Attentional processes in young children with congenital visual impairment

The study investigated attentional processes of 32 preschool children with congenital visual impairment (VI). Children with profound visual impairment (PVI) and severe visual impairment (SVI) were compared to a group of typically developing sighted children in their ability to respond to adult directed attention in terms of establishing, maintaining, and shifting attention on toys. The measures of children’s sensory-motor understanding (SMU) and language ability were obtained using the Reynell–Zinkin scales of mental development. The videorecordings of these play-based assessments were coded for three categories of behavioural responses (Establish, Maintain, and Shift). The three groups were matched on verbal comprehension (VC), but differed significantly in their SMU and their chronological age. The groups of children with PVI and SVI were found to be comparable in their ability to establish and maintain attention on objects. Despite a relatively good performance overall both groups scored significantly lower on those skills than children who were sighted. However, with regards to attention shifting, children with PVI showed significantly lower performance than both the children with SVI and the sighted children who were similar on this component. Ability to maintain and shift attention was significantly related to the cognitive ability of children with PVI; however the poorer attentional responses were not confined only to the children with low IQ. The results are discussed in relation to the role of vision, cognitive ability and executive function in attentional processes in children with congenital VI

The Emergence of the Arms Trade Treaty as a Global Norm Cluster

The Arms Trade Treaty brings together a number of small arms control norms into one instrument and is a new initiative, which was instigated by state and NGO norm entrepreneurs. This thesis attempts to understand what has led to the emergence of these norms in the Arms Trade Treaty, in what will be termed a ‘cluster’ of small arms norms. Examining the small arms norms associated with the Arms Trade Treaty will explain their development and their likelihood of successfully being incorporated into this instrument. Analysis of the development of the norms related to the Arms Trade Treaty will explore the relationship between norms, their promoters and their opponents. This thesis will do this by providing detailed analysis of the development of specific norms in a series of case studies: control over arms brokering, transfers to non-state actors and civilian possession. It will place this development within the broader context of the ATT instrument and the international society in which it is emerging into. This thesis finds that power and powerful states have a significant role to play in the emergence of norms, in some cases despite the efforts of norm promoters. Norms were not able to emerge in their original form due to the influence of powerful states, which resulted in norms evolving in different directions or not emerging at all