Browsing by Subject "lapsi"

Aim. Approximately 50-60 children are born with severe to profound hearing impairment in Finland every year. Speech therapy for hearing impaired (HI) children consists of many different methods depending on the child's and his/hers family's individual needs. The main emphasis in HI children's speech therapy in Finland is in the auditory-verbal method. There is only a little information to be found in the literature about the contents of speech therapy for HI children (who use cochlear implants (CI) or hearing aids (HA)). The aim of this study was to find out how much Finnish speech and language therapists (SLTs) have experience about the rehabilitation of HI children. In addition the goal was to find out what components are used in HI children's speech therapy and what role does the children's parents have in their child's linguistic rehabilitation. Method. This study was carried out as a survey. An electronic questionnaire was send via the Finnish Association of Speech Therapists to 1154 SLTs in Finland. A total of 85 responses were received so the response rate was 7.4 %. The data was analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 22 -program. Frequencies, percentages and descriptive statistical analysis were computed (for example average and standard deviation). The data was demonstrated graphically. Rank correlation of ordinal variables was measured using Spearman's rho (ρ), Kendall's tau-c (τ) and Goodman and Kruskal's gamma (γ) rank correlations. Results and conclusions. The results show that Finnish SLTs have only little experience about the rehabilitations of HI children. The most common components in HI children's speech therapy were supporting and guiding children's early vocalizations, auditory training and training of vocabulary. The contents of CI- and HA- children's speech therapy seems to be very similar. The most common approach used in speech and language therapy was auditory-verbal method but total communication and pictures were commonly used as well. The results show that parent's role in HI children's rehabilitations varied quite a lot. It was quite common that parents were not present during their child's speech therapy and the SLTs reported that they would ask separately if they wanted the parents to be present in some speech therapy session. However the results show that most of the SLTs and parents were equal partners in HI children's linguistic rehabilitation. More research is needed to discover factors that influence the contents of HI children's speech therapy and the parent's role in their child's linguistic rehabilitation.

Objectives. The goal of this study is to investigate how shy and withdrawn children act in school, daycare and home environments, what kind of opinions kindergarten- and class teachers have on children's shyness and how they instruct these children. In addition, the aim is to analyze what kind of change the transition from kindergarten to school is for a shy child. My three research questions are 1) How children's shyness and withdrawal present themselves in kindergarten, school and home? 2) What kind of view kindergarten- and class teachers have about children's shyness and how they instruct these children? and 3) Does the shyness of the children affect on their transition to school and, if so, how? Which ones of the teacher's actions support a successful transition to school? The definitions of shy and withdrawn children are not unambiguous. In my own research, I survey shyness and withdrawal as a temperament trait like Thomas and Chess. They see it as a part of the trait approach/withdrawal. Earlier studies suggest that shy children receive less attention from the teacher and are not so happy with their social relationships than active children. It is also more difficult for shy children to seek help and start discussions. They also have a greater risk of being left out of the group. Methods. This research is a qualitative case study. The research methods were half structured interviews and observation. The teachers also evaluated their group's shy children by using shy child personal traits measuring form. Pirkko Niiranen (1995) uses the same form in her dissertation. With the form I was able to estimate the nature of the children’s shyness. I analyzed the results by using material based content analysis. Two preschool children with their teachers and mothers participated in this study. During the study, children transitioned to school. Results and Conclusions. I wanted to separate shyness and withdrawal because the behavior of the children in my research differed. One of the children felt afraid and anxiety towards all new things as the other one felt those only in social situations. Both had difficulties in asking for help and performing in front of the group. Teachers encouraged the shy children to express themselves in their own time. Teachers were eager to provide help and showed interest espe-cially when the children took initiative. There were differences in teachers’ ways to instruct these two children.