This study has as an objective to compare and evaluate the living conditions of two immigrant children residing in different places in Sweden. Given that immigrants often are looked upon as a social and physical vulnerable group in relation to disadvantageous socioeconomic conditions the children's lives were analyzed in relation to four public health objects. By using Runkeeper, GIS, Equipop data, time geographic material, telephone conversations and a web survey the children lives are analyzed within their activity spaces. The children formed their lives in different socioeconomic environments and adapted their lives after their conditions. The perspective on individual level can be put in contrast with studies based on society level.

AbstractThis act is about how five children with dyslexia consider and understands their diagnosis. It is also about their self-image, future sights and about how their school life is compared with before they got their diagnosis. The study is implemented autumn 2011 on a medium-sized school in central Sweden. The survey was implemented through interviews with the five children, of which four was girls and one was a boy. The study shows that the children understand their dyslexia relatively well, but that they experience that it is bothersome to live with dyslexia.

In Sweden surgical treatment of vocal fold lesions in children is fairly uncommon. At Falun hospital they have adapted a more generous attitude towards phonosurgery of children?s vocal folds. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate surgical treatment of organic vocal fold lesions in children and to assess the phonosurgical patient utility. The study was carried out at the Ear-, Nose- and Throat clinic, Falun hospital, Sweden.

The purpose of the present pilot study was to evaluate the parentalintervention ComAlong at the Division of Child Language, for parents ofchildren with severe language impairment. ComAlong is one of the parentalinterventions developed in the AKKTIV project. AKKTIV stands foraugmentative and alternative communication ?early intervention. Thepresent study consists of a case study, a compilation of course evaluationsand an interview with the two leaders of the course.

This essay tells about the meaning of eurhythmics for children?s development and why it is so difficult to draw attention to the value of eurhythmics compared to other activities in preschool. The essay builds upon a story that shows what consequences may follow when the meaning of the eurhythmics in the process of learning is not acknowledged. By looking at the relation between rhythm and human beings in a global perspective, I have examined the meaning of rhythm for the human well-being. The question I have researched is; why does eurhythmics appeal to almost every child in spite of being rejected by so many teachers? By researching the reasons behind these completely different points of views, I have tried to enhance the understanding for the different perspectives.

An instrument for assessing children's attitude towards speech,communication, and communicative participation suitable for children withcleft lip and palate has been missing in speech- and language pathology. Inthe present study a new instrument Självsvarsformulär Om Tal OchKommunikation was tested on typically developed school children. The aimwas to obtain norm values for children in grade 4 and 7 and to examine thereliability and validity of the instrument. 104 children participated. Data wascollected in groups of 5-6 children.

The purpose with my degree project is to investigate the use of computers within the daily activity in three preschools and one preschool class. I have designed a survey that I distributed to the staff. The purpose of my work is to investigate how a number of preschool teachers and children in a few preschools and one preschool class in a medium-sized Swedish town are using the computer in their activities.My study shows that the computer is frequently used, both of the children and teachers, but also together. The children in my study are using the computer to play games, listen to music, and go into the websitewww.youtube.com, but also in order to write and count.  The teachers primarily use the computer to document, check their e-mail and listen to music.

In this essay, I have examined what has been studied and presented in the theory of ICT in schools. I have based my theory on Arne Trageton?s book Att skriva sig till läsning ? IKT i förskoleklass och skola (2005) and theories on children?s reading and writing development.The purpose of this study is to determine how teachers and children experience teaching with Trageton?s ICT-based model Att skriva sig till läsning and whether the model is beneficial for children's first reading and writing.Through qualitative interviews with two pedagogues from the same school and some children from first grade, I have received answers to my two questions:How do pedagogues and children experience ICT-based teaching in the context of children's first reading and writing?How do pedagogues experience the reading and writing development in first- and second-language students when using ICT-based teaching?The results showed that both pedagogues and children were positive about the model in which the computer was used as a writing tool in learning to read and write. The teachers felt that the model was suitable for all children according to their conditions.The children saw the writing as very enjoyable. For the ICT-based teaching to work properly, the technology has great significance.

The purpose of this graduate work is to seek knowledge about how children?s right to participation and influence is interpreted and understood in a specific context and also to examine how this right can be conditioned and shaped by the pedagogical practice of early childhood education.The focus of this study has been to examine the arguments and attitudes towards the right to participation and influence as a pedagogical practice as it is understood in early childhood education. Additionally, I have been interested in studying the affordances and restrictions that early childhood educators experience when dealing with children´s right to participation and influence.The platform used for data collection is Facebook and the informants recruited were active participants in forums regarding democracy in preschool education. In the second phase of the study I conducted online focus groups with these participants.For the analysis of the material I have adopted a poststructuralist perspective, starting from Jaques Derridas philosophical texts and use of deconstruction.The results show the complexity in early childhood education´s democratic mission. What becomes clear is the importance for the teachers to adopting an open, ethical and democratic approach in order to make children´s right to participation and genuine influence possible in the everyday reality of early childhood education. .

The purpose of my study was to explore how preschool educators in Kenya look at children's influence on teaching. Researchers have argued that the formal educational system in Kenya today is a remnant of its days as a colony when people were expected to blindly follow rules without questioning them. I have used qualitative interviews as a method in order get the most concrete understanding of educators? views on the influence from children. The educators I interviewed were based at a school I visited in Kenya.

Early intervention is important on different levels and must be justified as a social and economic long-term investment. There is no doubt about the importance of early detection when helping children/students in need of support. What kind of support that is deemed suitable and who provides the support can be viewed from different perspectives and with different approaches. Seen from a relational perspective the special education process is a long-term process and affects not only the individual but the whole school culture and systems may need changing. This study intends to describe the importance of the learning environment and what efforts are initiated early for students in need of support from the special education point of view.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine and analyze what discourses about children that can be found in three Swedish culture publications, and also to identify the different social roles that are attributed to children in these publications. The theoretical and methodological background is discourse theory, as described by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Additional theory used is social constructionism and Norman Fairclough?s critical discourse theory. Three questions are asked: What discourse/s can be found in these publications? What do these discourses tell us about the view on children within the library domain? What social roles are attributed to the children in the texts and what consequences do these have for the power configuration between children and adults? Furthermore there is a discussion concerning what effects these discourses might have on the direct and indirect reception of children in the library.

The main thing we wanted to find out with this thesis was, can reading aloud help the natural language development. We also wanted to know how libraries in Sweden work with reading aloud and if children with reading and writing problems are being helped by being read to. We also wanted to find out what authoritarians on literature think a good reading-aloud novel should contain. To find this out we decided to do a literature study, we have taken part of a number of authoritarian opinions on this matter and we also studied some theories on this subject. We also decided to do a couple of interviews to exemplify how regular libraries work with reading aloud.

The main purpose of the study was to collect normative data for Lundamaterialet,revised version, divided into phonology and grammar, for childrenaged 4:6-5:11. Another aim was to explore how children aged 3:0-5:11 had acquiredprepositions and different forms of comparison. 195 children with typicallanguage development participated. The children were divided into six groups,116 children from the three oldest groups participated in the normative data. Theresults showed an increasing mean value with age for both phonology and grammar.The older children had acquired the prepositions and the forms of comparisonbetter than the younger ones.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to obtain greater understanding of how children relate to the film medium and their experiences. This is obtained by listening to the children and observing their verbal and nonverbal communication in two focus group interviews. Children?s access to and selection of film are due to adult?s restrictions.