely associated with expressive lexical growth. The VLBW children acquired their receptive lexicons at a slower rate and had weaker language skills at 2;0 than the full-term children. The compositional development of both lexicons happened at a slower rate in the VLBW children when compared to the FT controls. However, when the compositional development was analysed in relation to the growth of lexicon size, this development occurred qualitatively in a nearly parallel manner in the VLBW children as in the FT children. Early receptive and expressive lexicon sizes were significantly associated with later language skills in both groups. The effect of the background variables (gender, length of the mother s basic education, birth weight) on the language development in the FT and the VLBW children differed. The results provide new information of early language acquisition by the Finnish FT and VLBW children. The results support the view that the early acquisition of the semantic lexical categories is related to lexicon growth. The current findings also propose that the early grammatical acquisition is closely related to the growth of expressive vocabulary size. The language development of the VLBW children should be followed in clinical work.

Intergenerational Transfer of Sabbath Observance : How is Religious Tradition Transferred to Children among Finnish Seventh-day Adventists?

This study examined religious home education in educational, psychological, and sociological context. Growing up within a religious denomination is a process of learning the rules, norms, opinions, and attitudes, which serve to make the individual an active member of the group. It is a process of transferring the cultural inheritance between generations. Sabbathkeeping can be regarded as a strong indicator of the Seventh-day Adventist value system, which is also why I have concentrated on this specific issue in my study. The purpose of the study was to find out, how the Sabbath is transferred from parents to children among Finnish Adventists. It was also examined how parents could make the day of rest positively exceptional for children, and how the parental authoritativeness affects the process of transference. According to Bull & Lockhart s (1989) theory, the amount of Adventist generations in family history influences the transfer of religious tradition. This study aimed to find out whether or not this theory would apply to the present-day Finland. The nature of religious development among Adventist young people was also one of the interests of the research. The methods used in the study were in-depth interviews (n = 10) and a survey (n = 106). The majority of the interviewees was young adults (age 15-30) grown up in Adventist families. The interviews were taped and transcribed for the study, and survey answers were analysed with SPSS-data analysis program. The amount of survey questionnaires evaluated was 106, whole population of 15-30 year-old Finnish Adventists being about one thousand. Democratic relationship between parents and children, parents' example, encouragement to own thinking, and positive experiences of Sabbath and the whole religion, including the social dimension of the Adventism, seem to be some of the most significant factors in transference of religious tradition. Both too severe and too permissive education were considered to lead to similar results: unsuccessful transfer of values, or even rebellion and adopting a totally opposite way of life than that of the parents. In this study the amount of Adventist generations in family history does not correlate significantly with the end results of value transference. Keywords: Sabbath, intergenerational, value transference, religious home education Avainsanat: sapatti, arvojen siirtyminen vanhemmilta lapsille, uskonnollinen kotikasvatus

Cervical headgear in Class II division 1 correction in children : Academic Dissertation

Class II division 1 malocclusion occurs in 3.5 to 13 percent of 7 12 year-old children. It is the most common reason for orthodontic treatment in Finland. Correction is most commonly performed using headgear treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of cervical headgear treatment on dentition, facial skeletal and soft tissue growth, and upper airway structure, in children. 65 schoolchildren, 36 boys and 29 girls were studied. At the onset of treatment a mean age was 9.3 (range 6.6 12.4) years. All the children were consequently referred to an orthodontist because of Class II division 1 malocclusion. The included children had protrusive maxilla and an overjet of more than 2mm (3 to 11 mm). The children were treated with a Kloehn-type cervical headgear as the only appliance until Class I first molar relationships were achieved. The essential features of the headgear were cervical strong pulling forces, a long upward bent outer bow, and an expanded inner bow. Dental casts and lateral and posteroanterior cephalograms were taken before and after the treatment. The results were compared to a historical, cross-sectional Finnish cohort or to historical, age- and sex-matched normal Class I controls. The Class I first molar relationships were achieved in all the treated children. The mean treatment time was 1.7 (range 0.3-3.1) years. Phase 2 treatments were needed in 52% of the children, most often because of excess overjet or overbite. The treatment decreased maxillary protrusion by inhibiting alveolar forward growth, while the rest of the maxilla and mandible followed normal growth. The palate rotated anteriorly downward. The expansion of the inner bow of the headgear induced widening of the maxilla, nasal cavity, and the upper and lower dental arches. Class II malocclusion was associated with narrower oro- and hypopharyngeal space than in the Class I normal controls. The treatment increased the retropalatal airway space, while the rest of the airway remained unaffected. The facial profile improved esthetically, while the facial convexity decreased. Facial soft tissues masked the facial skeletal convexity, and the soft tissue changes were smaller than skeletal changes. In conclusion, the headgear treatment with the expanded inner bow may be used as an easy and simple method for Class II correction in growing children.