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.

Avioliiton teologia Englannin kirkossa ja Suomen evankelis-luterilaisessa kirkossa vuosina 1963-2006

The theology of marriage in the Church of England(CofE) and in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland(ELCF)1963–2006 The method of the study is a systematic analysis of the sources. In the CofE marriage stems from creation, but it is also sacramental, grounded in the theology of love and redemption. Man and woman have a connection between them that is a mystical union in character because of the one between Christ and the Church; therefore every marriage is sacramental. The purposes of marriage have been expressed in a different order than earlier. A caring relationship and sexuality are set before childbirth as the causes of marriage. The remedial cause of marriage is also moved to the background and it cannot be found in the recent wedding formulas. A personal relationship and marriage as a school of faith and love have a central place in the theology of marriage. The theology of love unites the love of God and marriage. In the CofE the understanding of divorce and co-habiting has changed, too. Co-habiting can now be understood as a stage towards marriage. Divorce has been understood as a phenomenon that must be taken as a fact after an irretrievable breakdown of marriage. Thus the church must concentrate on pastoral care after divorce. Similarly, the ELCF also maintains that the order of creation is the origin of marriage as a lifelong institution. This is also an argument for the solemnization of marriage in the church. Faith and grace are not needed for real marriage because marriage is the culmination of reason and natural law. The society defines marriage and the church gives its blessing to the married couples if so requested. Luther’s view of marriage is different from this because he saw marriage as a school of love and faith, similar to CofE. He saw faith as essential to enable the fullfillment of natural law. Marriage in the ELCF is mostly a matter of natural ethics. An ideal form of life is sought through the Golden Rule. This interpretation of marriage means that it does not presuppose Christian education for children to follow. The doctrine of the two kingdoms is definitely essential as background. It has been impugned by scholars, however, as a permanent foundation of marriage. There is a difference between the marriage formulas and the other sources concerning the purposes of marriage in the ELCF. The formulas do not include sexuality, childbirth or children and their education as purposes of marriage. The formulas include less theological vocabulary than in the CofE. The liturgy indicates the doctrine in CofE. In the Lutheran churches there is not any need to express the doctrine in the wedding formulas. This has resulted in less theology of marriage in the formulas. The theology of Luther is no longer any ruling principle in the theology of marriage. The process of continuing change in society refines the terms for marriage more than the theological arguments do.

Valoa itään? : Kansanlähetys ja Neuvostoliitto 1967-1973

Light to the East? The Finnish Lutheran Mission and the Soviet Union 1967 1973 The Cold War affected the lives of Christian churches, especially in Europe. Besides the official ecumenical relations between east and west, there existed unofficial activity from west to east, such as smuggling Bibles and distributing information about the severe condition of human rights in the USSR. This study examines this kind of unofficial activity originating in Finland. It especially concentrates on the missionary work to the Soviet Union done by the Finnish Lutheran Mission (FLM, Suomen Evankelisluterilainen Kansanlähetys) founded in 1967. The work for Eastern Europe was organised through the Department for the Slavic Missions. FLM was founded within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, but it was not connected to the church on an organisational level. In addition to the strong emphasis on the Lutheran confession, FLM presented evangelical theology. The fundamental work of the Department for the Slavic Missions was to organise the smuggling of Bibles and other Christian literature to the Soviet Union and other countries behind the iron curtain. They also financed several Christian radio programmes produced and aired mainly by the international Trans World Radio. The Department diversified its activity to humanitarian help by distributing material help such as clothes and shoes to the unregistered evangelical and baptist groups, which were called the underground churches . In Finland the Department focused on information services. It published its own magazine, Valoa idässä (Light in the East), 5 to 6 times per year. Through the magazine and by distributing samizdat material received from the unregistered Christian groups, it discussed and reported the violations of human rights in the Soviet Union, especially when the unregistered Christian groups were considered the victims. The resistance against the Soviet Union was not as much political but religious: the staff of the Department were religious and revivalist young people who thought, for instance, that communism was in some way an apocalyptic world power revealed in the Bible. Smuggling Bibles was discussed widely in the Finnish media and even in parliament and the Finnish Security Police (SUPO, Suojelupoliisi) and in the Lutheran Church. From the church s point of view, this kind of missionary work was understandable but bothersome. Through their ecumenical connections, the bishops knew the critical situation of churches behind the iron curtain very well, but wanted to act diplomatically and cautiously to prevent causing harm to ecumenical or political relations. The leftist media and members of parliament especially accused the work of the Department of being illegal and endangering relations between Finland and the Soviet Union. SUPO did not consider the work of the Department as illegal activity or as a threat to Finnish national security.

Ystävä sä lapsien : Lasten virret ja hengelliset laulut suomenkielisissä kokoelmissa 1824-1938 ja niiden vaikutus vuoden 1938 virsikirjaan

Ystävä sä lapsien. Collections of Finnish language children s hymns and spiritual songs from 1824─1938 and their influence on the Hymnal 1938. The Hymnal has been the common song book of Lutheran parishes since the 1500s. In the beginning, the congregations sang the hymns from memory led by the choir or the church musician. The fundamentals of Christian faith are taught through the hymns, both in church and in family devotions. The Hymnal was the only song book of the church in Finland until the end of the 1800s. This study attempts to clarify when and by who were spiritual songs and hymns for children written in Finland. Research materials used were all the books I could find (approximately 200), whose headings were for pupils and young children in the home and school circles. The method of study is historical and analytical. In the first chapter, it is explained that children s literature in Finland differentiated from other literature at the end of the 1700s. Eric Juvelius published a small prayer book in 1781 with the prayer Gud, som hafver barnen kär / Jumala joka Lapsia rakasta. From that, after many Finnish translations, the first verse of the hymn Ystävä sä lapsien took shape. The second chapter considers singing instruction in the folk school from the beginning of the 1860s. Textbooks, including songbooks, were produced for the pupils. Some of the first pioneers in producing these materials were the teachers P.J. Hannikainen, Sofie Lithenius, Mikael Nyberg, Anton Rikström and Aksel Törnudd, as well as Hilja Haahti, Immi Hellén and Alli Nissinen, who were all teachers gifted in writing poetry. Several new spiritual songs appeared in the folk school songbooks. Hymns were sung often, especially in connection with church year celebrations. Children s songs in Christian education are discussed in the third chapter. The Lutheran Evangelical Association of Finland recognized children already in its early song collections. The illustrative teaching methods in the folk school influenced the Sunday school activities and especially the Sunday school hymns. Hymns introduced as exclusively for children and pupils which appear in the Hymnal from 1886 and the supplement to the 1923 Hymnal are explored in the fourth and fifth chapters. The study shows that the renewal of church life at the beginning of the 1900s also resulted in an increase of the number of spiritual songs for children. This is also seen in the diverse choice of songs in the supplementary materials from 1923. The final chapter deals with the School and Childhood section of the 1938 Hymnal. The Hymnal committee did not think that the already well known folk school and Sunday school songs received enough attention in the Hymnal. Those songs were, among others, Kautta tyynen, vienon yön, Oi, katsopa lintua oksalla puun, Olen Luojani pikku varpunen, Rakas Isä taivahan ja Tuolla keinuu pieni pursi. Heikki Klemetti, Ilmari Krohn, Armas Maasalo and Aarni Voipio influenced the opinion that the spiritual songs still were not suitable to be sung in church. Hymns for children and pupils were brought into the same line as the entire Hymnal. The same hymn tunes, which were mainly old ones, were used as common settings for numerous hymn texts. No special type of melody emerged for the children s hymns. It was still notable that hymns for children and pupils were collected at all. In addition, the Hymnal committee marked those verses suggested for singing in both the folk school and Sunday school with an asterisk (*) throughout the entire Hymnal.

A Historical Approach to Children s Physics Education : Modelling of DC-circuit Phenomena in a Small Group

This three-phase design research describes the modelling processes for DC-circuit phenomena. The first phase presents an analysis of the development of the DC-circuit historical models in the context of constructing Volta s pile at the turn of the 18th century. The second phase involves the designing of a teaching experiment for comprehensive school third graders. Among other considerations, the design work utilises the results of the first phase and research literature of pupils mental models for DC-circuit phenomena. The third phase of the research was concerned with the realisation of the planned teaching experiment. The aim of this phase was to study the development of the external representations of DC-circuit phenomena in a small group of third graders. The aim of the study has been to search for new ways to guide pupils to learn DC-circuit phenomena while emphasing understanding at the qualitative level. Thus, electricity, which has been perceived as a difficult and abstract subject, could be learnt more comprehensively. Especially, the research of younger pupils learning of electricity concepts has not been of great interest at the international level, although DC-circuit phenomena are also taught in the lower classes of comprehensive schools. The results of this study are important, because there has tended to be more teaching of natural sciences in the lower classes of comprehensive schools, and attempts are being made to develop this trend in Finland. In the theoretical part of the research an Experimental-centred representation approach, which emphasises the role of experimentalism in the development of pupil s representations, is created. According to this approach learning at the qualitative level consists of empirical operations like experimenting, observations, perception, and prequantification of nature phenomena, and modelling operations like explaining and reasoning. Besides planning teaching, the new approach can be used as an analysis tool in describing both historical modelling and the development of pupils representations. In the first phase of the study, the research question was: How did the historical models of DC-circuit phenomena develop in Volta s time? The analysis uncovered three qualitative historical models associated with the historical concept formation process. The models include conceptions of the electric circuit as a scene in the DC-circuit phenomena, the comparative electric-current phenomenon as a cause of different observable effect phenomena, and the strength of the battery as a cause of the electric-current phenomenon. These models describe the concept formation process and its phases in Volta s time. The models are portrayed in the analysis using fragments of the models, where observation-based fragments and theoretical fragements are distinguished from each other. The results emphasise the significance of the qualitative concept formation and the meaning of language in the historical modelling of DC-circuit phenomena. For this reason these viewpoints are stressed in planning the teaching experiment in the second phase of the research. In addition, the design process utilised the experimentation behind the historical models of DC-circuit phenomena In the third phase of the study the research question is as follows: How will the small group s external representations of DC-circuit phenomena develop during the teaching experiment? The main question is divided into the following two sub questions: What kind of talk exists in the small group s learning? What kinds of external representations for DC-circuit phenomena exist in the small group discourse during the teaching experiment? The analysis revealed that the teaching experiment of the small group succeeded in its aim to activate talk in the small group. The designed connection cards proved especially successful in activating talk. The connection cards are cards that represent the components of the electric circuit. In the teaching experiment the pupils constructed different connections with the connection cards and discussed, what kinds of DC-circuit phenomena would take place in the corresponding real connections. The talk of the small group was analysed by comparing two situations, firstly, when the small group discussed using connections made with the connection cards and secondly with the same connections using real components. According to the results the talk of the small group included more higher-order thinking when using the connection cards than with similar real components. In order to answer the second sub question concerning the small group s external representations that appeared in the talk during the teaching experiment; student talk was visualised by the fragment maps which incorporate the electric circuit, the electric current and the source voltage. The fragment maps represent the gradual development of the external representations of DC-circuit phenomena in the small group during the teaching experiment. The results of the study challenge the results of previous research into the abstractness and difficulty of electricity concepts. According to this research, the external representations of DC-circuit phenomena clearly developed in the small group of third graders. Furthermore, the fragment maps uncover that although the theoretical explanations of DC-circuit phenomena, which have been obtained as results of typical mental model studies, remain undeveloped, learning at the qualitative level of understanding does take place.