Sleep and Daytime Functioning in Children on the Fetal Alcohol and Autism Spectrums

Autism and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) are neurodevelopmental conditions that affect at least 3% of the school aged population. Both have serious secondary sequelae including anxiety and depression, problems with concentration in class, learning new concepts through relevant curriculums, and social communication. Sleep is crucial to healthy neurodevelopment. It is not just a period of rest, but a time when the brain is highly active. During sleep, the brain consolidates newly acquired information, organises memory, and can lay the basis for emotional memory. Within Autism and FASD (as well as in many other developmental and psychological conditions), sleep quality and quantity remain much lower than the average and necessary amount. It is not known why this is, but research suggests that there is a complex and bidirectional relationship between sleep and development. This relationship may be part of the compromise of atypical development. This thesis links sleep with a number of daytime outcomes in children with Autism and FASD. According to the research carried out as part of this thesis, sleep is connected to anxiety, behaviours such as aggression and withdrawal, cognitive aspects such attention and working memory, as well as social and environmental factors. This is apparent not only in children in the neurodevelopmental categories, but in typically developing children too. This research also finds that children with Autism and FASD experience more sleep problems than typically developing children. It is therefore proposed here that sleep health interventions should be strongly considered as part of the therapeutic practice for children with Autism and FASD

The impact of robot tutor nonverbal social behavior on child learning

Several studies have indicated that interacting with social robots in educational contexts may lead to a greater learning than interactions with computers or virtual agents. As such, an increasing amount of social human–robot interaction research is being conducted in the learning domain, particularly with children. However, it is unclear precisely what social behavior a robot should employ in such interactions. Inspiration can be taken from human–human studies; this often leads to an assumption that the more social behavior an agent utilizes, the better the learning outcome will be. We apply a nonverbal behavior metric to a series of studies in which children are taught how to identify prime numbers by a robot with various behavioral manipulations. We find a trend, which generally agrees with the pedagogy literature, but also that overt nonverbal behavior does not account for all learning differences. We discuss the impact of novelty, child expectations, and responses to social cues to further the understanding of the relationship between robot social behavior and learning. We suggest that the combination of nonverbal behavior and social cue congruency is necessary to facilitate learning

Towards long-term social child-robot interaction: using multi-activity switching to engage young users

Social robots have the potential to provide support in a number of practical domains, such as learning and behaviour change. This potential is particularly relevant for children, who have proven receptive to interactions with social robots. To reach learning and therapeutic goals, a number of issues need to be investigated, notably the design of an effective child-robot interaction (cHRI) to ensure the child remains engaged in the relationship and that educational goals are met. Typically, current cHRI research experiments focus on a single type of interaction activity (e.g. a game). However, these can suffer from a lack of adaptation to the child, or from an increasingly repetitive nature of the activity and interaction. In this paper, we motivate and propose a practicable solution to this issue: an adaptive robot able to switch between multiple activities within single interactions. We describe a system that embodies this idea, and present a case study in which diabetic children collaboratively learn with the robot about various aspects of managing their condition. We demonstrate the ability of our system to induce a varied interaction and show the potential of this approach both as an educational tool and as a research method for long-term cHRI

Children\u27s Mathematical Engagement Based on Their Awareness of Different Coding Toys\u27 Design Features

Tangible coding toys have been promulgated as useful learning tools for young children to learn computer science and mathematics concepts and skills. Although research shows coding toys can support mathematics for early childhood aged children, little is known about the specific design features of coding toys that afford mathematical thinking concepts and skills to young children. The purpose of this study was to examine kindergarten-aged children’s awareness of the design features in coding toys and to understand how those design features afford children’s engagement with mathematics. The dataset used for this study was collected as part of design-based research NSF project (award #DRL-1842116). I used a multi-phased qualitative analysis with a total of 42 hours of video data of 106, 5- to 6-year-old children engaging in coding toy tasks with four coding to answer the three research questions which were focused on perception of design features, mathematical engagement, and how different design features could afford mathematics. Results indicated that (a) children used and perceived the grid square and command arrow design features frequently, while other design features were used moderately or rarely; (b) children engaged in a variety of mathematical concepts and skills in five main categories of mathematical topics: spatial reasoning, geometry, comparison, measurement, and number; and (c) the relationship between design features affording mathematics varied depending on the coding toy. This research highlights the importance of specific design features to afford certain mathematical concepts and skills. These findings have important implications as early childhood educators explore ways to implement coding toys to support mathematics and computer science concepts, researchers conduct studies to better understanding how coding toys support mathematics and computer science learning, and commercial companies design new coding toys to fill the needs of educators and parents

Parenting functioning in stunting management: A concept analysis

Stunting, a global issue, is the retarded growth and development of children resulting from inadequate nutrition, frequent infection, and insufficient psychosocial stimulation. It is usually an indicator of poor parenting. The role of parents is important for children’s growth, development and learning. Parenting functioning is a concept health care professionals use to describe parenting activities for the purpose of intervention. But, the health professionals and patients have different understanding on parental functioning. There is a need to have a consistent definition of parenting functioning, and therefore this study aims to analyze the concept. Walker and Avant’s method of concept analysis was used to study parenting functioning for the purpose of improving management of stunting. The attributes of parenting functioning are knowledge, competency, effort, responsibility, partnership, caring, teaching and communicating. Antecedents for parenting functioning are relationship, children’s characteristics, careful observation and vicarious experiences. The consequences are positive child-rearing practice, less psychological stress and children’s wellness. The empirical referents for parenting functioning are Keys to Interactive Parenting Scale (KIPS) and Parenting Interaction with Children: Checklist of Observations Linked to Outcomes (PICCOLO). In conclusion, this analytical concept can provide insights into nursing and public health colleagues to improve understanding of parenting functioning and to facilitate development of instrument to improve to an advance stage and to improve the stunting management

Children's Vulnerability and Legitimate Authority Over Children

Children's vulnerability gives rise to duties of justice towards children and determines when authority over them is legitimately exercised. I argue for two claims. First, children's general vulnerability to objectionable dependency on their caregivers entails that they have a right not to be subject to monopolies of care, and therefore determines the structure of legitimate authority over them. Second, children's vulnerability to the loss of some special goods of childhood determines the content of legitimate authority over them. My interest is in the so-far little-discussed goods of engaging in world discovery, artistic creation, philosophical pursuits and experimentation with one's self. I call these ‘special goods of childhood’ because individuals, in general, only have full access to them during childhood and they make a distinctive and weighty contribution to wellbeing. Therefore, they are part of the metric of justice towards children. The overall conclusion is that we ought to make good institutional care part of every child's upbringing

Child-rearing With Minimal Domination: A Republican Account

Parenting involves an extraordinary degree of power over children. Republicans are concerned about domination, which, on one view, is the holding of power that fails to track the interests of those over whom it is exercised. On this account, parenting as we know it is dominating due to the low standards necessary for acquiring and retaining parental rights and the extent of parental power. Domination cannot be fully eliminated from child-rearing without unacceptable loss of value. Most likely, republicanism requires that we minimise children’s domination. I examine alternative models of child-rearing that are immune to republican criticism