Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Comparison Of Parent Interview And Direct Assessment Of Receptive Language In Preschool-Aged Children With Cerebral Palsy, Susan Kathleen Livick

Dissertations and Theses

Cerebral palsy is a multiply handicapping condition which may affect motor skills, hearing, sight, speech and cognitive functioning. Assessment instruments which do not rely on an intact sensory and motor system are needed for use with the population with cerebral palsy in order to obtain valid information regarding levels of functioning. The information obtained from the results of modified assessment instruments can be used to plan and implement intervention at the child's current level of functioning.

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether or not parent interview/report is a reliable means of assessing receptive communication skills in …

Predictions Of Intentions Of College Students To Take An Hiv Antibody Test And Their Preferences For A Testing Procedure, Hitoshi Ishimaru

Dissertations and Theses

Intentions to prevent HIV infections are an essential part of HIV prevention. Social science researchers and HIV educators have investigated the roles of intentions to prevent HIV infections mainly in the context of safer sex behaviors. Surprisingly, however, HIV testing intentions have not been extensively studied in light of various forms of HIV tests that are likely soon to be approved for widespread use . The present study evaluated the utility of Ajzen and Fishbein' s (1980) Theory of Reasoned Action in predicting college students' intentions to take an HIV test. Attitudes toward HIV testing and their perceptions of social …

Opening Doors: Culture Learning And Conversational Narratives With First Generation Hmong Refugee Women, Lucy Vincent Kimbro

Dissertations and Theses

The life experiences of two first generation Hmong refugee women form the basis of this study. Through loosely structured but guided interviews, memories of their lives in Laos and in refugee camps in Thailand, as well as their perspectives, feelings, and opinions about current aspects of their lives, the effects of American culture on their family; and their engagement in the language and culture learning process are explored.

An examination of the involvement of Hmong women in research and ethnographic accounts concerning Hmong culture, history, and experience, show that Hmong women's perspectives have often been overlooked or disregarded. One purpose …

The Home-School Connection: Parental Influences On A Child's English Second Language Acquisition, Catharine Jauhiainen

Dissertations and Theses

Few would dispute the tremendous impact that parents have on the intellectual, emotional, and social development of their children. An important issue in child second language acquisition is whether, or to what extent, parental attitudes and behaviors are associated with the success of language minority children in elementary ESL and mainstream classroom settings. The effects of parental educational values and expectations, and parental perception of ability to assist in the educational journey of their offspring, have been the focus of much research regarding majority language children. However, research exploring the beliefs and behaviors of language minority parents and their relationship …

Law Enforcement Attitudes Toward The 1989 Oregon Firearms Law And Gun Control, Andrew Schneiderman

Dissertations and Theses

The US Supreme Court decision Deshaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services cited; "the police or other government agents are under 'no general duty' to provide services, such as protection, to any particular citizen. But rather, duty to provide public services owed only to the public at large, and absent special relationships between police and individuals"(09 S.Ct. 998/1989). At the same time of this decision, the public was undergoing a trend of proliferating millions of personally owned firearms for self-defense and sport. In addition, citizens are now carrying concealed handguns in the 31 states that allow such a behavior. …

A Study Of The Level Of Knowledge Of Adult Foster Care Home Providers In Multnomah County In The State Of Oregon About Hearing Loss, Hearing Aids And Communication Strategies, Marsha Peters Johnson

Dissertations and Theses

The level of knowledge about hearing aid use, function, and maintenance of caregivers of the elderly persons who are hearing impaired and residing in adult foster care homes in Multnomah County in the state of Oregon was assessed via a 1 7 question survey. Twenty subjects participated in the study. Subjects' responses demonstrated poor knowledge about this subject and indicated that residents' needs are unmet. The results clearly demonstrate the subjects' limited knowledge of the operation of hearing aids, poor grasp of the basic troubleshooting methods for repair, and inaccurate perceptions of hearing aid adjustment. Access to professional audiologic care …

Temporal Characteristics Of Fluent Speech In The Stuttered Utterances Of Children, Dixon Ira Kirsch

Dissertations and Theses

Studies investigating the stuttered speech of children are fewer in number as compared to those exploring adult dysfluency. This is notable as the features that characterize child stuttering are generally thought to be significantly different from those that describe advanced stuttering. Clinical intervention programs currently use timing-based interventions as one means of treating stuttering. As such, acoustic data describing the timing disorder is critical to determining the efficacy of these programs for both children and adults. The present study investigated the difference in duration (in msec) between words of stuttered and nonstuttered utterances of children. The words immediately before and …

Wealth For Everybody - Semantics And Structure Of The Capitalist Metanarrative, Sylvia Hendel

Dissertations and Theses

In 1979 Jean-Fran~ois Lyotard defined postmodemism as "incredulity toward metanarratives." One of six narratives Lyotard saw in decline was the capitalist one, which promised wealth for everybody. According to Lyotard this narrative was refuted by recurrent economic crises in the 20th century. This thesis examines Lyotard's statement about the decline of the capitalist metanarrative by taking the approach of the sociology of knowledge, a branch of sociology that attempts to relate ideas to the socio-historical settings in which they are produced and received. The idea of general abundance, or the semantics, is described in othodox economic theory. Four distinct, successive …

Ethnography Of Communication As On Organizational Communication Assessment Tool: A Test Of The Method, Francisca Inez Trujillo-Dalbey

Dissertations and Theses

Professional organizational consultants and researchers performing organizational communication assessments with non-profit boards of directors have few tools available to them and many of these tools under emphasize the centrality of communication and overlook the power-asdomination (Mumby, 1994) issues present in organizations. This study tested the ethnography of communication (Hymes, 1972) as an organizational communication assessment tool with a board of directors of a non-profit organization in Oregon and examined the results by employing Mumby's (1994) construct, thereby conducting a critical ethnography of communication.

This study offers important insights into boards of directors of nonprofit organizations and has important implications for …

A Lay Theory Of Relational Satisfaction With Best Friends In Japan, Eriko Maeda

Dissertations and Theses

Using a total of 529 Japanese college students (275 females, 254 males) living in Japan, the present study employed five sequential stages. First, it explored Japanese people's beliefs about relational satisfaction with best friends and the organization of these beliefs. In order to explore these beliefs and their organization, this study replicated Cole and Bradac's (1994) study of a lay theory of relational satisfaction with best friends, which focused on people from the United States. The study then examined similarities and differences of Japanese beliefs and organization of the beliefs with those of the U.S. Lastly, the study investigated Japanese …

Analysis Of Rhetorical Organization And Style Patterns In Korean And American Business Fax Letters Of Complaint In English, Mi Young Park

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to find out if Korean and American business people use different rhetorical patterns in business writing, and if so, how these patterns differ. Specifically, this study examined rhetorical organization and style patterns of Korean and American business letter writing in English to determine differences.

The data used in this study consisted exclusively of fax transmitted business letters of complaint written in English obtained from seven companies in Korea. The sample consisted of seven letters written by American business people and fourteen by Korean business people. They were analyzed according to a predetermined set of …

Ethnic Conflict In Southern Kyrgyzstan, Jennifer Jane O'Donnell

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis focuses on the interethnic relations between ethnic groups in Southern Kyrgyzstan using survey data collected from 500 students at Osh State University. This study examines the nature of attitudes of students and faculty regarding homogeneity, exclusionary attitudes, satisfaction with current living situation, and interethnic relations.

Research on interethnic conflict suggests that interethnic relations will depend on several variables, including the size and strength of the various ethnic groups, their political opportunities, their economic situation, and their communal ties. This line of research would suggest that the Kyrgyz would be in the strongest position among the ethnic groups in …

Evaluating Modernization And Dependency Explanations Of The Unequal Distribution Of Income In Developing Countries, Paul Timothy Shattuck

Dissertations and Theses

This paper tests two different theoretical explanations of the causes of the unequal distribution of income in less developed countries using data from circa 1990. There are several reasons for examining this much-studied topic. First, as described in the previous research findings chapter below, there is no consensus in the literature regarding the relative effects of modernization and dependency variables on income inequality. Determining the independent effects of the two models is still an open ended question. Second, the availability of more recent data provides us with an opportunity to check the possibility that previous findings were partly due to …

Developing A Language In Education Policy For Post-Apartheid South Africa: A Case Study, Nancy Murray

Dissertations and Theses

The dismantling of apartheid laws, the all-race elections of 1994, and a new Constitution signal opportunities for fundamental change in South Africa's educational system and language policies. This study describes the development, still in progress, of a new language in education policy. The primary focus is on the various issues involved in the making of a policy--the assumptions and principles which provide the foundation for a new policy, the active participants in the policy debate and formulation, the perceptions of the role of English in South African society and schools, English as the medium of instruction, and possible consensus at …

Rethinking Appropriateness: A Look At Hegemonic Ideals As Related To Perceived Communication Competence In Women, Kristi L. Meade

Dissertations and Theses

The author argues that the hegemonically-constructed criteria of "appropriateness," as related to communication competence, is not palatable or functional for female communicators much of the time for it serves a social milieu which marginalizes women. Spitzberg and Duran (1993) state, "appropriateness seems spring loaded towards the status quo'' and may work against the interests of certain groups. In this paper, the author attempts to illuminate evidence of power imbalances covertly imbedded in the ideologically complex determination of appropriateness as a central criteria for communication competence in women. Competence theory is problematic and must be re-evaluated: it is contradictory and confusing, …

An Historical Perspective Of Oregon's And Portland's Political And Social Atmosphere In Relation To The Legal Justice System As It Pertained To Minorities: With Specific Reference To State Laws, City Ordinances, And Arrest And Court Records During The Period -- 1840-1895, Clarinèr Freeman Boston

Dissertations and Theses

Racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented in Portland, Oregon's criminal justice system. Laws, legal procedures and practices that excessively target minorities are not new phenomena. This study focused on a history of political and social conditions in Oregon, and subsequently, Portland, from the 1840's to 1895, that created unjust state laws and city ordinances that adversely impacted Native Americans, African Americans, and Chinese Immigrants. Attention was also given to the Jewish population.

The approach was to examine available arrest and court records from Oregon's and Portland's early beginnings to ascertain what qualitative information records could provide regarding the treatment …

The Effects Of Position Power And Personal Power On The Incidence Of Sexual Harassment In The Workplace, Eva Marie Labonte

Dissertations and Theses

Sexual harassment is an important issue in today's workplace. Employees who have been sexually harassed may experience stress and a hostile, unpleasant work environment. Researchers have suggested that a person's level of power may affect the occurrence of sexual harassment.

The purpose of the present study was to partially test a theoretical model relating power and sexual harassment in order to determine if there is a connection between a victim's level of position and personal power and the incidence of sexual harassment in the workplace. The study attempted to answer the following questions: 1) Do men hold more power than …

Peer Context Influences On School Motivation: A Naturalistic Observation Of Peer And Teacher Contingencies Following On-And Off-Task Behavior In A Fifth Grade Classroom, Nicole Ann Sage

Dissertations and Theses

With regard to school motivation and performance, two questions have been central for both educational and developmental psychologists; Why do some students do well in school whereas others do not and why is it that over time, those students who do well, continue to do well, while those who don't, often get worse? Findings with regard to the first question are conclusive; many factors are associated with doing well in school. With regard to the second question however, the findings are less conclusive.

Parents, teachers and peers have been regarded as contexts in which socialization occurs. However, much of the …

State Funding For Special Education In Oregon : Calculating Cost Differentials Of Special Education For Handicapped Students In Oregon School Districts, Kyung-Sup Kim

Dissertations and Theses

A general principle of school finance is that the cost of the educational program is influenced by varying characteristics of students and school districts. This raises the question of whether state allocation policies should reflect the additional costs associated with particular educational programs, such as special education for handicapped students, vocational, compensatory, bilingual education, and gifted and talented education programs as well as cost differences associated with size, salaries, and related issues. Thus, it is essential for state government to identify cost differentials for special education programs in terms of various school districts to determine the importance of such differences …

The Importance Of Time For Processing In Second Language Comprehension And Acquisition, Jennifer Lee Watson

Dissertations and Theses

Research findings on the positive impact of interaction on comprehension have led to questions regarding both the connection between comprehension and acquisition and the qualities of interaction which facilitate understanding (Ellis et al. 1994). Ellis et al. found that a high degree of comprehension on an activity which contained unknown words correlated with a high rate of vocabulary acquisition. The present study replicates the activity and testing procedures used by Ellis et al. The main focus of the Ellis et al. study was the connection between second language comprehension and acquisition. This study differs from Ellis et al. in that …

Public Transportation For The Elderly: A Neighborhood-Area Fixed-Route Alternative, Richard James Burke

Dissertations and Theses

As the elderly population of the United States grows in coming decades, providing personal mobility will be increasingly challenging. The dispersed suburban residential pattern of most metropolitan areas ensures that the personal automobile will continue to be the dominant mode of transportation. Those who voluntarily or involuntarily stop driving will encounter serious constraints in meeting their transportation needs.

Conventional public transit in most cities is tailored to the needs of urban commuters, and is, at best, barely adequate for elderly riders. Supplemental demand-response or subscription "special-needs" services are often inconvenient, sometimes unreliable, and inefficient. Eligibility criteria restrict many non-disabled elderly …

Video Self-Monitoring As An Alternative To Traditional Methods Of Pronunciation Instruction, P. C. Noble

Dissertations and Theses

Japanese students of English have difficulty pronouncing /f/, Ir/, /1/, /v/ and "th", sounds that are either not present in their language, or as in the case of /r/, articulated in Japanese more like an English /di. Their difficulty with these sounds seems to affect their comprehensibility in English to native-speakers of English.

The purpose of this partial replication of a 1994 study by MacDonald, Yule and Powers was to test three different methods of pronunciation instruction ( and a control) to determine which promoted the greatest improvement in the pronunciation of the five target sounds among Japanese speakers. The …

Patient Behaviors And Beliefs : Are Standardized Patients Different?, Colleen Shannon Lewy

Dissertations and Theses

Standardized patients (SP's) are lay people who are trained to evaluate and train clinical skills for medical personnel. It was hypothesized that since SP's have had practice and experience interacting with medical personnel that they would exhibit higher levels of patient interaction with their own health care providers. Surveys were sent to SP's affiliated with two medical schools in the Northwest as well as a control group from a local university. Surveys consisted of the Thompson Decisional Involvement scale, the Ende Autonomy Preference Index, the Krantz Health Opinion Survey: Information Seeking subscale, a Satisfaction Criteria scale, and an Expectations survey. …

A Comparison Of Two Second Language Acquisition Models For Culturally And Linguistically Different Students, Karen Dorothy Kuhn

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this thesis research was to determine if there were significant educational advantages in terms of sociocultural development for culturally and linguistically different students enrolled in a two-way bilingual education program as compared to those directly mainstreamed. Eighteen third-grade students were selected from two schools in the same school district. Half of the subjects spent their third grade year in a two-way bilingual educational program while the other half were mainstreamed into a submersion education program. Each subject was culturally (Hispanic) and linguistically (Spanish was the dominant language) different from mainstream students. A qualitative summary and statistical analyses …

Managing Oregon’S Aquatic Resources : A Dynamic Segmentation Application, Keith Andrew Hupperts

Dissertations and Theses

Many of Oregon's salmon, the cultural icon of the region, are imperil. Salmon runs ranging from the Snake River to the Oregon coast, from chinook to coho to steelhead to cut-throat are being protected or candidates for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act of 1973. As Oregon's salmon decline natural resource agencies, such as Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), are seeing substantial funding cutbacks. In order to compensate for lost personnel and rising work-loads, ODFW is increasingly turning to new technologies, such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This thesis describes the creation of a dynamic segmentation GIS …

Virtue, Liberty, And The Good : A Critical Analysis Of Civic Republicanism, Nathan Douglas Austin

Dissertations and Theses

Dissatisfaction with liberalism is nothing new. As the longstanding dominant force in Western political thought, it has been subject to unending hostile critiques from a variety of sources. Of the criticisms of liberalism advanced in recent years, some of the most persistent and scathing have been levied by scholars identified with civic republicanism. Civic republicanism has adopted the pose of a counter philosophy to liberalism. Civic republicans, such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, and Cass Sunstein, argue that liberalism is an impoverished political conception that is unable to provide or sustain the moral energies necessary for a vital democratic life. …

An Ethnographic Study Of Chinese Adolescent Identity In Taipei, Taiwan : Franchise Hangouts, Jui-Fang Ruby Chen

Dissertations and Theses

One of the discriminating changes that Taiwan is experiencing is a shift in young people's view of "self," manifested in and through their daily activities within its cultural context (Yang, 1981). The question arises, how do Taiwan's adolescents shape their view of "self' within this contemporary context at the intersection of Eastern and Western cultures? This thesis examined on how Chinese adolescent identity was constituted symbolically in and through their speech practices within a public social context, a typical Westernized dining place--McDonald's, a U.S. fast food restaurant, and how such a locale both served and made sense by these urban …

Sexual Intercourse : A Feminist Reading Of Strip Joint Discourse, Regina Marie Howard Yaroch

Dissertations and Theses

The discursively-constructed stereotype of stripper plays an important role in the ideology that sustains our system of sexual relations. This construction also interacts with and constrains the lived reality of actual women who earn their living in the stripping industry. This research attempts to examine this interaction by exploring the discourse that is generated by stripping industry participants. A long interview transcript is analyzed as a text to develop a feminist reading that focuses on the socio-cultural forces that make a particular story possible as well as necessary to tell. This story emerges, through the first-person account of a dancer-informant, …

The Effects Of Parental Involvement, Structure, And Autonomy Support On Children’S Help-Seeking And Problem-Solving Coping In School, Ronald Wayne Yoder

Dissertations and Theses

The effect of parenting on children's coping in school was investigated. Sixhundred and twelve children in grades three to five provided self-reports on four ways of coping, including help-seeking, concealment, strategizing and confusion, and the parenting dimensions of involvement, structure, and autonomy support. Psychometric analyses conducted on each dimension of parenting, resulted in reducing the number of parenting variables to two: involvement and structure/autonomy support. Correlational analyses found the predicted relations between children's experiences of parenting and their ways of coping in school. Multiple regressions indicated that only unique (positive) predictor of the two positive ways of coping (help-seeking and …

Gangstas, Niggas, Bitches And Hos : A Narrative Analysis Of Gangsta’ Rap Lyrics, Darnell A. Watson

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines gangsta' rap as a form of narrative. It addresses the following questions: 1) Is gangsta' rap a form of narrative; most significant characterizes the 2) if yes, which narrative elements are to interpreting the stories; 3) what elements which are most significant to interpreting the stories and 4) what kinds of stories are being told? Data for the analysis included transcribed lyrics from a representative sample of gangsta' rap recordings. Journal articles, media articles and books germane to understanding the social and cultural context of gangsta rap were also used. It was found that gangsta' rap lyrics …