This study examines Deaf parents with children who have cochlear implants on their beliefs and perspectives of bilingualism in American Sign Language and English using complementary mixed methods through surveys and follow-up interviews. Seventeen families participated in the survey and eight families continued their participation in semi-formal…

Background: Pneumococcal vaccination (PV) is important as Streptococcus pneumoniae accounts for one third of all hospitalizations for community-acquired pneumonia. In 2009, 1.1 million people in the U.S. were hospitalized with pneumonia and more than 50,000 people died from the disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that…

Reduplication of numerals and pronouns in Kannada is shown to be subject to locality conditions similar to those constraining binding. This dissertation explores an account of distributivity which exploits the similarity to binding, arguing that the source of the distributive reading in Numeral Reduplication is a bound element. [The dissertation…

In this dissertation, I provide a new analysis of the Vietnamese vowel system as a system with fourteen monophthongs and nineteen diphthongs based on phonetic and phonological data. I propose that these Vietnamese contour vowels - /ie/, /[turned m]?/ and /uo/-should be grouped with these eleven monophthongs /i e epsilon a [turned a] ? ? [turned m]…

This dissertation is concerned with the specific relationship between copular sentences and existential sentences, and what about that relationship is responsible for the well-known restrictions on definiteness and predicates that are observed in the existential cases. Instead of starting with the well-known paradigms which illustrate restrictions…

A representative sample of approximately 2,000 public school principals in the Midwestern United States were surveyed about school policies and practices to prevent cyberbullying. They were also asked to interpret whether incidents involving problematic Internet and cell phone experiences of students were examples of cyberbullying. They also…

Research indicates that up to 65% of children diagnosed with ADHD may continue to display general behavior problems, as well as specific symptoms of ADHD, later in life. In most of the studies, ADHD college students' self-esteem is strongly aligned with their social skills. The purpose of this study was to find directions that will assist…

This study focuses on new teachers' job satisfaction and their challenges and experiences during their probationary period. This research concentrated on how their challenges and experiences affected their choice to leave the profession. Basic Interpretive Qualitative method was utilized to explore and understand new teachers' challenges…

Understanding the different aspects of the college experience of African American males in a predominantly White institution is an important topic for researchers. This focus directly responds to the despairing statistics surrounding collegiate African American males, who often show lower graduation rates compared to other racial groups. The need…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand how general education teachers perceive their experiences working with students in their classrooms who have been diagnosed with autism. The study addressed the following research question: How do secondary school general educators perceive their experiences working with students in…

Previous research has provided evidence that mental imagery and embodied action can facilitate lexical learning in a novel language. However, it is unclear "how" these factors interact--as well as "why" they play a role--in lexical learning. Through a set of four experiments, this research demonstrated that neither mental…

Vocabulary and comprehension are so inextricably linked that it ensures the necessity of researchers and teachers to determine the most effective method of vocabulary instruction. Our nation's children are still victims of what has been termed the vocabulary gap (Biemiller & Boote, 2006). This "vocabulary gap," according to a…

The purpose of the present study is to investigate similarities and differences in the listening behaviors of native speakers and learners of Japanese, focusing on the production of "aizuchi" and head nods. The term "aizuchi" is often interchangeably used with the word backchannel, and these are characterized as the…

This dissertation reports the results of a content analysis of Introductory Sociology textbooks in order to assess their coverage of, and approach to, the teaching of "culture" in the hopes of ultimately creating a unified approach for the introduction of students to the sociology of culture. Looking at introductory sociology textbooks,…

With the passing of legislation like the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) and an increased focus on continuous improvement in public education, professional development has progressed from a passive form of learning for educators to a process in which educators are interacting, collaborating, and learning through various methods. This study…