Saudi Cultural Missions Theses & Dissertations
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://drepo.sdl.edu.sa/handle/20.500.14154/10
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Item Restricted Saudi Cosmopolitan Transnational Parents’ Ideologies, Language Policy, and their Children’s Struggle with Homeland Integration(University of Arizona, 2024) Alshuhri ,Hasan; Mary Carol CombsThis study explored the language ideologies of Saudi cosmopolitan parents living in Western countries, their family language policies, and their children's reintegration into Saudi society. I used a qualitative research design to investigate the process of family language policies and practices and the underlying social, cultural, and religious ideologies. Drawing on the interviews with four Saudi families, and a survey with forty two Saudi parents, the research investigated how parents perceive and prioritize the use of Arabic and English within their households. It also examined the strategies they employ to maintain Arabic proficiency and cultural ties amidst a predominantly English-speaking environment. The findings revealed a complex interplay between parental aspirations, social pressures, and the linguistic realities faced by their children. The study highlighted the challenges and opportunities in balancing bilingualism by the families and the strategies they used to ease their reintegration into the Saudi homeland. This research contributed to a deeper understanding of the role of language in the transnational experiences of Saudi families and provided insights for educators and policymakers supporting these communities.9 0Item Restricted Seizure Control and Developmental Outcomes After Epilepsy Surgery in Infants(University College London, 2024) Alanazi, Samar; Eltze, ChristinBackground: Managing epilepsy in infants is challenging, even with antiseizure medications, and is associated with developmental delays. This study evaluated epilepsy surgery in infants, focusing on seizure control, developmental outcomes, and quality of life. Method: We conducted a retrospective analysis of infants who underwent epilepsy surgery ≤12 months of age at Great Ormond Street Hospital between January 2007 and October 2023. Data included neuroimaging, cognitive, language, and quality of life assessments. Seizure outcomes were classified using the Engel system. Results: Thirty-eight patients (22 female) were included. The median age at onset was 6 weeks. Patients had structural abnormalities, including hemimegalencephaly (n=12, 31.6%) and focal cortical dysplasia (n=10, 26.3%). Surgery was performed at a median age of 6.5 months (IQR=4 months) and included hemispherotomy (47.4%), lesionectomy/lobectomy (31.5%), and multilobar disconnection (18.4%). Six patients (15%) required a second surgery. After a median follow-up of 4 years (IQR=6 years), 23 patients (60.5%) achieved seizure freedom, and 21 patients (55.3%) discontinued antiseizure medications. Hemiplegia was the most common motor impairment both pre- and post-surgery. Paired pre- and post surgery cognitive data were available for 21 patients, with 53% maintaining and 21% showing improvement in cognitive trajectories. Paired language data were available for 16 patients, with 34% maintaining and 13% showing improvement in language trajectories. Patients achieving seizure freedom exhibited more favourable language trajectories. Post-surgery quality of life data for 13 patients (34.2%) showed scores below normative levels. Conclusion: Epilepsy surgery significantly reduces seizures, but developmental outcomes vary, highlighting the need for ongoing evaluation.14 0Item Restricted Multisensory Processing as a Concurrent Contributor to Cognitive and Language Development in School-Aged Children (A Bayesian Approach)(La Trobe University, 2024-04-24) Alhamdan, Areej; Crewther, Sheila; Murphy, MelanieMultisensory processing is fundamental to survival of higher animals, humans included. Rapid and successful integration of visual and auditory information in the brain is necessary to ensure comprehensive understanding of the environment and facilitation of motor responses. Indeed, visual and auditory multisensory processing when measured as Motor Reaction Times (MRTs) in adults has long been known to enhance accuracy and speed of responses, though few have considered how development of motor function per se influences age-related increase in multisensory MRTs and contributes to various cognitive abilities, including working memory (WM), intelligence and language development in primary school children. Thus, the current thesis employed a Bayesian approach to meta-analyze literature up to mid- 2023 to test the association between both motor and verbal measures of multisensory processing and WM development, while also showing that multisensory stimuli contributed more significantly to WM capacity than unisensory visual or auditory stimuli alone. The three experimental studies presented in this thesis employed a simple multisensory MRT task, to explore the interaction of motor development and cognitive abilities in children aged 5-10 years. The first study aimed to examine developmental changes in multisensory MRTs, visuomotor responses and non-motor visual Inspection threshold Time tasks in school children to highlight the more significant contributions of age to motor than sensory function. The second study aimed to investigate the development of visual and auditory WM and visually based nonverbal intelligence, and their relationship to multisensory and visuomotor tasks. Our findings demonstrated that age-related performance on nonverbal intelligence and visual rather than auditory WM were the strongest unique predictors of multisensory MRTs. The final study investigated the association between multisensory and visuomotor processing and the development of receptive and expressive vocabulary abilities, and showed that children with faster MRTs in multisensory and visuomotor processing tasks demonstrated higher complex expressive vocabulary scores (as opposed to simple receptive vocabulary). Overall, the findings of this thesis highlight the interaction of motor development and cognitive abilities and demonstrate that simple, fast, and easily accessible assessment measures of multisensory processing, visuomotor coordination, and nonverbal intelligence as measures of both on-going developmental and neurodevelopmental status in school children.30 0Item Restricted The influence of language on the formation of number concepts; Evidence from pre-school children who are bilingual in English and Arabic(Saudi Digital Library, 2023) Alhaider, Rima; Donlan, Chris; Mahon, MerleThis study examined the role of language on early number concepts from the perspective of bilingualism. Arabic/English bilinguals were studied since the Arabic language provides a distinctive linguistic context for the learner through its system of nominal number marking. Arabic is unusual in distinguishing between singular, dual and plural nouns. When a noun appears in dual form it is interpreted as referring to precisely two entities. Research suggests that exposure to dual case provides accelerated access to the concept of two. We asked whether early number knowledge in general is influenced by such exposure, and further examined the extent to which such influence is either (a) limited to number knowledge as expressed in the Arabic language, or (b) extended to include number knowledge as expressed in the English language. Furthermore, we examined the relationship between transcoding and number knowledge. A sample of 77 Arabic/English bilingual children was recruited. Arabic and English language skills, knowledge of the spoken number sequence in Arabic and English and comprehension of dual case nominal number marking in Arabic were assessed. Early number concepts were assessed in Arabic and English languages through cardinality and number identification testing, employing a widely used procedure and including comparison of the range of scoring systems represented in the literature. Convergent results from logistic and linear regression analyses demonstrated that number concepts assessed in Arabic, but not English, showed significant independent influence of dual case comprehension, indicating linguistic specificity of early number concepts. However, extended statistical models showed significant further influence of English concepts of Arabic concepts and vice versa. Furthermore, cardinality concepts played an important role in transcoding skills in both languages. However, the pattern of mutual transfer of cardinality concepts between languages was not found for transcoding skills. Our findings indicate that very early number concepts, developed within a specific set of linguistic contexts, may be represented at an abstract level, capable of transfer across languages.16 0