Since the brain is an important prerequisite for human language there is a great interest to gain more knowledge about healthy brain activity during language mediated communication. This study examines variations in high level language ability relating to demographic factors like gender and age and relates language ability to neural activity.Eighteen individuals in ages between 22 and 64 were included and divided into groups in relation to gender and age. The material used to assess language ability was derived from Testbatteri för Bedömning av Subtila Språkstörningar (Laakso, Brunnegård, Hartelius & Ahlsén, 2000), Swedish Lexical Decision Test (Almkvist, Adveen, Henning & Tallberg, 2007) and a reading test (Högskoleprovet). The results were correlated with measured brain activity using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and language paradigms. ANOVA was applied to discover possible demographic variances in language ability as well as in brain activity.The results showed no significant differences in language ability.

I vilken grad ett barn är fonologiskt medvetet är i många fall avgörande för hur barnets läsinlärning kommer att fortlöpa, varför det är av stor vikt att redan tidigt arbeta för att stärka den fonologiska medvetenheten. En tillfredsställande läsförmåga är central för inlärningen även i andra skolämnen än svenska. Forskning har på senare tid visat att det finns ett tydligt samband mellan läs- och skrivsvårigheter och svårigheter i matematik. I denna studie undersöks huruvida det finns någon koppling mellan tidiga fonologiska svårigheter och matematiksvårigheter två år senare hos en grupp elever. Med kvantitativa metoder och genom analyser av bedömningar i olika diagnos- och kartläggningsmaterial har ett resultat kunnat presenteras som visar att majoriteten av de elever som i förskoleklassen uppvisade tecken på fonologiska svårigheter även hade matematiksvårigheter i år 2.

The purpose of this degree thesis is to investigate what the English teachers in an upper sec-ondary school, think about teaching students in ability grouped classrooms. The questions that I have set out to investigate include what the teachers think about ability grouping in English, the school?s current organisation of ability groups, the pros and cons of ability grouping in English, differentiation in teaching and if students get more individualized teaching with abil-ity groups, how the teachers cooperate and what would be the optimal teaching situation in an English learning classroom.I did a lot of theoretical research on the subject and studied old essays on similar subjects. I also did some classroom observations to use as background information for my interviews. I interviewed five teachers of different sex, age, and teaching experience.

The aim of this essay is to examine if the attitudes and the experiences of Ability Grouping are the same on different levels of the school organisation.I have chosen to answer the following two questions:· Have the teachers, the students and the headmaster the same idea concerning the educational model at the school, that is, the pros and cons of Ability Grouping?· Does the intentions of the curriculum agree with this educational model?I knew what I thought about the educational model at the school that is the object of this essay, after spending ten weeks at it as a trainee, but I felt that I would be interesting to know what the people who are part of that system everyday think about it.In order to be able to answer my questions, I used both the qualitative and the quantitative method. I interviewed the headmaster and five teachers to find out what they thought about Ability Grouping. I also distributed inquiries to 70 students from 6th to 9th grade to get their point of view. In the theoretical discussion I explain the meaning of different conceptions that I use throughout this essay.

The Swedish armed forces has for many years educated squad leaders by letting them start their training two and a half months before the soldiers start their training. 2007, this system was used for the last time. I went trough this system myself in 2005 and had a positive experience and when I did my internship I experienced a slight difference in the attitude of the squad leader. I talked with my colleges at the company and they had felt the same. This essay will try to analyse if the squad leaders has lost any of there ability and if so, what could be the cause? To analyze the ability of the squad leader in this essay it will first analyze their ability through the Direct leadership theory, which is the theory that is presently used in the Swedish armed forces.

The aim of the present study was to examine students' text comprehension in grades 4 and 6. Participants were 61 students without documented or suspected reading and writing difficulties, in grades 4 and 6. The focus was on texts designed by Bishop and Adams (1992), containing two types of questions: literal and inference questions, and three different ways of presenting the text; listening, silent reading and silent reading with the text available when responding to the questions. The texts have been previously used in research and as a tool for clinical, qualitative estimate of reading comprehension in speech and language pathologists? assessments.

Prosody can be characterized as the rhythm and the melody of speech. Prosodic features convey emotions, thoughts and geographic origins of each individual. Spoken language without prosody would be monotonous, without variations in loudness and rate. Children with cochlear implants perceive speech in a different way than children with normal hearing. Consequently the speech produced by a child with cochlear implants may sound different.The purpose of this study was to examine prosodic skills in Swedish children with cochlear implants and to compare them with the prosodic skills in Swedish children with normal hearing.

Our study aimed at gaining insight of co-workers experiences of different factors that affects the verbal communication and leads to dialogue and misunderstanding between co-workers and their managers. The empirical material was gained from semi-structured interviews with co-workers at various departments within the same organization. We used a hermeneutic interpretive approach and our data was analyzed concerning different factors affecting communication. The result has been interpreted using the theories of deliberative conversations and dialogue competence. We have also used Illeris theory of learning.

Our study aimed at gaining insight of co-workers experiences of different factors that affects the verbal communication and leads to dialogue and misunderstanding between co-workers and their managers. The empirical material was gained from semi-structured interviews with co-workers at various departments within the same organization. We used a hermeneutic interpretive approach and our data was analyzed concerning different factors affecting communication. The result has been interpreted using the theories of deliberative conversations and dialogue competence. We have also used Illeris theory of learning. The result shows a number of factors that affects communication between co-workers and managers.

The purpose of this study was to, from the teacher's point of view; discover pupils with reading difficulties in connection with text assignments in mathematics, the teacher's support for these students, if difficulties coincide and whether it's the mathematics teacher's responsibility to make sure pupils with reading difficulties develop their reading ability. The study is based on a qualitative method and five semistructured interviews with mathematics teachers and one language support teacher.The result shows there is a strong connection between the pupils' reading ability and their ability to manage text assignments in mathematics. A weak reading ability affects the pupil in a negative way when solving text assignments in mathematics due to wrong reading technique if the teacher is absent. It is not unusual that reading difficulties and mathematics difficulties coincide. The teacher's most important role in the learning process is to teach the pupils understanding about the reading technique in different ways and to give the pupils opportunity to get spoken texts.

This is the report on a study made to find a correlation between the Johari window and the games that the possessor of given Johari window enjoys to play. A Johari window is a graph that shows an individual?s ability to receive and give feedback. One obvious correlation was found between individuals enjoying role playing games and their possessing Johari windows showing a good ability to give feedback. The reasoning behind this is that the ability to give feedback is based on the capability to express oneself to the external environment, and that one would need to be comfortable with expressing oneself to an external environment in order to enjoy interacting with the narrative that takes place within the role playing genre..

The task given to us was to develop an industrial wheel with new thinking in terms of fresh design and construction, with the ability to brake. While the produced wheels of today only own the property of total braking, a wish was made to integrate the ability of directional locking.The time spent working with the project has been filled with multiple sketches of ideas and function analysis.Choices of material and ways of construction have been verified by calculations, tests and prototype building. The goal of this thesis has been to develop a unique caster with well thought-out design that would be adaptable to different areas of applications.The result was a hubless wheel with the ability of directional locking before total braking.A prototype of the wheel has been made to show the design and functions..

In this comparative study, intelligibility (as measured by SWINT; SwedishIntelligibility Assessment) and self-rated communicative ability (as measuredby SOK; a self-report questionnaire concerning communication) were investigatedin 29 young adults with repaired cleft lip and palate (CLP) and in 50 age-matchedcontrols. The purpose of the study was to investigate if the outcome of these measuresdiffered between groups and/or with regard to sex, and also to identify possiblecorrelations between SOK and SWINT. Results show that young adults withrepaired CLP had a more positive attitude towards their communicative ability thancontrols, as did men with repaired CLP compared to male controls. Intelligibilitydid not differ between the two groups. A correlation between degree of intelligibilityand self-rated communicative ability was found in young adults with repairedCLP.

Cochleaimplantat (CI) är ett hörselhjälpmedel som kan ge barn med grav hörselnedsättning eller dövhet möjlighet att höra och utveckla talat språk. Svenska grundskolebarn med CI har tidigare visats ha en något nedsatt prosodisk förmåga och fonologiskt arbetsminne även om stora individuella variationer förekommer.Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka prosodisk förmåga och fonologiskt arbetsminne hos svenska förskolebarn med CI. Vidare undersöktes samband mellan prosodisk förmåga och fonologiskt arbetsminne. I studien deltog sex förskolebarn med CI och totalt 18 normalhörande kontroller, varav sex var ålders-, köns- och dialektmatchade med barnen med CI.Barnen med CI i föreliggande studie uppvisade som grupp signifikant lägre resultat än de normalhörande barnen på test avseende prosodisk produktion på ord-, fras- och diskursnivå samt på test som undersöker fonologiskt arbetsminne. Gällande receptiv prosodisk förmåga förekom inga signifikanta skillnader.

This paper investigates the usability of the intelligence test Wechsler Nonverbal Scale of Ability (WNV). Twenty four children in two different age-groups were tested with WNV, 10 children between ages 5 - 6, and 14 children between ages 9 - 10. The WNV turned out to be a useful test when some verbal communication was used in the test situation. This was especially apparent among the younger children, who needed extra verbal instructions and verbal support through the different subtests. The test also contained standardized verbal instructions for all ages.