Reliability of muscle fiber conduction velocity in the tibialis anterior

This document could not have been completed without the hard work of a number of individuals. First and foremost, my supervisor, Dr. David Gabriel deserves the utmost recognition for the immense effort and time spent guiding the production of this document through the various stages of completion. Also, aiding in the data collection, technical support, and general thought processing were Lab Technician Greig Inglis and fellow members of the Electromyographic Kinesiology Laboratory Jon Howard, Sean Lenhardt, Lara Robbins, and Corrine Davies-Schinkel. The input of Drs. Ted Clancy, Phil Sullivan and external examiner Dr. Anita Christie, all members ofthe assessment committee, was incredibly important and vital to the completion of this work. Their expertise provided a strong source of knowledge and went to ensure that this project was completed at exemplary level. There were a number of other individuals who were an immense help in getting this project off the ground and completed. The donation of their time and efforts was very generous and much needed in order to fulfill the requirements needed for completion of this study. Finally, I cannot exclude the contributions of my family throughout this project especially that of my parents whose support never wavers.

Families with Children with Autism, Developmental Delay, and Typical Development: The Relationships of Parenting Self-Efficacy, Parenting Strategies, and Child Problem Behaviour

Parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and developmental delays (DD) may experience more child problem behaviours, report lower parenting selfefficacy (PSE), and be more reactive than proactive in their parenting strategies than those who have children with typical development (TD). Differences in PSE and parenting strategies may also influence the extent to which child problem behaviours are experienced by parents who have children with ASD and DD, compared to those who have children with TD. Using a convenience sample of parents of children with ASD (n = 48), DD (n = 51), and TD (n = 72), this study examined group differences on three key variables: PSE, parenting strategies, and child problem behaviour. Results indicated that those in the DD group scored lower on PSE in preventing child problem behaviour than the ASD group. The TD group used fewer reactive strategies than the DD group, and fewer proactive strategies than both the ASD and DD groups. For the overall sample, higher reactive strategies use was found to predict higher ratings of child problem behaviour, while a greater proportion of proactive to reactive strategies use predicted lower ratings of child problem behaviour. PSE was found to moderate DD diagnosis and child problem behaviour. Implications for a behavioural (i.e., parenting strategies) or cognitive (i.e., PSE) approach to parenting are discussed.

Age-Related Changes in Visual Spatial Working Memory Cognits: Frontal-Parietal EEG Coherence During Delay

This study explored changes in scalp electrophysiology across two Working Memory (WM) tasks and two age groups. Continuous electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded from 18 healthy adults (18-34 years) and 12 healthy adolescents (14-17) during the performance of two Oculomotor Delayed Response (ODR) WM tasks; (i.e. eye movements were the metric of motor response). Delay-period, EEG data in the alpha frequency was sampled from anterior and parietal scalp sites to achieve a general measure of frontal and parietal activity, respectively. Frontal-parietal, alpha coherence was calculated for each participant for each ODR-WM task. Coherence significantly decreased in adults moving across the two ODR tasks, whereas, coherence significantly increased in adolescents moving across the two ODR tasks. The effects of task in the adolescent and adult groups were large and medium, respectively. Within the limits of this study, the results provide empirical support that WM development during adolescence include complex, qualitative, change.