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Developing Fine Motor Skills In Preschool Age Children, Linnea Starkey

Occupational Therapy Capstones

Based on the findings of the literature review, fine motor skills are an important skill to develop during the preschool years. Marr, Cermak, Cohan and Henderson (2003) described the importance of fine motor skills to engage in valued occupations in addition to educational activities. A child's occupations that demand fine motor skills may be dressing, tying shoes, play, among other daily tasks. If a child has difficulty with fine motor skills it could have a negative outcome on their daily lives and how they perform in school. Children who have difficulty coordinating the small muscle groups in their hands have …

Rhetorical Agency And Survivance: American Indians In College Composition, Rebecca Lynn Gardner

Theses and Dissertations

American Indian writers in college have a distinct cultural background related to rhetorical agency and language. Particularly for Indian students who grew up on reservations, the effects of official federal policies regarding the use of English for assimilation remain significant. However, in writing classes, we have an opportunity to reverse course and to specifically teach toward what Scott Lyons calls rhetorical sovereignty.

In this project, four American Indian college students demonstrate agency with writing. All four students grew up on federal Indian reservations (Standing Rock and White Earth), and at the time of this study, were enrolled in their first …

Genocide In Rwanda : Recurrence Risk Model Using Two Early Warning Models, Clarinda Rae Solberg

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

Selective Mutism And Art Therapies, Dalene Erickson

Theses and Dissertations

Selective Mutism (SM) is a social anxiety disorder characterized by a child's inability to speak in selected social situations, usually school. The causes of SM are multi-factorial. Affected children often have a history of anxiety, linguistic and motor disorders. Current therapies include a mix of anti-anxiety medication, behavioral modification therapy and anxiety reduction techniques.

Art therapy, (dance, drama and theater), has been shown to be beneficial in reducing anxiety and encouraging communication through forms other than speaking. Art therapy could be a valuable modality, benefitting children with SM.

I surveyed parents, teachers, former teachers of children with SM, and adults …

Intonation Processing In Individuals With Parkinson's Disease, Alanna Friedman

Theses and Dissertations

Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease caused by the death of dopaminergic neurons in structures that make up the basal ganglia. Previous research has shown that damage to the basal ganglia can result in deficient (Cheang et al, 2004; Ma et al, 2007) production and perception of intonation in non-emotional (Cheang et al., 2004; Ma et al., 2007) and emotional (e.g., Breitenstein et al., 1998; Cancelliere & Kertesz, 1990) contexts. Studies on perception have shown evidence that individuals with Parkinson's disease have difficulty discriminating intonation patterns when compared to healthy controls, and that these difficulties are due to higher …

Auditory Recall In Normal Children And Children With A Diagnosis Of Central Auditory Processing Disorder, Kara J. Nunziato

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in level of performance on auditory memory tasks between individuals with and without a diagnosis of Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD). The study was also designed to examine the differences in performance among different auditory memory tasks. A total of ten participants were recruited for the study. Five typically developing individuals served in the control group and five individuals with a clinical diagnosis of CAPD served in the experimental group. Results from the study indicated that individuals with a diagnosis of CAPD performed significantly lower than the control group on …

'Reel' Gangs Or 'Real' Gangs: A Qualitative Media Analysis Of Street Gangs Portrayed In Hollywood Films, 1960-2009, Christopher J. Przemieniecki

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the portrayals of street gangs as presented by a select sample of Hollywood films from 1960 to 2009. Using the theoretical framework of social constructionism and cinematic realism, a content analysis of 25 `street gang' films was conducted to (a) determine the comparability of depictions of street gangs in Hollywood films with those characteristics of defining a street gang in the law enforcement and academic literature, (b) identify emergent themes and patterns, including changes over time, and (c) address the representations of realism in the portrayal of street gangs as depicted …

"You Are Safe": Black Maternal Politics Of Resistance And The Question Of Community Consensus In African American Women's Literature, Daniela Marinova Koleva

Theses and Dissertations

The study focuses on a number of African American women's literary texts that employ the figure of the black mother and the motif of infanticide to engage in critical statements about system arrangements, repressive practices, and theory designs with direct effect upon black people's choices for organizing their lives and existence. Such critical statements are inevitably political and their construction is offered in a most provocative and startling way given the choice of maternal infanticide to make the claims.

Angelina Weld Grimke's "The Closing Door" (1919), Georgia Douglas Johnson's Safe (c.1929), Shirley Graham's It's Morning (c. 1938-1940), and Toni Morrison's …

Grouping The Marcellus Payout: Use Of Class Actions In Royalty Litigation Concerning Post-Production Cost Deductions, Karen E. Kahle, Denielle M. Stritch

North Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Performance Comparison Of The Nonword Repetition Task (Nrt) In Typically Developing Children And Children With Speech Sound Disorders, Anna Gaspar

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

Winter Commencement: December 16, 2011, University Of North Dakota

UND Commencement Programs

UND Winter Commencement program from December 16, 2011.

"The Course Fit Us": Differentiated Instruction In The College Classroom, Mary Volesky Dosch

Theses and Dissertations

Differentiated instruction is a learner-centered philosophy of teaching based on Tomlinson’s research, but stems from a constructivist belief espoused by Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky. Through consideration of three diagnostic areas: readiness, interests, and learning profiles, a teacher differentiates how diverse students access the material (content), how students make sense of the material (process), and how students demonstrate their learning (product).

Differentiated instruction has been used successfully at the elementary, middle, and high school levels showing quantitative improvements for diverse students. A limited number of qualitative studies on differentiated instruction exist at the college level, with even fewer quantitative studies.

The …

Sign Language Word List Comparisons: Toward A Replicable Coding And Scoring Methodology, Jason Parks

Theses and Dissertations

This study describes and evaluates a methodology for sign language word list comparisons. The purpose of this sociolinguistic research tool is to identify similarity relationships among sign language varieties by assessing similarities of lexical items. Similarities are calculated using the Levenshtein distance metric which measures the number of differences between signs.

In this study, the methodology was refined for optimal efficiency through an analysis of: which parameters of a sign should be compared, which values should be included in each parameter value inventory, and which items should be used in the word list. As a result of the study, I …

Volume 49, Number 14: November 23, 2011, University Of North Dakota

University Letter Archive

No abstract provided.

November 3, 2011, University Of North Dakota

University Senate Meeting Minutes

Minutes from the November 3, 2011, meeting of the University Senate. 10 pages

Volume 49, Number 11: November 02, 2011, University Of North Dakota

University Letter Archive

No abstract provided.

Volume 49, Number 5: September 21, 2011, University Of North Dakota

University Letter Archive

No abstract provided.

“A Better Vision Of What Social Studies Can Be”: How Elementary Teachers' Beliefs Influence Their Use Of The “History Alive!” Textbook, Kathryn Hintz

Theses and Dissertations

In this qualitative research project I investigated curricular decision-making and the relationship among teacher philosophies, textbook materials, and effective practice. Participants included five experienced fifth grade teachers who used a comprehensive social studies textbook package, History Alive! America's Past. Information was gathered through five 30–90 minute classroom observations and two or three interviews with each participant. Results indicate that teachers whose beliefs about student capabilities matched the textbook publisher's stated philosophies took full advantage of the program's innovative features. For four teachers, the textbook helped them put their beliefs into practice. One of the participants, who had less clearly-defined goals …

Volume 48, Number 52: August 17, 2011, University Of North Dakota

University Letter Archive

No abstract provided.

Summer Commencement: August 5, 2011, University Of North Dakota

UND Commencement Programs

UND Summer Commencement program from August 5, 2011.

Factors Predicting Exercise Behavior Of Graduate Students, Bibha Gautam

Theses and Dissertations

Graduate school is often experienced as a time of increased demands/expectations resulting in heightened levels of stress due to academic work, family responsibilities, job demands, financial pressure, and other life related issues. Besides stress, graduate school also brings about significant physical inactivity due to the shift of the immediate priority to academic accomplishment. Reports of increasing prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors among students highlight that this group may have particular risk not well-identified. Yet, relative risk can be reduced by lifestyle modifications, such as eating well, exercising, and stress reduction. The majority of the risk factors, to a …

Thematic Groupings In Magpie Miao Narrative, Won Ho Kim

Theses and Dissertations

Magpie Miao is a Hmong-Mien language spoken in Guizhou Province of southwest China. This thesis presents a description of three particles (jik, nid, and dik) and participant reference, which are both useful for understanding boundaries between and climaxes within thematic groupings. The primary data source for this thesis consists of five oral narratives, one of which is included in the appendix.

The three particles function as both aspectual markers and connectives. They function as the former when they occur at the end of a clause and as the latter when they occur at or near the …

Phonological And Phonetic Aspects Of Enggano Vowels, Brendon E. Yoder

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes aspects of Enggano phonology and phonetics, primarily at the word level. It focuses mainly on vowels and vocoid sequences.

The Enggano phoneme inventory consists of twelve consonants and fourteen vowels in a seven-vowel oral system and an analogous seven-vowel nasal system. There are seven possible syllable types. Word stress is consistently final in both monomorphemic and polymorphemic words. Acoustic measurements show that word stress is indicated by intensity in closed syllables, and possibly by length and pitch in both open and closed syllables.

There are a few allophonic processes in Enggano. An intrusive vowel (Hall 2006) is …

Exploring The Paths To Homelessness: An Ethnographic Study Of How Disability, Educational Achievement, Gender, Foster Care And Poverty Impacted The Lives Of Two Towns' Homeless Shelter Residents, Sandra Arnau-Dewar

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study explored and described the lived experiences of residents of two homeless shelters located in the Upper Midwest. Through testimonies of participants, common themes associated with homelessness were revealed, such as disability, domestic violence, food shortages, foster care, insecure housing, and poor educational achievement. Since education, or a lack thereof, sometimes played a part in the residents’ inability to make a living wage, participants were queried about their schooling.

The public has a tendency to blame homeless people for their condition and assume that their plight is self-imposed due to substance abuse and a refusal to work (Diversi …

Volume 48, Number 49: July 27, 2011, University Of North Dakota

University Letter Archive

No abstract provided.

Volume 48, Number 47: July 13, 2011, University Of North Dakota

University Letter Archive

No abstract provided.

Volume 48, Number 46: July 06, 2011, University Of North Dakota

University Letter Archive

No abstract provided.

Volume 48, Number 44: June 22, 2011, University Of North Dakota

University Letter Archive

No abstract provided.

Volume 48, Number 43: June 15, 2011, University Of North Dakota

University Letter Archive

No abstract provided.

Spring Commencement: May 14, 2011, University Of North Dakota

UND Commencement Programs

UND Spring Commencement program from May 14, 2011.