The Nasometer is a non-invasive acoustic measuring instrument that quantifies the ratio ofnasal resonance in speech. It can be used as a complement to perceptual judgment of speech impediments, for example, in patients with cleft palate and velopharyngeal insufficiency. Inorder to determine if a nasalance score is abnormal, it must be compared to norm data. The main purpose of the study was to collect reference nasalance scores in children between fourand five years of age in Linköping. An additional objective was to compare the results tonorm data collected in Umeå.

The purpose of this study is to find out how some Swedish preschool teacher discussing how children's Swedish colloquial interaction can be enhanced in the free play. In this case where children are aged three to five.My research questions in the study are:-          What type of free play do preschool teachers talk about in relation to children's Swedish colloquial development?-          What do preschool teachers say about child's colloquial interaction?-           How do preschool teachers reason regarding in what environment children?s colloquial interaction occurs?In my study I have used an interview with elements of a visual method called The Diamond. The approach is that the Participants in the interview will be enhanced to discussing about a wise certain number of images. These images are then to be ranked accordingly with a specific theme and terms.If a child has difficult to speak, you can take help of  the interest the child has, the child can tell you and the other children what he or she know about the interest.

The aim of this study is to examine the knowledge and experience of the bad breath among high school students in Kristianstad. A further objective was to measure the amount of VSC (Volatile Sulfur Compounds) among those who perceive themselves to have a bad breath. A questionnaire with 21 closed questions was distributed to 120 high school students from Kristianstad municipality who were between the ages of 17-20. The results of this study revealed that most of the students had good knowledge of halitosis. The majority of all Participants thought it was important to smell fresh in the mouth and also experienced most of their breath as very good or good.

The research in this thesis attempts to understand what happens when children (3-6 years of age) interact with each other in the context of free play in two pre-school settings when adults are not involved. The aim of the study was to get a closer look at how children create relationships and how they protect and defend their interactional spaces. Data was gathered through ethnographically inspired methodology, using video observation to capture the everyday interactions of the children. Results were analyzed using a phenomenological approach to peer cultures. Previous research suggests that it is very important for children to maintain their interactions with peers and gaining access to play.

This composition deals with questions concerning the ongoing construction of gender among personnel in different project for young girls and young boys ( ages 14): its conditions and meanings and how personnel form and mediate gender experience. The aim of this essay is to investigate how gender is made in everyday practise in three projects which address to either young girls or young boys, and to examine how the formation of gender interplays between conceptions among personnel and the practise in the projects. Central questions are: How describes the practical work and the needs of girls and boys in the project? And does the gender-segregated work justified in the projects? Qualitative methods are used to answer these questions. We made qualitative interviews among personnel from three projects, Ellen, Allan and DISA.

This thesis evaluates the user board of the elememtary school in Veberöd, Sweden. In this process an evaluation model is developed. The model itself gets evaluated in a meta-evaluation to improve the model for future use.The starting point of the evaluation is the deliberative democracy theory. Although Sweden is a representative democracy an official desire exists to have a democracy with deliberative qualities. The evaluation model is constructed to fit this context and is therefore, not only, set out from classical goal-based evaluation but also from deliberative democratic evaluation.

Depression in young adults is a serious condition causing serious suffering for the victim. By finding risk factors for depression the opportunity for early preventive action is increased, which, in turn, may prevent a negative course. Two risk factors which have been shown to be related to depression are shame and rejection. Therefore this study examined the relationship between shameproneness, rejection sensitivity, shame-related events and depressive symptoms. The self-report questionnaires used were TOSCA, RSQ, Shaming index and BDI-II.

Body esteem is the affective aspect of body image, which is shaped by social experience. Compared with men, women have a more negative body image, which is more frequently correlated with depression and dysfunctional thoughts, especially in the case of eating disorders. The purpose of the present study was to examine gender differences in body esteem and its subcategories, and to find out whether there exists a stronger link between negative body esteem and higher levels of dysfunctional thoughts in women. The relationship between body esteem, dysfunctional thoughts and mental illness was examined. Participants were 73 college students doing social sciences and sports training educations.

This study contents a research of the Swedish temperance movements IOGT, NTO and TO:s adult education in Dalarna between 1921 and 1939. A theory that is used in this essay is the publicity theory of Jürgen Habermas. A theory in this essay is that the adult educational work of the temperance movements could bee seen as an alternative publicity because the courses that the temperance movement held in general contents a great part of the movements own literature, the Participants in the courses held their own lectures to each other and it was mostly only members of the temperance movements who could join the courses. The main subject of the courses was history in literature, English, Esperanto, and knowledge about local democracy. Not many courses content the drinking issue in Sweden at this time, even thought a national referendum was held in the issue during the research period of this essay.

This study aims to highlight patients´ experiences about and thoughts of side effects fromelectroconvulsive therapy (ECT), a therapeutic method commonly used when having severedepressions. The framing of questions were how the respondents of this study describe theirlife before, during and after ECT-treatment, how the treatment has affected their daily life andhow these experiences may contribute to the awareness of power in professional relations.The study is based on three semi-structured narrative interviews and the main result showedthat, according to my interpretation, ECT as a treatment obliterated memories, quality of lifeand daily structure for all Participants. Unfortunately they have all become subjects ofpsychiatric power and have faced considerable difficulty in getting professional recognitionaccording to their severe memory issues. The respondents have lost the ability to relate totheir past which clearly makes them struggle in their present context. A point in commonamong them is that neither of them wanted ECT but, because of the lack of communicationbetween them as patients and the health care in general, they all ended up getting it..

The aim of this study is to increase understanding about addiction recovery. More specifically, we want to know what people who have had problems with alcohol and/or other drugs perceive as helpful and important for their recovery process and how we can understand this process.The study was conducted by means of qualitative semi-structured interviews with four people who have had alcohol and/or other drug problems. The analysis is based on a transtheoretical model of change from addictive behaviours, coping, interactionist theories and also a recovery perspective, inspired by research on recovery from mental illness . Main findings are that recovery from addiction can be understood as an individual process that takes place in a social context and can follow expected phases, although there are large individual differences in the process. Through the recovery process it has been of importance to the Participants in the study to redefine themselves and their problems, get support from others, find ways to cope with their problems, get involved in meaningful activities and to expand their social roles.

In today?s society more and more activities are digitalized. This means that everyone has to be able to use information and communication tools (ICT) in order to take part in the digital world, otherwise they will be left out of the digital community. There is a so called digital gap between for instance elderly and young people, where elderly do not know how to use the tools and there for cannot gain access to the digital society. What happens when people, not only grow old, but also have a communication disorder, such as aphasia? How are they included? The purpose of this study is to investigate whether or not surf pads are good tools for bridging the digital gap for people with aphasia, and which activities and situations that encourages people with aphasia to work with the surf pad.

Studies have shown that library employees often choose not to use readers? advisory tools but to instead rely entirely on their own experience, often doing the library user a disservice. However, very few have looked at why this is so. This thesis looks at to what extent thirty individual employees in thirty Swedish public libraries use readers advisory tools when helping a patron find a good book, with the major focus on what motivates them to use these tools and why some choose not to use them. It was found that readers? advisory tools where not used with any consistency and that many things influence the library employees? use of these tools.

Introduction: Anxiety and depression are common among patients enrolled in psychiatric outpatient care. Ear Acupuncture is an alternative form of treatment that has been shown to relieve anxiety and depression in previous studies.Aim: To evaluate ear acupuncture as a group treatment for depression and anxietyMethod: A psychiatric outpatient clinic has been offering group treatments with ear acupuncture for anxiety and depression for 5 weeks. Participants of the study have answered self-rating scales Montgomery Åsberg Depression Rating Scale, Beck Anxiety Inventory and Sheehan Disability scale before and after the treatment period. Material was collected in the period 2008-2012 and has been analyzed in SPSS.Results: Data from 31 patients were included in the study. The results from the study showed a significant difference, between the measurements before and after treatment, with a reduction of the average values in the three different scales.Summary: From this study, it is difficult to draw any conclusions about the effect of ear acupuncture.

The academic underachievement of looked after children is well known. By involving foster carers in a Paired Reading intervention a Swedish project tried to address this issue, replicating a successful British trial. The aim of my thesis was to study the variations in the foster carers? experiences of this literacy intervention. Reading reports from 100 children were collected and qualitative interviews with 15 foster parents were analyzed using concepts from motivational psychology.