Automatic detection of children's engagement using non-verbal features and ordinal learning

In collaborative play, young children can exhibit different types of engagement. Some children are engaged with other children in the play activity while others are just looking. In this study, we investigated methods to automatically detect the children's levels of engagement in play settings using non-verbal vocal features. Rather than labelling the level of engagement in an absolute manner, as has frequently been done in previous related studies, we designed an annotation scheme that takes the order of children's engagement levels into account. Taking full advantage of the ordinal annotations, we explored the use of SVM-based ordinal learning, i.e. ordinal regression and ranking, and compared these to a rule-based ranking and a classification method. We found promising performances for the ordinal methods. Particularly, the ranking method demonstrated the most robust performance against the large variation of children and their interactions

Investigating single-process and dual-process theories of transitive reasoning: Applying Signal Detection Theory and Signed Difference Analysis.

This item is only available electronically.According to influential dual-process theories, reasoning is driven by distinct Type 1 and 2 processing. Type 1 processing is characterised as fast, intuitive and heuristics based, while Type 2 processing is thought to be more effortful, deliberate and requires working memory. However, the dual-process view has faced an increasing amount of criticism over recent years. Single-process theories offer an alternative account, suggesting that reasoning across a range of contexts is reliant on a common assessment of inference strength. The current experiment tested the competing theories using a transitive reasoning task. Key factors relevant to dual-process accounts were manipulated, including premise integration time and working memory demands via premise ordering. Results showed that validity ratings were higher for valid than for invalid arguments, and for believable than for unbelievable conclusions. An interaction between premise ordering (unscrambled vs. scrambled premises) and validity was also observed. These results were consistent with dual-process theories, however, quantitative models were then compared to investigate whether the results were inconsistent with single-process theories. Signal detection theory was applied and dual- and single-process accounts were instantiated as two-dimensional and one-dimensional models, respectively. Model testing via signed difference analysis showed that the observed data do not rule out the simpler single-process, one-dimensional model. This suggests that such single-process models offer a viable account in explaining the underlying cognitive processing intransitive reasoning.Thesis (B.PsychSc(Hons)) -- University of Adelaide, School of Psychology, 202

The development of representation in children with Down's Syndrome : coherence and stability

This thesis examines the development of representation in typically developing children and in young children with Down's Syndrome. The focus on representation allows us to adopt a general approach to development in infancy spanning domains such as motor development, language, object permanence, imitation, and symbolic play. Theoretical approaches to children with Down's Syndrome have been dominated by the `delay versus difference' controversy. This perspective suggests that development in children with Down's Syndrome should proceed with a sequence and structure similar to that observed in typically developing children. In this thesis it is argued, in contrast, that children with Down's Syndrome present a number of challenges to the organisational perspective. This thesis examines the strengths and weaknesses in the development of children with Down's Syndrome and attempts to identify the structural links between domains which are threatened by such a profile. These results of empirical studies detailed in this thesis suggest that development across domains such as language, motor development and object permanence appears to be relatively coherent. However, children with Down's Syndrome show subtle differences in their performance on object permanence and symbolic play tasks which suggests deviation from the typical pattern of structural coherence. Specifically, children with Down's Syndrome appear to adopt a more imitative strategy in solving object permanence tasks and in their symbolic play. The prevalence of imitation as a strategy may be indicative of a shallow level of processing. Alternatively, it may also be argued that children with Down's Syndrome adopt a different representational style in performing tasks. These subtle difference in the style with which children approach task suggest that the learning and consolidation process may differ between children with Down's Syndrome and the typically developing population. Such findings may have important consequences for intervention

Perceived emotional competence and emotion appraisal skills in middle childhood in typically developing and behaviourally challenged children.

This thesis addresses whether children with severe behavioural problems lack emotional competence in key areas and, if so, whether this is reflected in their ability to appraise emotions in others. Self-rated and objectively rated emotional competence of children in mainstream schooling was compared with 20 children aged seven to 11 excluded for severe social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. In Study 1 self-report questionnaires measured affect perception, empathy and expressivity in typically developing (N=203), special educational needs (N=36) and socially, emotionally and behaviourally disordered (N=30) children in mainstream schooling. Younger children were less perceptive of affect than older children and scored lower for cognitive empathy. Boys scored lower in cognitive and affective empathy than girls and were less intimate, and more covert, in their expression of emotion. Special educational needs children appeared less emotionally perceptive than their peers. In Studies 2a and 2b, affect appraisal and the ability to describe emotional change were examined using a new measure employing pictorial representations of children in ambiguous postures and facial representations of emotion. Typical patterns of appraisal of possibly threatening, depressive and innocuous postures were established (N=242). A developmental progression in reasons given for emotional change was seen with older children providing more socially based and mentalising answers than younger children. Study 3 developed an interactive computerised measure to examine the point at which children recognise the emergence of emotion from an interpolation of photographic facial expressions. Eighty-five typically developing children manipulated 26 emotional changes, including emotion/emotion and emotion/neutral transitions and chose a point of uncertainty in the transformation. A significant effect was found for facial representations of fear and anger, indicating a threat detection mechanism in response to emergent emotion. In Study 4 children with severe behavioural problems were compared across all measures with typically developing children from the first three studies. Behaviourally challenged children were deficient in cognitive and affective empathy and exhibited a hostile appraisal bias when assessing ambiguous postures of other children. No deficit was found in the ability to evaluate emotional change and provide age-appropriate reasons. However, anger was dominant in the perception even over fear stimuli when assessing emotional transition. Overall, children excluded from mainstream schooling with severe behavioural problems showed a very different profile to mainstream children with behavioural problems, suggesting a qualitative difference in cognitive functioning that could have a predictive function. This thesis not only supports the premise that severe SEBD children exhibit altered emotional functioning but has developed a series of tests that will have ongoing value in applied research

Observing Language Pedagogy (OLP): Developing and piloting a contexualised video-based measure of early childhood teachers' pedagogical language knowledge

To support responsive decision-making in the classroom, teachers need flexible access to rich, well-organised and integrated pedagogical knowledge (Koehler & Mishra, 2009). The design of teacher programmes which effectively foster such knowledge rests on its successful measurement, so that relationships between teachers’ learning experiences and their knowledge growth can be established. However, existing questionnaire-based assessments have thus far failed to capture dynamic pedagogical knowledge in a manner which allows relationships with practice and child outcomes to be established. This study develops and pilots a contextualised tool for assessing the dynamic pedagogical knowledge of early childhood teachers, in relation to oral language development. Respondents watch three short videos of a practitioner interacting with children, and identify the strategies used which may support children’s language skills. This use of ‘teacher noticing’ as a proxy for pedagogical knowledge is based on the premise that expert and novice teachers perceive classroom events differently (Berliner, 1992), and that noticing effective strategies in others is a precursor to successful application in personal practice (Jamil, Sabol, Hamre & Pianta, 2015; van Es & Sherin, 2002, 2006). The tool is piloted in the context of a wider randomised controlled trial in 117 schools, designed to evaluate an oral language professional development intervention for preschool teachers. Responses from 104 teachers (n=72 schools) are used to explore its psychometric properties. Findings indicate that the tool provides a reliable measure of pedagogical knowledge, and that scores significantly predict observed quality of practice. Teachers with greater explicit procedural knowledge, and those who provided interpretations of the interactions they identified, led classrooms with higher-quality language-supporting practice. Teachers who participated in the intervention showed greater procedural knowledge of language-supporting strategies than teachers in the control group. Implications for the understanding and assessment of pedagogical knowledge, and for the design of relevant professional development, are considered

USING EMOTIONS: BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS INFLUENCING EMOTION UNDERSTANDING AND ANTISOCIALITY

People are guided by their emotions which in turn are a consequence of their understanding of others’ emotion expressions. Their skills to read and accurately identify others’ emotion expressions are a key ingredient for good emotion understanding. That is, accurate emotion identification can be considered as the first frontier of successful emotion understanding, and as the first step of a sequence which results in empathic responding. Impairment within this sequence might mean that the way people respond to their environment may not be appropriate or even cause harm to others. Children and adolescents with callous-unemotional traits have difficulties reading emotional cues correctly, specifically those cues which show others in distress. Such an impairment is thought to underlie a distinct pathway to severe and stable antisocial behaviour. Conventional methods of curbing the antisocial behaviour of children with high callous-unemotional traits such as punishment or time-out do not have the desired effect. Instead, this group of individuals seems to respond well to parental warmth and sensitive responding. Given that children start to learn early how to read and respond to emotions in an empathic manner through interactions, parents have a potential role by intervening early to foster good emotional and social skills even in children with high callous-unemotional traits. Study 1 tested whether adolescent boys with high callous-unemotional traits exhibit an impairment that is specific to distress cues such as fear, sadness or pain as difficulties to recognise such cues in others may impair typical inhibition to behave in an antisocial manner. In Study 2, it was expected that successful parental scaffolding is dependent on parent’s own emotion understanding skills, and therefore, study 2 investigated ways in which parents can scaffold emotion understanding in typically developing children, e.g. through talking about others’ emotion states and through engaging children in mutual eye gaze. Study 3 examined the impact that varying levels of child callous-unemotional traits have on parent-child interaction. Specifically, it was of interest whether children with high callous-unemotional traits are willing to engage with their parents on an emotional level permitting successful parental scaffolding. Parental understanding of emotions was tested in terms of promoting parental sensitive responsiveness. In sum, there are three main points the present thesis contributed: first, findings of Study 1 and 3 support a theory of emotion processing impairment that is not specific to fear or sadness, but describe a broader impairment of a failure to engage with the emotional environment and attend to salient emotional stimuli. Second, this thesis confirms the value of studying callous-unemotional traits in adolescents and young children as well as their parents. Third, findings of Studies 2 and 3 support the important role parents play in the lives of their children with callous-unemotional traits, specifically through their own emotion understanding