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Picky Eating In Children: Associations With Iq And Executive Functioning, Ara Nazmiyal

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

Picky eating is an under-researched behavior in children. The current study aims to assess what behaviors correlate with picky eating to better understand potential risk factors for Anorexia Nervosa. 111 children were evaluated at 5 and 6 years old, and a subset was evaluated again at 7 and 8 years old (n=36). Executive function and IQ were evaluated using parent reports and behavioral measures at baseline. Picky eating was reported by a parent questionnaire. Results showed deficits in shifting to be a predictor of higher picky eating behaviors at ages 5-6 years. Additionally, children who were reported extremely picky eaters …

Vulnerable Agents: Ugandan Children's Experiences With Hiv Rehabilitation And Reintegration, Colleen Walsh Lang

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Patterns Of General- And Eating Disorder-Related Psychopathology In Relation To Weight Change In Treatment-Seeking Children, Anne Claire Grammer

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Few studies have examined the compounded impact of general psychopathology and eating disorder (ED) psychopathology on weight change in youth with overweight/obesity (OW/OB). We characterized patterns of general psychopathology and ED psychopathology in children with OW/OB and examined the impact on weight change following family-based behavioral obesity treatment (FBT). Children (n=172) with OW/OB participated in 4 months of FBT. General psychopathology (i.e., anxiety, depression), ED psychopathology (i.e., shape concern, weight concern, loss of control (LOC) eating), and child percent overweight (%OW) were assessed at baseline. Latent profile analysis identified patterns of general and ED psychopathology at baseline. Multiple linear regression …

Infancias Imaginadas: Creciendo En España En El Siglo Xx Con Elena Fortún Y Miguel Delibes, Maria Del Carmen Toro Gonzalez-Green

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

From the 1920s to the 1990s, a large number of works featuring children as main characters were produced and published in Spain. Children live in constant confrontation between what they are and what is expected of them: because of this, in a new literary paradigm, childhood became a symbol for the confrontations, tensions, and contradictions that characterize 20th century Spain. Also, the preponderant temporal dimension for these children characters is the present, which is a significant choice in a historical period in constant tension between letting go of the past and clinging to it. This project explores how different imagined …

The Effect Of Retrieval Practice On Vocabulary Learning For Children Who Are Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing, Casey Krauss Reimer

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal of the current study was to determine if students who are deaf or hard of hearing (d/hh) would learn more new vocabulary words through the use of retrieval practice than repeated exposure (repeated study). No studies to date have used this cognitive strategy—retrieval practice—with children who are d/hh. Previous studies have shown that children with hearing loss struggle with learning vocabulary words. This deficit can negatively affect language development, reading outcomes, and overall academic success. Few studies have investigated specific interventions to address the poor vocabulary development for children with hearing loss. The current study investigated retrieval practice …

Letter Teaching In Parent–Child Conversations, Molly Farry-Thorn

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Societies engage in cross-generational transfers of information, enabling cultural transmission of skills such as tool use and language (Tomasello, 2001). Reading and spelling are two of the most important cultural tools that are transferred to children in modern societies. This transfer begins with informal experiences in the home and continues with formal teaching at school. One skill that is critical to a child’s success during the first years of reading and spelling instruction is decoding, which is the ability to sound out written words. Decoding ability depends, in part, on a child’s knowledge of letters (Lonigan, Burgess, & Anthony, 2000). …

Social Influences On Children's Option Valuations, Laura Pape Hennefield

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Children use a variety of strategies to determine the relative value of the objects they encounter, ranging from simple heuristics to the integration of information from multiple sources. Do children also incorporate social information - specifically, information pertaining to others' preferences - into their object valuations? Valuation is an important component of economic exchange, and is key to assessing how resources are fairly distributed or favors reciprocated. As humans often need to make critical decisions with limited information, garnering information about value via social sources might be an adaptive strategy. This dissertation has two primary goals: (1) to develop methodology …

Effect Of Reading And Discussing A Storybook About Alzheimer's Disease On Children And Parents, Erin Sakai

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Currently, there are 5.2 million Americans over the age of 65 with Alzheimer's disease (AD; Alzheimer's Association, 2013). Given the growing proportion of the population that is over age 65, the number of people who will develop Alzheimer's disease is expected to increase significantly over the next 20 years. One consequence of that trend is that more young children (i.e., ages 4-12) are likely to encounter AD through a grandparent or great-grandparent with the disease. While it is unknown exactly how many young children have grandparents or great-grandparents with the disease, 30 percent of dementia caregivers also have children under …

What Do Children Know Before Spelling Phonologically? Prephonological Spellers’ Knowledge Of Writing, Lan Zhang

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Most theories of literacy development have focused on children’s knowledge of the phonological aspect of writing. Relatively few studies have investigated children’s writing-related knowledge before they acquire alphabetic knowledge. The constructivist theory provides insights into what and how children know about other aspects of writing such as its graphic properties and symbolic function. The present study examined different aspects of the constructivist perspective. Preschool children with a mean age of 4 years and 4 months completed a spelling task and a recognition task. Participants who had not grasped conventional phoneme-grapheme correspondences in English were of primary interest. Consistent with the …

Analyzing Reading Specialization Using Fmri, Rs-Fcmri, And Development, Alecia Cristen Vogel-Hammen

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Reading is an important, phylogenetically new skill. While neuroimaging studies have identified brain regions used in reading, it is unclear to what extent these regions become specialized for use predominantly in reading versus other tasks. The goal of this dissertation is to investigate the extent to which reading specialization exists at the region and network level, with a focus on orthography, the visual processing of words and letters.

I used task-based and resting state functional connectivity: rs-fcMRI) studies to investigate the specialization of orthographic processing, purportedly localized to a left occipito-temporal fusiform cortex region. In Chapter 2, we find no …

Young Children's Understanding Of The Relationship Between Conventionality And Communication, Kathleen R. Sullivan

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

This dissertation explores children's understanding of the conventionality of language, the notion that shared knowledge of the meanings of linguistic symbols enables communication using those symbols. Three studies investigate whether monolingual children recognize that different speakers share knowledge of lexical conventions, in this case the labels for objects, independent of children's own knowledge of those labels. Further, children's ability to use evidence of shared conventional knowledge when reasoning about communicative interactions is tested using a novel third-party communication task. Results indicate that three-year-old children track consistent labeling of novel objects across different speakers, and infer underlying shared knowledge of object …

Development Of Speed, Memory, And Fluid Reasoning In Children, Duneesha De Alwis

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Children's memory and higher-order cognitive abilities such as fluid reasoning improve with age, but the relationships between these abilities are not well understood. The developmental cascade model proposed by Fry and Hale: 1996) suggests that age related improvements in speed of processing are related to improvements in working memory, which in turn influence fluid reasoning. Recent research in adults suggests secondary memory is also an important predictor of fluid reasoning. The relations between working memory and fluid reasoning have been studied extensively in both adults and children. However, the relationships between working memory, secondary memory, and fluid reasoning have not …

Children's And Parents' Depression In Relation To Family-Based Behavioral Weight Loss Treatment Outcome, Rachel Kolko

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Baseline parent-report of child depression and parent self-reported depression have been found to predict childrenΓÇÖs outcome in family-based behavioral weight loss treatment: FBT), although less is known about how child self-reported depression, changes in depression over time, and depression assessed via multiple informants is associated with FBT outcome. Two hundred and forty-one overweight children and their parents entered FBT, and 178 completed the pre- and post-FBT assessments. Depression was assessed via child and parent self-report, and parent-report on child. Linear regression examined child and parent depression: both baseline and change from baseline to post-FBT) as predictors of child FBT outcome: …

A Laboratory-Based Study Of Mood And Eating Behavior In Overweight Children, Andrea Goldschmidt

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Loss of control over eating refers to the sense that one cannot control what or how much one is eating. Loss of control eating is prevalent among overweight children and is associated with psychosocial impairment. Self-report data suggest that pediatric loss of control eating may be related to the experience of aversive emotions, with investigators theorizing that loss of control eating is a maladaptive means of alleviating negative mood. However, these data need to be substantiated using more objective methodology. The current study utilized a feeding laboratory paradigm to further explore the relation between mood and eating in 46 overweight …