Browsing by study line "no specialization"

Assessing children’s early communication skills is important for preventing possible later language difficulties. The Finnish version of Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales, Developmental Profile (FinCSBS) is a screening tool in which parents assess their 6-24 months old child’s development in social communication, understanding and speech. Earlier studies have found connections between early communication skills and later language development. However, these language tests have been limited. The aim of this study was to examine the usability of FinCSBS for assessing 2-year-old children and the possible associations of their early communication skills with receptive and expressive language, naming and the use of inflectional forms at 3,5 years of age. This study sample is part of the validation study of the short form version of the MacArthur Communication Inventories Finnish version (Sanaseula study). Participants (N=50) were typically developed children from monolingual Finnish families. Parents filled out the FinCSBS checklist when their children were 2 years old. The same children were assessed again at 3,5 years of age with different tests (Reynell Developmental Language Scales III, Boston Naming Test and Finnish Morfological Test). Associations between early communications skills and later language skills were studied by using Spearman’s correlation coefficient and logistical regression analysis. The stability of skills was examined by comparing whether there were differencies in later language skills between those who had succeeded poorly, typically or well earlier in FinCSBS. There were no correlations between the total scores of FinCSBS at 2 years of age and language skills year and a half later. However, this study shows a trend that the level of competence is a rather stable quality so that weak early communications skills will manifest later on as weak language skills. In this study, early understanding did correlate with a later ability to use inflectional forms. It is recommended to use FinCSBS with typically developing children earlier than at 2 years of age when the prelinguistic period is ending and most children will get high scores in the assessment.

Tämän maisterintutkielman tarkoituksena on selvittää, millaisia toisen puheeseen kohdistuvia korjausaloitteita 5-vuotiaat tyypillisesti kehittyvät lapset tekevät leikki- ja arviointitilanteissa ja millaisia ongelmia korjausaloitteilla käsitellään. Korjausaloitteilla viitataan sellaisiin keskustelun vuoroihin, joilla osoitetaan keskustelukumppanille, että hänen edellisen vuoronsa vastaanottamisessa on ollut jokin ongelma (Haakana ym., 2016). Tyypillisesti kehittyvien suomenkielisten lasten on todettu omaksuvan kielen ja vuorovaikutuksen perusrakenteet jo noin viiden vuoden ikään mennessä (Lieko, 1993). Koska viisivuotiaat tyypillisesti kehittyneet lapset hallitsevat jo kielen perusrakenteet, ei korjausaloitteiden tekeminen tai tekemättä jättäminen voi olla kiinni siitä, ettei lapsi osaisi käyttää esimerkiksi kysymyssanoja. Tästä syystä on erittäin mielekästä tutkia juuri viisivuotiaiden tyypillisesti kehittyvien lasten erilaisissa vuorovaikutustilanteissa tekemiä korjausaloitteita. Tutkielmassa käytettävä aineisto on kerätty alun perin osana Lapsen kehittyvä kieli ja vuorovaikutus -hanketta. Aineisto koostuu yhteensä noin 8 tunnista ja 19 minuutista tutkimukseen osallistuneista lapsista kuvattuja videotallenteita. Videoista noin puolet on kuvattu arviointitilanteista ja puolet leikkitilanteista. Tutkimukseen osallistuneet lapset olivat aineistonkeruuhetkellä iältään 5;0–6;2-vuotiaita lapsia. Heidän puheen- ja kielen kehityksensä oli arvioitu olevan tyypillistä puheterapeuttisten arviointimenetelmien sekä vanhempien haastattelun perusteella. Tutkielman menetelmänä käytettiin keskustelunanalyysia. 5-vuotiaat tyypillisesti kehittyvät lapset tekivät korjausaloitteita sekä leikki- että arviointilanteissa, mutta tutkimukseen osallistuneiden lasten tekemien korjausaloitteiden määrässä ja käytetyissä korjausaloitetyypeissä oli suurta vaihtelua. Lapset käyttivät koko aineistossa eniten ymmärrysehdokkaita ja toiseksi eniten kysymyssanan ja toiston yhdistelmiä. Lapset tekivät korjausaloitteita leikki- ja arviointitilanteissa keskimäärin 3.6 kertaa tunnissa. Korjausaloitteilla käsiteltiin leikkitilanteissa ainoastaan ymmärtämisen ja arviointitilanteissa sekä ymmärtämisen että kuulemisen ongelmia. Tulokset vastaavat osittain aiempaa suomenkielistä tutkimusta aikuisten ja tyypillisesti kehittyvien lasten sekä kaksikielisten lasten käyttämistä korjausaloitteista. Tämä tutkielma esittää suuntaa antavaa tietoa tyypillisesti kehittyvien 5-vuotiaiden lasten toisen puheeseen tekemistä korjausaloitteita. Lisätutkimusta aiheesta kuitenkin tarvitaan edelleen.

Aims of the study. Actors, singers and other professional voice users are at a high risk of experiencing voice problems during their careers. The biggest reasons for this are heavy vocal load and the voice user’s internal and external factors. Voice professionals’ voice problems are common, even though the awareness of vocal health and the knowledge and the use of voice care are good. This study aims to map self-reported voice problems and the occupation-spesific special features of voice use in adult voice actors working in Finland. The aim of the survey was to find out what kinds of vocal symptoms exist and how they affect the voice actors’ psycho-social well-being. Moreover the prevalence of risk factors and their connection to voice symptoms was searched. Voice actors’ voice care was also mapped. The aim of this study is to create new knowledge of an unresearched occupation. Methods. The research material was collected using an electronic survey. The survey was created for this research. The survey consisted of research-spesific sections and included both validated sections that had been translated to Finnish (Screen11 and Voice Handicap Index) and sections that were created for this research. In the survey there were both open and closed questions. 24 voice actors answered the questionnaire. The analysis of the research material was done with SPSS. In the qualitative analysis the questions were typificated, compiled to statistics and example answers were chosen. The statistic analysis was used to find out the prevalence of certain phenomena. Saphiro-Wilk normality test was conducted and on basis of the results correlations and the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U -test were chosen over parametric tests. These tests aimed to find out the connections of dependent and independent variables. Results and conclusions. The participating voice actors didn’t report having voice problems within the 12 month period under consideration. Thus voice problems didn’t affect the participants’ experince of psycho-social competence. Other questions, however, revealed a prevalence of 79,2% voice problems. There was no connection of risk factors, such as using demanding voice qualities, to vocal symptoms or the psycho-social experince. Voice actors had searched for and had reseived help from professionals, such as phoniatrists and speech therapists. The experiences of the benefits varied. Nearly all given voice care means were in use. Because the research material was limited and the survey would need some adjustment, more research is needed. This research offers some guidelines in the study of voice actors’ voice problems, but on basis of this research conclusions or generalisations of the prevalence of voice problems or risk factors can’t be made.

Aims: The aim of this study was to test the feasibility of a new phonemic awareness test to study children who have potential problems in their reading skills. The children were second graders whose reading skills either had or had not caused worry at home or school. The phonemic awareness test was developed for investigating and providing intervention on phonemic awareness. This new method includes ten different ways to change phonemes in a word. We determined if some of these phonemic changes are better at separating the groups from each other and whether there are differences between the tasks in the degree of difficulty. In addition, the children were also tested with standardized neuropsychological tests that measure reading-related skills. The study was done completely remotely and one of its aims was also to get additional information on feasibility of neuropsychological testing in remote environments. Methods: 16 participants took part in the study. Eight of them were children whose reading skills had caused worry and other eight whose reading skills had not caused such worry. The study was done remotely using Zoom and the experiment took about 1-1,5 hours depending on how quickly the child completed the tasks. There were 11 tasks altogether, which assessed the child’s reading and writing skills and skills that can affect these, such as phonological skills, working memory and rapid naming. Results: The groups differed from each other almost in every standardized test and also in the new phonemic awareness test. In the new phonemic awareness test children who had caused worry on their reading skills got less points in every part, but the groups differed statistically significantly in five of them only. These five included changing the beginning or the ending of the word, diphthong, diphthong to long vowel and changing a vowel to a consonant. The degree of difficulty varied between the subtests of the phonemic awareness task, the pattern of performance being comparable in the two groups. Detecting differences between word beginnings and syllables was the easiest and detecting diphthong and vowel to consonant or consonant to vowel changes were the most difficult. These results are promising, suggesting that the phonemic awareness test could serve to identify problems in phonemic awareness in children whose reading skills are suspected to be poor. This study also suggested the feasibility of carrying out neuropsychological tests remotely.

In this thesis, I study intensifiers, which are the adverbs that either strengthen or weaken the modified word. The intensifiers that strengthen the meaning of the following lexeme are called amplifiers, whereas the intensifiers that weaken the following lexeme are called downtoners. In turn, these groups of intensifiers are divided into various categories. In particular, I concentrate on maximizers, a category of amplifiers, and mitigators, a category of downtoners. The study is limited to the American variety of English. The aim of this research is twofold. Firstly, I analyze the frequency distributions of maximizers and mitigators across different registers in American English. Secondly, I discuss the reasons for the possible register variation between the different categories of intensifiers. Therefore, I conduct both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data. I use the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) as my data. I chose it for the current research due to its large size of around 1 billion words, as well as the fact that its contents are fairly evenly divided by register. Consequently, it enables the comparison of the studied lexemes across the registers in American English. Furthermore, COCA has a function of viewing a sample in the expanded context, thus making possible the qualitative analysis of the samples. The most significant finding was the preference for maximizers in informal written registers and for mitigators in formal written registers. Further, the formal spoken register, represented by unscripted TV and radio show conversations, clearly preferred maximizers to mitigators. On the contrary, the informal spoken language of TV shows and movies had a low frequency of both categories of intensifiers. As concerns the reasons for this variation, there can be several theories. One of them is the collocational patterns of the intensifiers. Another reason is the stylistic and functional characteristics of the registers. For example, academic prose style favors hedging, or tentative language. Therefore, the academic register has a high frequency of mitigating adverbs. Instead, radio show hosts may have a preference for using definitive, attention-catching phrases and thus are more likely to use maximizers such as incredibly or extremely.

Tutkielma käsittelee persoonapronominien käyttöä Yhdysvaltojen presidenttien kansakunnan tilaa käsittelevissä puheissa (State of the Union Address) poliittisen diskurssianalyysin näkökulmasta ja korpuslingvistiikan kvantitatiivisia menetelmiä hyödyntäen. Työssä selvitetään millaisia funktioita persoonapronomineilla on ja onko niiden käytössä eroja presidenttien välillä tutkimalla niiden frekvenssejä eli esiintymistiheyksiä sekä niiden kollokaatteja eli samassa kontekstissa esiintyviä sanoja. Aineistoni koostuu vuosina 1980-2018 pidetyistä kansakunnan tilaa käsittelevistä puheista, joiden esittäjinä olivat presidentit Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama ja Donald Trump. Kokoamani korpus on kooltaan 219 365 sanaa ja se on annotoitu käyttäen ohjelmaa, joka merkitsee tekstiin sanaluokat (part-of-speech tagger). Korpusanalyysiä varten käytettiin AntConc-tietokoneohjelmaa, joka mahdollistaa frekvenssi- ja kollokaatiohaut. Tutkielma osoittaa, että persoonapronominien käytössä suurimmat erot ovat usein presidentin eri puheiden välillä eivätkä eri presidenttien välillä. Sisäisen vaihtelevuuden laajuus viittaa siihen, ettei eri presidenteillä ole selkeitä tai johdonmukaisia pronominityylejä. Monikon ensimmäisen persoonan pronomineja käytetään puheissa selkeästi eniten verrattuna muihin persoonapronomineihin, mikä saattaa kertoa niiden funktiosta yhteisen amerikkalaisen identiteetin vahvistamisessa ja presidentin halusta esiintyä osana laajempaa yhteisöä. Kollokaatioanalyysi osoittaa, että eri persoonapronomineja käytetään erilaisissa konteksteissa ja erilaisiin tarkoituksiin. Esimerkiksi yksikön ensimmäisen persoonan pronominit esiintyvät usein kommunikaatioverbien ja mentaalisten verbien kanssa, kun taas monikon ensimmäisen persoonan pronominit esiintyvät konteksteissa, joissa käytetään kansallista tai sodankäyntiin liittyvää retoriikkaa. Toisen persoonan pronominit toimivat lauserakenteessa hyvin usein objekteina eivätkä subjekteina, mikä osoittaa niiden olevan keino puhutella yleisöä ja luoda interaktiivinen suhde kuuntelijoihin. Monikon kolmannen persoonan pronomineja käytetään tutkimuksen mukaan lähinnä viittaamaan tavallisiin amerikkalaisiin ja heidän arkielämäänsä.

Early life conditions have long-term effects on the fitness and survival of individuals. Foetal development is an especially crucial period and even small changes may have large impacts on the development of individuals. Mammal foetuses may be exposed to additional testosterone either from their male littermates or their mother. This additional prenatal androgen exposure leads to masculinization of female features and behavior. In males the effects of additional prenatal androgen exposure are less drastic due to their own testosterone production. The anogenital distance, defined as the distance between the anus and genitalia, has been used to determine the sex of young mammals since males have longer anogenital distances than females. An elongated anogenital distance is an indicator of additional prenatal androgen exposure in females, and in some species also in males. It correlates with for example increased aggressiveness in both females and males. In females a longer anogenital distance has also been connected to delayed puberty and decreased fertility. I studied the effects of additional prenatal androgen exposure on weight and important life-history traits in banded mongooses (Mungos mungo) with data from a long-term study. Banded mongooses are small co-operatively breeding mammals living in family groups of 10-30 individuals across sub-Saharan Africa. Breeding is extremely synchronized within groups and in most cases all pregnant females give birth on the same day. The resulting communal litter is cared for by most adults in the group regardless of relatedness. Adults escort the pups until three months of age, providing the pup with food, grooming and protection. This early life care has long-term fitness benefits for the pups. Pregnant females may change the phenotype of their offspring via maternal effects. When the competition faced by breeding females is more intense, they compensate by investing more resources to their foetuses, making them bigger. Using the anogenital distance as a proxy for additional prenatal androgen exposure, I measured its effects on weight at early life and maturity, the amount of care received as pups and whether the individual reproduced in its lifetime or not. I hypothesized that a longer anogenital distance may be an indicator of increased competitiveness in the banded mongoose. It could lead to a cumulative advantage since more aggressive individuals may be able to access more food and care, which leads to higher maturity weight and lifetime reproductive success. I also measured the effects of resource abundance and intensity of competition during gestation on the anogenital distance of the pups. I hypothesized that mothers may prepare their offspring for future competitive environment by exposing them to androgens during gestation. In males a longer anogenital distance predicted higher weight both at early life and maturity. Higher weight at the beginning of the escorting increased the amount of care received, which in turn increased weight at maturity. A longer anogenital distance therefore has both direct and indirect fitness benefits in male banded mongooses. In females, a longer anogenital distance predicted lighter weight at maturity, suggesting that it may have negative effects on female growth and development. This study offers evidence that additional prenatal androgen exposure has long-term fitness consequences on banded mongooses and that these consequences are sex specific. Future research should focus on confirming the connection between additional prenatal androgen exposure and longer anogenital distance in this species, as well as assessing the effects of prenatal androgen exposure on survival, puberty and growth of especially female individuals.

Norovirukset ovat merkittäviä akuutin gastroenteriitin aiheuttajia maailmassa. Ne aiheuttavat noin 700 miljoonaa infektiota ja 200,000 kuolemaa vuosittain. Tämän vuoksi on noroviruksen mahdollisesta ilmateitse leviämisestä tullut merkittävä kiinnostuksen kohde. Tässä tutkimuksessa kehitettiin aerosolisysteemi, jota käytettiin tutkimaan, miten hiiren noroviruksen (MNV) infektiokyky säilyy aerosoloinnin seurauksena. Koe toteutettiin tuottamalla aerosoleja MNV-virusliuoksesta sumuttimen avulla (nebulizer), jonka jälkeen aerosolit kerättiin ohjaamalla ne suppilon kautta petrimaljalla olevalle DMEM-kasvatusliuokselle sekä RAW 264.7 soluille. Mikroskopoimalla soluja todettiin viruksen onnistuneen infektoimaan solut suoraan aerosoleista. DMEM-kasvatusliuoksesta määritettiin infektiivisten virusten pitoisuus sekä tehtiin RT-qPCR-analyysi. Tulosten perusteella pystyttiin havaitsemaan, että hiiren noroviruksen infektiokyky heikkenee aerosoloinnin seurauksena. Lisäksi havaittiin, että isoa osaa viruksista ei pystytty keräämään, kun aerosolit mahdollisesti tarttuivat letkuihin ja aerosolisysteemin seinämiin. Tulevaisuudessa tarvitaan aerosolilaitteita, jotka käsittelevät viruksia hellemmin, keräävät aerosoleja tehokkaammin, sekä matkivat ihmisen elimistöä paremmin.

Aim. This thesis investigates other-initiation of repair (OIR) made by people with aphasia (PWA). OIR means the practices used in conversation for requesting a clarification on something in the other speaker ́s turn. Aphasic conversation and repair has been studied a lot. However, there is hardly any studies about the OIR of PWA. Method. The data has been collected and the transcriptions made in a research project Managing the problems of speaking and understanding in conversations of speakers with aphasia. The data of this thesis consists of nine conversations between a PWA and one or two familiar partner(s). The OIR sequences initiated by PWA were collected, and then grouped and analyzed. Results & Conclusions. PWA did produce OIRs but for some reason there was great variation between the participants. The repair sequences were short and the problems were solved effectively. Repeat-formatted OIRs were the most frequent type of OIR and targeting question words the most rare. The problems that the OIRs were targeting were often problems of understanding or hearing of speech. There were a lot of similarities between OIRs produced by PWAs and OIRs of typical Finnish conversation. The results help to establish a better picture of the OIR by PWA and are in line with the prevoius hypothesis about the phenomenon.

In instantization milk powders’ reconstitution properties are improved. Typical instantization processes are agglomeration, in which particle size and porosity are increased, and lecithination, in which powder particle surface is made less hydrophobic. Both instantization methods have some drawbacks: Agglomeration is not sufficient for instantizing high fat milk powders, while lecithination tends to decrease powder’s flowability. The aim of this study was to review suitability of agglomeration in instantizing milk powder (SMP) and whole milk powder (WMP). Powders were agglomerated on fluid bed agglomerator by using different binder liquids. The physical properties, like wettability, flowability and particle size, of the agglomerated powders were characterized and compared to the unprocessed raw materials and reference powders (commercial instantized milk powders). According to the results reconstitution properties were improved more when using other binder liquids than only water. The fastest wetting on agglomerated SMP was achieved with sugar binder liquids. However, sugar also impaired powders’ flowability. On agglomerated WMPs fastest wetting occurred with phospholipid fraction as a binder liquid. Future research could investigate usage of different binder liquids in combination and optimizing agglomeration parameters for each binder liquid.