”Leikkiminen on hauskinta, kun on kaveri ja saa leikkiä rauhassa” Viisivuotiaiden lasten kokemuksia leikistä päiväkodissa

Opinnäytetyössämme tutkitaan vanhempien lapsilleen tekemän haastattelun avulla viisivuotiaiden lasten kokemuksia, vaikuttamismahdollisuuksia sekä toiveita unelmaleikistään päiväkodissa. Opinnäytetyömme tarkoituksena on päästä sisälle lapsen ajatusmaailmaan leikistään päiväkodissa sekä herättää päiväkodin aikuiset pohtimaan lasten leikkiä sekä osallisuutta leikin suunnittelussa ja toteutuksessa. Opinnäytetyömme aiheen saimme Vantaan kaupungilta, jonka varhaiskasvatuspalveluiden asiantuntijoiden kanssa teimme yhteistyössä lapsen leikkiin liittyvän haastattelulomakkeen. Opinnäytetyömme pohjautui vantaalaisille lapsille ja nuorille suunnatun vaikuttajapäivän alatapahtumana järjestettävään Mini Vaikuttaja-viikkoon. Tapahtuma oli suunnattu 5-6–vuotiaille Vantaan kaupungin varhaiskasvatuspalveluja käyttäville lapsille. Opinnäytetyömme kohderyhmänä olivat viiden vantaalaisen päiväkodin viisivuotiaat lapset, jotka osallistuivat vuoden 2012 Mini Vaikuttaja-viikkoon. Lapset osallistuivat tutkimukseemme anonyymisti vastaten laatimamme haastattelulomakkeen kysymyksiin kotona vanhempien avustuksella. Opinnäytetyömme teoreettinen viitekehys muodostui viisivuotiaan lapsen kognitiivisesta ja sosioemotionaalisesta kehityksestä sekä viisivuotiaan lapsen leikistä, leikin kehityksestä sekä eri leikkiteorioiden tarkastelusta. Teoreettisessa viitekehyksessä tarkastelimme myös leikin edellytysten luomista sekä lapsen osallisuutta ja vaikuttamista leikin ja toiminnan suunnittelussa päiväkodissa. Opinnäytetyömme tuloksista näemme kavereiden, leikkirauhan sekä riidattomuuden tärkeyden viisivuotiaan lapsen leikissä. Useat lapset ovat kokeneet tyytymättömyyttä osallisuuden ja vaikuttamisen toteutumisessa. Opinnäytetyömme tulosten mukaan lapset ovat toivoneet unelmaleikiltään lähes samoja asioita, mitä he nykyhetkessäkin pitävät mieluisimpina seikkoina leikissään. Vantaan kaupunki voi hyödyntää opinnäytetyömme tuloksia lasten leikin ja osallisuuden tarkastelemisessa sekä kehittämistyössä päiväkodissa.”Playing is best when you have a friend and you can play in peace” Five-year-old children’s playing experiences in the kindergarten In our thesis, we examine the five-year-olds playing experiences and how they can influence their own play in the kindergarten. Furthermore, we also map their wishes and hopes of their dream play in the kindergarten. The study was conducted using an interview form. The purpose of our thesis is to learn what the kids think about playing in the kindergarten and to induce the kindergarten’s adults to reflect on the children’s play and participation in planning and implementing the play. The topic of our thesis was given to us by the City of Vantaa and the interview form used in this study was done in collaboration with their early childhood education experts. Our thesis is based on a week for children called a mini-influencer-week, which is a sub-event of the “influencer-day”-happening for children and young people in Vantaa. The mini-influencer-week event was aimed for 5 to 6-years-old children who are using the early childhood education services in the city of Vantaa. Our target group for this thesis was five-year-olds from five kindergartens in the city of Vantaa, who participated in the 2012 mini-influencer-week. The children took part in the survey anonymously with their parent’s assistance at home. The theoretical framework of this thesis consists of five-year-old child's cognitive and socio-emotional development, their playing habits and development, as well as various different play theories. Within the theoretical framework we also considered the effect of creating play conditions and the child’s own participation and own chances to influence on the planning of his/her play in the kindergarten. The main results of our thesis show that in the play of five-year-olds the most important factors are friends, peace of play and play without quarrels. A number of children have experienced dissatisfaction with their play involvement and influencing possibilities. We also show that children wish almost the same things from their dream play, as what they like most in their play at the moment. The City of Vantaa can utilize the results of our thesis when considering the children's play and participation in kindergarten as well for improving the kindergarten environment

Tokion innostuksesta Pariisin diplomaattiseen kyynisyyteen: huomioita kansainvälisen tilanteen vaikutuksesta Unescon aikuiskasvatuskonferensseihin

Kirjoittaja esittelee artikkelissaan Pariisissa keväällä 1985 pidetyssä Unescon 4. kansainvälisessa aikuiskasvatuskonferenssissa tehtyjä tärkeimpiä päätöksiä. Hän tarkastelee myös, miten kansainvälinen tilanne on näkynyt Unescon aikuiskasvatuskonferenssien osallistujien määrissä, käsiteltävien asioiden sisällöissä sekä konferenssin työskentelytavoissa. Lopuksi tarkastellaan konferenssien merkitystä ja tulevaisuutta

Coconstructing in conversations using a communication book

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Linguistic and temporal resources of pre-stored utterances in everyday conversations

Aided communicators often have an opportunity to express themselves with speech-generating devices (SGDs) that produce symbol by symbol (SBS) and/or pre-stored (PS) utterances. Studies on the usage of PS utterances report that these utterances affect conversations positively, but it appears that aided communicators and professionals may have divergent views on their benefits. The aim of this study is to analyse how school-aged aided communicators, their mothers, peers, and speech and language therapists (SLTs) co-construct the social actions of PS utterances during their everyday interactions. The theoretical framework of this study is conversation analysis. This approach to analysing the data enhances our understanding of the linguistic and temporal resources of PS utterances and how they are used to reinforce various rich social actions that promote the progress of aided conversations to resemble natural spoken conversations. The results of this study will help SLTs and teachers in their planning content for SGDs as well as in teaching, and guiding aided communicators and their partners to utilize PS utterances in combination with SBS utterances during their conversations.Peer reviewe

Improving children’s patient experience with a mobile hospital clowning application – Initial user experiences from the clowns’ perspective

eHealth solutions are increasingly being developed to support patient care and improve patients’ experiences (PXs). Recently, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the shortage of nurses in several countries, including Finland, have further underscored the need for new digital services. In the context of children’s hospitals, care-supporting services include hospital clowns who work to provide emotional support for children and improve their PXs. Hospital clowns are known to have a positive impact on children’s PX. The Finnish hospital clown organization Sairaalaklovnit ry has published its first mobile application Sairaalaklovnit to provide a digital contact platform to reach patients remotely via messages. The application is mainly targeted at child patients and includes both entertainment and messaging facets for communication between child patients and hospital clowns. The two main user groups for this application can be considered to be child patients and hospital clowns. This article presents the data and results found during a study related to the user experience (UX) of the Sairaalaklovnit application. With the research questions, “Which aspects influence the UX of the hospital clown application?” and more specifically, out of the two user groups, “How do Finnish hospital clowns experience the new hospital clown mobile application?”, this study aims to gain an understanding of how Finnish hospital clowns experience the newly developed application for expanding physical contact with patients into a digital form. The qualitative data used in this article were collected in the summer of 2022 through an online questionnaire (n = 5) and semi-structured interviews (n = 3) with hospital clowns. The hospital clowns were mostly satisfied with the published application, but some deficiencies were mentioned. Most of the complaints were related to technical issues. However, the application was seen as a useful tool that can bridge physical and digital contact with children. The developer has been made aware of the technical issues and fixes expected in the future. For future research, it can be beneficial to rerun the UX study for the hospital clowns and possibly with a larger sample to see whether there have been any changes after the technical issues have been solved. Moreover, studying how child patients, which constitute the other user group, experience the new application, can prove to be beneficial for possible future development

The structure of participants' turn-transition practices in aided conversations that use speech-output technologies

Using the concepts and principles of conversation analysis (CA), this paper examines the everyday, unscripted, spontaneous conversations between 4 males who communicated with the aid of speech-output technologies and their mothers. The analyses focused on describing the conversationalists’ various actions in aided turn-transition processes, resulting in a 3-part turn-transition structure used to accomplish aided turn initiation. Despite the challenges to conversational progress, the participants did not consider the conversational speed a challenge. The participants and their mothers were oriented to the progression of the aided conversation by creating interaction practices to achieve successful turn-transitions. By understanding the structural characteristics of fluent aided conversations, it may be possible to develop effective interaction strategies for communication partners and for augmentative and alternative communication technologies that are intentionally designed to facilitate interactive communication.Peer reviewe

The interplay of memory and matter : narratives of former Finnish Karelian child evacuees

After the Second World War Finland had to cede territories to the Soviet Union, and Finnish people from those areas were evacuated. In this article we analyse the narrated memories of former Karelian child evacuees. We focus on the sites of memory and the materiality of memory practices as they are reflected in these narratives. In the article we examine how narrated memories, both written and oral, are formed in the interplay of embodied recollections of the childhood evacuation, with the intra-action of matter such as sources and mementos, and immaterial things such as affects and emotions. We conclude that things and matter are agential in six ways in narrated memories. Article is accepted for publication in the special issue of Oral History 44(2): ”Oral History on the Move: Multiple Sites and Sources of Memory” (eds. Anne Heimo & Anna- Kaisa Kuusisto-Arponen & Ulla Savolainen) 2016. www.ohs.org.uk/journalPeer reviewe

Health self-management of older employees: identifying critical peak experiences of a patient portal

Digitalization could provide efficient and cost-effective health and well-being services to the rapidly aging population. However, digital services do not always meet their needs. We investigated the experiences and service needs of older employees by collecting quantitative and qualitative data through a survey (n = 497). The results suggested a negative association between user satisfaction and age during retirement transition. Peak experiences were meaningful, explaining a 26% variation in the overall evaluation of the portal. The negative peak experiences concerned poorly functioning features, and the positive ones the ability to take care of one’s health smoothly and easily. The respondents had high expectations for functionality, efficiency, and ease of use. They wanted more support for self-managing health: controlling weight, sleeping, recovery, and exercising

As a Matter of Factions: The Budgetary Implications of Shifting Factional Control in Japan’s LDP

For 38 years, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) maintained single-party control over the Japanese government. This lack of partisan turnover in government has frustrated attempts to explain Japanese government policy changes using political variables. In this paper, we look for intraparty changes that may have led to changes in Japanese budgetary policy. Using a simple model of agenda-setting, we hypothesize that changes in which intraparty factions “control” the LDP affect the party’s decisions over spending priorities systematically. This runs contrary to the received wisdom in the voluminous literature on LDP factions, which asserts that factions, whatever their raison d’être, do not exhibit different policy preferences. We find that strong correlations do exist between which factions comprise the agenda-setting party “mainstream” and how the government allocates spending across pork-barrel and public goods items