Weight status and gender-related differences in motor skills and in child care - based physical activity in young children.

Over the last decades, a decline in motor skills and in physical activity and an increase in obesity has been observed in children. However, there is a lack of data in young children. We tested if differences in motor skills and in physical activity according to weight or gender were already present in 2- to 4-year-old children. Fifty-eight child care centers in the French part of Switzerland were randomly selected for the Youp'là bouge study. Motor skills were assessed by an obstacle course including 5 motor skills, derived from the Zurich Neuromotor Assessment test. Physical activity was measured with accelerometers (GT1M, Actigraph, Florida, USA) using age-adapted cut-offs. Weight status was assessed using the International Obesity Task Force criteria (healthy weight vs overweight) for body mass index (BMI). Of the 529 children (49% girls, 3.4 ± 0.6 years, BMI 16.2 ± 1.2 kg/m2), 13% were overweight. There were no significant weight status-related differences in the single skills of the obstacle course, but there was a trend (p = 0.059) for a lower performance of overweight children in the overall motor skills score. No significant weight status-related differences in child care-based physical activity were observed. No gender-related differences were found in the overall motor skills score, but boys performed better than girls in 2 of the 5 motor skills (p ≤ 0.04). Total physical activity as well as time spent in moderate-vigorous and in vigorous activity during child care were 12-25% higher and sedentary activity 5% lower in boys compared to girls (all p < 0.01). At this early age, there were no significant weight status- or gender-related differences in global motor skills. However, in accordance to data in older children, child care-based physical activity was higher in boys compared to girls. These results are important to consider when establishing physical activity recommendations or targeting health promotion interventions in young children.

Effect of a governmentally-led physical activity program on motor skills in young children attending child care centers: a cluster randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effect of a governmentally-led center based child care physical activity program (Youp'la Bouge) on child motor skills.Patients and methods: We conducted a single blinded cluster randomized controlled trial in 58 Swiss child care centers. Centers were randomly selected and 1:1 assigned to a control or intervention group. The intervention lasted from September 2009 to June 2010 and included training of the educators, adaptation of the child care built environment, parental involvement and daily physical activity. Motor skill was the primary outcome and body mass index (BMI), physical activity and quality of life secondary outcomes. The intervention implementation was also assessed. RESULTS: At baseline, 648 children present on the motor test day were included (age 3.3 +/- 0.6, BMI 16.3 +/- 1.3 kg/m2, 13.2% overweight, 49% girls) and 313 received the intervention. Relative to children in the control group (n = 201), children in the intervention group (n = 187) showed no significant increase in motor skills (delta of mean change (95% confidence interval: -0.2 (-0.8 to 0.3), p = 0.43) or in any of the secondary outcomes. Not all child care centers implemented all the intervention components. Within the intervention group, several predictors were positively associated with trial outcomes: 1) free-access to a movement space and parental information session for motor skills 2) highly motivated and trained educators for BMI 3) free-access to a movement space and purchase of mobile equipment for physical activity (all p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: This "real-life" physical activity program in child care centers confirms the complexity of implementing an intervention outside a study setting and identified potentially relevant predictors that could improve future programs.Trial registration: Trial registration number: clinical trials.gov NCT00967460 http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00967460.

Young children's behavioral responses to the distress of others /

The relationship between child temperament and parenting factors in the development of prosocial behavior during the toddler years was investigated by examining children's helping behaviors and responses to the distress of others as observed and as reported by mothers and teachers. These behaviors were linked to the sociability, emotionality, and attention shifting of toddlers. Children who are relatively high in characteristics such as language skills and sociability appear more likely to exhibit competent prosocial behaviors than children who are relatively low in these skills. Prosocial competence was also linked to maternal comfort, maternal control over children's emotions, and family expressiveness, although the latter two variables related to children's behaviors differently, depending on whether children were low or high in emotional intensity.

The development of collaborative skills in young children

This thesis examines young children's early collaborative development when engaged in joint tasks with both a peer and a parent. It begins by examining how the term "collaborative" has been applied and researched in previous literature. As collaboration is found to usually require dialogue, and intersubjectivity is seen as an important component in the construction of both collaboration and dialogue, the ability to construct intersubjectivity is the subject of the rest of the chapter. The chapter concludes by introducing the research questions that underpin the experiments that follow. A number of experiments are then described. Experiments 1 and 2 investigate age differences in interaction styles and the communication strategies used by similar aged dyads. Experiments 3 and 4 investigate differences due to the age of the child and/or the status of the information giver (either parent or child) in the styles of interaction and the communication strategies used by parent and child dyads. Experiment 5 investigates the benefits of collaborating with a parent, and finally, Experiment 6 examines the collaborative ability of pre-schools. The thesis identifies a series of skills required for successful collaboration. These include recognition of a joint goal and the need to suppress individual desires, the ability to structure joint interaction, moving from role-based to a negotiating style, and communicative skills, for example, asking for clarification. Other reasons for children's failure in collaborative tasks involve task-related skills, such as the development of spatial terms, and failure to recognise the need for accuracy. The findings support Vygotsky's theory that when working with an adult, children perform at a higher level than when working with a peer. Evidence was also found of parents scaffolding the interaction for their children. However, further research is necessary to establish that such scaffolding skills affect the child's development of collaborative interactive skills.

Relationships between temperament and eating behaviours in young children

This study examined the associations between eating behaviours and temperament in a sample of young children. Mothers (N=241) of children aged 3-8 years completed measures of their children's eating behaviours and temperament and reported their child's height and weight. Children with more emotional temperaments were reported to display more food avoidant eating behaviours. Shyness, sociability and activity were not related to children's eating behaviours. Higher child BMI was related to more food approach eating behaviours but BMI was unrelated to child temperament. Future research should explore more specifically how emotional temperaments might influence child eating behaviour.

Effects of Family, Child, and Teacher Demographics on Prekindergarten Children's Access to and Use of Numeracy and Spatial Materials in the Early Education Setting

Florida’s Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten program (VPK) aims to ensure that all 4-year-olds are prepared to excel in K-12 mathematics. Early numeracy/spatial skills are predictive of success in K–12 mathematics. No research has examined whether VPK classrooms are equipped with the materials necessary to teach numeracy/spatial skill. The Pre-Kindergarten Numeracy and Spatial Environment Survey was created to examine the frequency of access to and use of numeracy/spatial materials in VPK classrooms. The 69-item survey was completed by the lead educator from a sample of 62 pre-kindergarten classrooms in Miami-Dade County. Regression analysis results suggest the location of the pre-kindergarten center, the sex distribution of the children in the classrooms or the number of years of experience that the educator has as a lead teacher along with the extra training courses undertaken by the teachers does not affect the access to or the use of, numeracy and spatial materials in the classrooms.

Developing Young Learners’ Logical/Deductive Thinking Skills and Second Language Skills through a CLIL approach

Trabalho de Projecto apresentado para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Teaching English as a Second / Foreign Language.

How (not) to interview children : interviews with young children in sexual abuse investigations in Finland

The present thesis had two main objectives: The first was to assess how child sexual abuse (CSA) interviews in Finland are conducted through analysing the interviewing techniques applied and the language used by the interviewers, as well as to suggest ways to improve interviews if they were found to have deficiencies. The second main aim was to contribute to the growing research corpus concerning CSA interviews, in particular, by addressing how interviewers follow up information provided by the child, by analysing whether child health care professionals would use childadapted language, and by studying the kind of modifications in the verbal behaviour of interviewers and children that were associated with a) repeated interviews, b) a support person’s presence at the interview, and c) the use of anatomically detailed dolls. Two complementary samples of CSA interviews were analysed. The first one was composed of child interviews with 3-12-year-old children (N = 27) that had been considered problematic by lawyers or other involved professionals (Studies I and IV). The second sample consisted of unselected interviews (N = 43) with children aged 3 to 8 years conducted in a number of hospitals in different parts of the country (Studies II and III). Study I: The verbal interaction between interviewer and child was analysed in a sample of interviews that had been considered to be problematic by involved professionals. Results showed that interviewers used inappropriate questioning techniques, relying on option-posing, specific suggestive and unspecific suggestive questions to a significant extent, these comprising around 50% of all interviewer utterances. The proportion of invitations, which the research community recommends interviewers to rely on, was strikingly low. Invitations and directive utterances were associated with an increase in informative responses by the child in terms of response type, number of new details reported, as well as length of response. The opposite was true for option-posing and suggestive utterances. Longer questions by the interviewer (in number of words) often rendered no reply from the child, whereas shorter questions were followed by descriptive answers. Even after the child had provided an informative answer, interviewers failed to follow up the information in an adequate way and instead continued to rely on focused and leading questions. Study II: Due to the possible bias of the sample analysed in Study I, the most important analyses were rerun with the unselected sample and reported separately. Results were quite similar between the two studies, indicating that the problems observed in Study I, with interviewers relying on option-posing and suggestive questions to a significant extent, are likely to be general and not specific for those interviews. Even if suggestive questions were slightly less and invitations slightly more common in this sample than in the previous study, almost half of the interviewer questions were still optionposing or suggestive, and also in this sample, interviewers failed to follow up information by the child in a facilitating manner. Differentiating between judicial and contextual details showed that while facilitators, invitations, and directive utterances elicited more contextual than judicial details, the opposite was true for specific suggestive utterances. These results might be explained by the reluctance of children to describe sexual details related to the abuse events. Alternatively, they may also be due to children describing incorrect sexual details as a result of suggestive interviewing techniques. Study III: This study examined features of the language used by the interviewers. Interviewer utterances included multiple questions, long statements, complicated grammar and concepts, as well as unclear references to persons and situations. More than a fifth of the interviewer utterances were coded as belonging to at least one of these categories. The results suggest that even professionals who are experienced in interacting with children may have difficulties in using a child-sensitive language, adding to the pool of studies showing similar problems to occur in legal hearings with children conducted by lawyers. As children rarely comment on, or even recognise, their lack of comprehension, the use of a language that is too complex can have detrimental consequences for the outcomes of investigative interviews. Interviewers used different approaches to introduce the topic of abuse. While 15% of the children spontaneously addressed the topic of abuse, probably indicating that they felt confident with the interviewer and the situation, in almost 50% of the cases, the interviewer introduced the topic of abuse in a way that can be considered leading. Interviews were characterised by a lack of structure, apparent in frequent rapid switches of topic by the interviewer. This manner was associated with a decrease in the number of new details provided by the children. Study IV: This study analysed possible changes in the interview dynamics associated with repeated interviewing, the presence of a support person (related to the child), and the use of anatomically detailed (AD) dolls. Repeated interviewing, in combination with suggestive questions, has previously been found to seriously contaminate children’s accounts. In the present material, interviewers used significantly more suggestive utterances in the repeated condition, thus endangering the reliability of the children’s reports. Few studies have investigated the effects of a support person’s presence at the interview. The results of the present study showed that interviewers talked more and children provided less information when a support person was present. Supporting some earlier findings regarding the use of AD dolls, the present results showed that using AD dolls was associated with longer interviewer utterances and shorter, less responsive, and less detailed child responses. Interviewers used up to five times more unspecific suggestive utterances when dolls were used, for instance through repeatedly asking the child to show “what really happened” with the dolls. Conclusion: The results indicate that CSA interviews in Finland are not conducted in a manner that follows best practice as defined by the research community and as stated in a number of guidelines. When comparing these questioning strategies with the recommendations, which have been predominant in the field for more than ten years now, it can be concluded that the interviews analysed were conducted in a manner that undermines the possibility to elicit an uncontaminated and accurate narrative from the children. A particularly worrying finding was the fact that interviewers did not follow up relevant information by the children in an adequate way. A number of clinical implications can be drawn from the results, particularly concerning the need for improvement in the quality of CSA interviews. There is convincing research regarding how to improve CSA interviews, notably through training forensic child interviewers to use a structured interviewing protocol, and providing them with continuous supervision and feedback. Allocating appropriate resources to improve the quality of forensic child interviews is a matter of protecting the rights of all persons involved in CSA investigations, in particular those of the children.

Exploring the Family Context Among Children Adopted From China: Perceptions of Pre-Adoption Factors, Post-Adoption Experiences, and the Quality of Parent-Child Relationships

Within the context of international adoption, previous research has focused on parentchild attachment relationships and various aspects of the adoption process. However, less is known about other aspects of parent-child relationships (e.g., cohesion, conflict) within internationally adoptive families. Additionally, there is a need for research that explores both parent and child perceptions of the process of adoption - including pre- and post-adoptive factors - and its connection to the quality of parent-child relationships. This research utilized a qualitatively-oriented methodology to conduct separate, in-depth interviews with 10 adoptive Canadian mothers and their adopted Chinese children (aged 9 to 11 years). Results highlight parent and child reports of mainly strong, positive relationships. Several pre-adoption experiences are examined, including institutionalization, age at the time of adoption, and parental stress/expectations. A key finding concerns the link that adoptive parents perceive between the quality of their child's pre-adoptive care (i.e., mainly early institutionalized care) and the quality of their relationship. Interestingly, this link is perceived in two different ways - either as a challenge for the parent-child relationship or as a means to strengthen it. Post-adoption experiences are also explored, including cultural socialization, creating a transracial family, discussing adoption, parental stress, and sibling involvement. A key finding involves parent and child reports that cultural socialization efforts (i.e., familiarizing children with Chinese culture) are linked to more positive parent-child relationships. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to theory and practice within the context of international adoption.

Word play : language activities for young children and their parents.

Proporciona a los padres y cuidadores una gama de actividades de lenguaje, juegos de palabras y ejercicios con cuentos y teatro que se puede utilizar como base para un programa de aprendizaje de la lengua para niños de tres a siete años, en guarderías y escuelas infantiles. Este programa de lenguaje está escrito a la medida para satisfacer las necesidades de aprendizaje de un niño en particular.