The purpose of this thesis was to examine if users of digital music games may acquire skills from the games that may be of use in learning to play a real instrument, that is a non-digitally simulated instrument like an acoustic piano. We have used Gee?s theory regarding a possible interconnection between different semiotic domains, and how this connection may enable a transfer of skills between related domains. In this thesis we examine possible skill transfer between the domains ?digital games? and ?non-digital instruments?. To examine our question formulation we chose to conduct a pilot study from which we collected both quantitative and qualitative data.

AbstractThis study explores how well teachers think they succeed in their mission to include children with special needs into their ordinary groups of children. Interviews were carried out with five teachers in practice of the public school (year 2,3,5 and 6). The teachers were asked what support they have got from the schools manager, initially and ongoing, (information, necessary education, supportive expertise personnel, assistant teacher to the child and schoolmaterial.) The teachers were also asked how inclusion is arranged by three indicators of participation: physically, socially (interaction) and didactically -in educational situations of reading and writing. One finding of the study was that inclusion is difficult to arrange if  parents of included children demand secrecy of the diagnosis their child has. Three cases reveal severe problems of acceptance for the included child by the peers.

Background: For most children, being hospitalized is a whole new experience. The care should be safe and meet the children?s needs. In hospital care, children are a large group of patients. It?s important for them to be involved in decisions regarding their care and to get proper information.

AbstractIn this work, I have chosen to write about children in grief. Since children in grief is a large area, I have chosen to focus on how preschool handles and works with children who has loosed a parent, siblings or a play-mate by death. The aim of this work is to contribute knowledge about how you in preschool can handle and work with children in grief. To get answers to my questions, I have studied the current literature in the field. I have also interviewed five people with experience and knowledge of work with preschool-children affected by grief.

Background: Phonemically balanced word lists are used when obtaining speech recognition scores in noise. These lists are designed for adults, but are still used for children. To properly obtain speech recognition scores in noise for children, normative data is needed to show what differences there are to be expected between children of different ages. Purpose: The main purpose is to obtain normative data for children in the ages of 7, 10 and 13 years for speech recognition scores in noise using words and to compare these with each other and with normative data of adults. A further purpose is to examine if there is any practice- or exhaustion effect to be seen when obtaining speech recognition scores in noise for children in the ages of 7, 10 and 13 years.Material: The participants were ten 7-year-olds, ten 10-year-olds and ten 13-year-olds.

Sweden is currently a country in which a large amount of children?s time has changed to be spent within institutions, for small children these institutions are preschools. These are places where notions are created regarding what children are, what?s good for children, what?s normal and desirable regarding children. The purpose of this study has been to decipher what?s considered desirable and what notions or ideas regarding children are prevalent in preschools with an I Ur och Skur profile.

AbstractThis examination project studies two groups of students, who are in the last year of the mandatory school attendance in Sweden (15 years old and in school year nine), their views and thoughts about the Swedish school. The purpose of this study is to examine how the students in the study thinks about the role that the Swedish school have, and should have in the society, and how, and if the fostering mission that the Swedish school have, has any implication on the student?s opinions. I have also studied if the student?s trusts the Swedish school.I have made my study on interviews with two groups of students, one with four boys and one with four girls.

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 aim of this paper was to contribute to knowledge about how preschool-teachers work with the development of children?s spoken language in preschool.The study was conducted through interviews with four preschool-teachers working at the same preschool with one to five year old children. Through the interviews I came to learn about the preschool teachers experience concerning their work with development of children?s spoken language.The results show that the preschool teachers used pedagogical tools like songs, movements, rimes, jungles and stories in their work to develop the children?s spoken language. They said that conflicts and exclusion among children in a group could be a result of differences in language skills.

This scientific essay is based on four self-perceived situations that all takes place in an outdoor environment. The children are aged seven to nine years. At least one of the children in the groups has some type of concentration difficulties. I have combined my practical experience with literature and previous research regarding outdoor education and children with concentration difficulties. Based on this I have tried to interpret and reflect on the opportunities and problems with outdoor education for children with concentration difficulties, especially so called situational concentration difficulties.

The aim of this study is to widen our knowledge about the basic idea about having an open preschool for adopted children as understood by parents of adopted children and a preschool teacher. Sweden has a large number of international adoptions, in an international comparison among the highest numbers of adoptions per capita. Interviews were carried out with seven adoptive parents and one preschool teacher teaching at a special preschool for adopted children. It was found that adoptive parents had no particular problems with placing their children in an "ordinary" preschool. However, they choose to place the children in an open preschool solely for adopted children because of the possibility of sharing similar experiences as parents and children as well.

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.

Introduction: The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test is a widely used test for measuring aspects of social cognition. The aim of the present study was to provide results from a group of typically developing Swedish children (age 9-12) and to compare these results with children and adults in other Swedish and English studies, as well as results from a group of children with Asperger syndrome. Method: A Swedish version of the child version of the test was completed by 83 controls and by six children with Asperger syndrome. Results were compared between the two groups and with data from other studies. Results: The children in the current study did not differ on scores compared to children in the same age group in other studies.

Already in the late 1970´s it became clear that the traditional catalogs in libraries were not suited for children, neither their interests nor their way expressing themselves were accounted for. The goal of this thesis is to investigate if and how children?s OPACs (Open public access catalogs) interface design is at present adapted to the presumed audience of children. My method consists of literature studies and an investigation on the graphical interfaces in OPACs for children, according to the five criteria formulated by childrens library consultant Lena Lundgren and IT-consultant Kia Gumbel. The aims are to find out: a) what requirements for children?s OPAC interfaces and their usability are defined in literature and b) what the actual (real) features of the children?s OPAC interfaces are.

Children with Reading and Writing Difficulties and Their Language and Cognitive AbilitiesA Comparison with Children with a Cochlear ImplantAbstractThe aim of this study was to examine the cognitive abilities that are important for reading in children with reading disabilities, children with a cochlear implantation and typically developed children. 64 children aged 10-12 years participated in the study. To answer the question at issue we used the following tests: Block Design from WISC III, PPVT III, TOWRE, SL 40 and a few chosen tests out of the SIPS battery. On tests of the lexical access children with reading disabilities performed at the same level as hearing children, while the children with a cochlear implant performed significantly lower. Test of the phonological and complex working memory showed that children with reading disabilities performed significantly higher than children with a cochlear implant, but at the same time lower than typically developed children on the test of phonological working memory.