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In a year that stood-out for the unprecedented attention to banks’ role in driving climate change, incremental steps need to be taken in the face of threatening climate scenarios. This requires a shift in banks’ business model, as the existent ones are focused on profit generation, frequently achieved at the detriment of environment and society. To unveil the solutions adopted by banks and to create a sustainable business model for the sector, the researcher elaborated a literature review and conducted a set of interviews to 10 individuals specialized in sustainable banking. The interviews assessed the individuals’ knowledge on nine archetypes, which are rooted in ESG values. The study unveiled that the shift in banks’ business model is rooted in the EU sustainability framework and in the commitment to agreements and alliances. This has led to changes in the financial products; strategic advisory; loan portfolio, industry-specific strategies; and internal tools. Num ano que se destacou pela atenção dada ao papel impulsionador dos bancos nas alterações climáticas, é necessária a implementação de medidas suplementares face aos cenários climáticos ameaçadores. Tal exige uma mudança no modelo de negócio dos bancos, atualmente focados na geração de lucros, regularmente alcançados em detrimento do meio ambiente e da sociedade. A fim de conhecer as soluções adotadas pelos bancos e de criar um modelo de negócio sustentável para o setor, foi elaborada uma revisão literária e entrevistas a 10 indivíduos especializados na banca sustentável. As entrevistas captaram o conhecimento dos indivíduos relativo a nove arquétipos, assentes no conceito de ESG. O estudo revelou que a mudança nos modelos de negócio dos bancos está associada ao enquadramento sustentável da UE e à vinculação a tratados e alianças, que desencadearam alterações nos produtos financeiros; assessoria estratégica; portfólio de crédito, nas estratégias relativas a setores específicos, e ferramentas internas.

BackgroundSeveral studies have investigated the acoustic effects of diagnosed anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression are not characteristics of the typical aging process, but minimal or mild symptoms can appear and evolve with age. However, the knowledge about the association between speech and anxiety or depression is scarce for minimal/mild symptoms, typical of healthy aging. As longevity and aging are still a new phenomenon worldwide, posing also several clinical challenges, it is important to improve our understanding of non-severe mood symptoms’ impact on acoustic features across lifetime. The purpose of this study was to determine if variations in acoustic measures of voice are associated with non-severe anxiety or depression symptoms in adult population across lifetime.MethodsTwo different speech tasks (reading vowels in disyllabic words and describing a picture) were produced by 112 individuals aged 35-97. To assess anxiety and depression symptoms, the Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS) was used. The association between the segmental and suprasegmental acoustic parameters and HADS scores were analyzed using the linear multiple regression technique.ResultsThe number of participants with presence of anxiety or depression symptoms is low (>7: 26.8% and 10.7%, respectively) and non-severe (HADS-A: 5.4 ± 2.9 and HADS-D: 4.2 ± 2.7, respectively). Adults with higher anxiety symptoms did not present significant relationships associated with the acoustic parameters studied. Adults with increased depressive symptoms presented higher vowel duration, longer total pause duration and short total speech duration. Finally, age presented a positive and significant effect only for depressive symptoms, showing that older participants tend to have more depressive symptoms.ConclusionsNon-severe depression symptoms can be related to some acoustic parameters and age. Depression symptoms can be explained by acoustic parameters even among individuals without severe symptom levels.

Dissertação de mestrado em Gestão de Recursos Humanos, O recrutamento e a seleção são duas práticas de Gestão de Recursos Humanos de extrema importância para as organizações. Para que um processo de recrutamento e seleção (R&S) seja bemsucedido e responda às reais necessidades da organização é necessário que seja considerada a sua cultura organizacional. Isto é imprescindível porque aquando da sua entrada na organização, os novos trabalhadores passam a conviver com a cultura organizacional, ou seja, o conjunto de hábitos e crenças, estabelecidos por normas, valores, atitudes e expetativas compartilhados por todos os trabalhadores de uma organização. Portanto, para facilitar a integração dos novos trabalhadores na empresa é necessário que o processo de R&S seja feito tendo em conta as necessidades da empresa e a sua CO para que não surjam problemas no futuro, como um elevado turnover. Neste estudo, pretendeu-se entender a relevância da cultura organizacional e a sua influência no recrutamento e na seleção. Portanto, o foco deste trabalho, mais especificamente, são as práticas de recrutamento e de seleção e a questão de partida é a seguinte: de que forma é que a cultura de uma organização pode influenciar o seu processo de recrutamento e seleção? Tornou-se fundamental adotar o paradigma qualitativo, o que implicou a realização de um estudo de caso no Grupo DST, com recurso à técnica da entrevista para a recolha de dados junto de 12 responsáveis pelo R&S desta empresa. A conclusões deste estudo possibilitaram clarificar a relação entre a cultura organizacional e os processos de recrutamento e seleção existentes no Grupo DST. Com a análise dos dados, por recurso à análise de conteúdo, verificou-se que os responsáveis pelo processo de R&S do Grupo DST dão relevância à CO e consideram a sua influência no processo, procurando candidatos que se enquadrem na cultura da empresa de forma a que a sua integração seja mais fácil e apresentem motivação para trabalhar num ambiente em que a cultura é muito valorizada. Além disso, também ao nível externo, a imagem de marca da DST está relacionada com a sua vertente diferenciadora relativamente a outras empresas do setor, o que demonstra a relevância da sua CO quer para os trabalhadores e administração do Grupo quer também para os seus stakeholders., Recruitment and selection are two practices of Human Resources Management of extreme importance for organizations. For an R&S process to be successful and respond to the real needs of the organization, its organizational culture must be considered. This is essential because when they enter the organization, new workers begin to live with the organizational culture, that is, the set of habits and beliefs, established by norms, values, attitudes and expectations shared by all workers of an organization. Therefore, to facilitate the integration of new workers into the company, it is necessary that the R&S process is done taking into account the needs of the company and its organizational culture so that no problems arise in the future, such as a high turnover. In this study, we aimed to understand the relevance of organizational culture and its influence on recruitment and selection. Therefore, the focus of this work, more specifically, is recruitment and selection practices and the starting question is as follows: how can an organization's culture influence its recruitment and selection process? It became essential to adopt the qualitative paradigm, which implied the realization of a case study in the DST Group, using the technique of interviewing for data collection with 12 R&S managers of this company. The conclusions of this study made it possible to clarify the relationship between organizational culture and the recruitment and selection processes existing in the DST Group. With the analysis of the data, using content analysis, it was found that those responsible for the R&S process of the DST Group give relevance to the organizational culture and consider its influence in the process, looking for candidates who fit the company's culture so that its integration is easier and presents motivation to work in an environment where culture is highly valued. In addition, also at the external level, DST brand image is related to its differentiating aspect in relation to other companies in the sector, which demonstrates the relevance of its organizational culture both to the group's employees and management and also to its stakeholders.

Speech production studies and the knowledge they bring forward are of paramount importance to advance a wide range of areas including Phonetics, speech therapy, synthesis and interaction. Several technologies have been considered to study static and dynamic features of the articulators and speech motor control, such as electromagnetic articulography (EMA), real-time magnetic resonance (RTMRI) and ultrasound (US) imaging. While the latest advances in RTMRI provide a wealth of data of the full vocal tract, it is an expensive resource that requires specialized facilities. In this sense, US is a more affordable alternative for several contexts, enabling the acquisition of larger datasets, but demands adequate computational approaches for processing and analysis. While the literature is prolific in proposing methods for tongue segmentation from US, the noisy nature of the images and the specificities of the equipment often dictate a poor performance on novel datasets, a matter that needs to be assessed, before large data acquisition, to devise suitable acquisition and processing methods. In the scope of a line of research studying speech changes with age, this work describes the first results of an automatic tongue segmentation method from US, along with a characterization of the main challenges posed by the image data. Even though improvements are still needed, particularly to ensure temporal coherence, at its current stage, this method can already provide the required data for an automatic analysis of maximum tongue height, a relevant parameter to assess speech changes on vowel production.

Background: The appropriate use of language in context depends on the speaker's pragmatic language competencies. A coding system was used to develop a specific and adult-focused self-administered questionnaire to adults who stutter and adults who do not stutter, The Assessment of Language Use in Social Contexts for Adults, with three categories: precursors, basic exchanges, and extended literal/non-literal discourse. This paper presents the content validity, item analysis, reliability coefficients and evidences of construct validity of the instrument. Methods: Content validity analysis was based on a two-stage process: first, 11 pragmatic questionnaires were assessed to identify items that probe each pragmatic competency and to create the first version of the instrument; second, items were assessed qualitatively by an expert panel composed by adults who stutter and controls, and quantitatively and qualitatively by an expert panel composed by clinicians. A pilot study was conducted with five adults who stutter and five controls to analyse items and calculate reliability. Construct validity evidences were obtained using the hypothesized relationships method and factor analysis with 28 adults who stutter and 28 controls. Results: Concerning content validity, the questionnaires assessed up to 13 pragmatic competencies. Qualitative and quantitative analysis revealed ambiguities in items construction. Disagreement between experts was solved through item modification. The pilot study showed that the instrument presented internal consistency and temporal stability. Significant differences between adults who stutter and controls and different response profiles revealed the instrument's underlying construct. Conclusion: The instrument is reliable and presented evidences of construct validity. published

Relatório da Prática de Ensino Supervisionada, Mestrado em Ensino de Artes Visuais do 3º Ciclo e Ensino Secundário, Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Educação, 2019 Submitted by Biblioteca FPIE-ULisboa (bibliorul@fpie.ulisboa.pt) on 2020-02-18T14:32:44Z No. of bitstreams: 4 ulfpie055617_tm_tese.pdf: 4968831 bytes, checksum: 546a1bf3d9676a522e23a99ad583b572 (MD5) ulfpie055617_tm_anexoA.pdf: 18660605 bytes, checksum: 058193622d694e51ef985379f0a76251 (MD5) ulfpie055617_tm_anexoB.pdf: 9475243 bytes, checksum: e32000c5de247bcf0ae1b967cfee17a3 (MD5) ulfpie055617_tm_anexoC.pdf: 144207919 bytes, checksum: 18dc8f0c844c73df43901afde8fadeec (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2020-02-18T14:33:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 4 ulfpie055617_tm_tese.pdf: 4968831 bytes, checksum: 546a1bf3d9676a522e23a99ad583b572 (MD5) ulfpie055617_tm_anexoA.pdf: 18660605 bytes, checksum: 058193622d694e51ef985379f0a76251 (MD5) ulfpie055617_tm_anexoB.pdf: 9475243 bytes, checksum: e32000c5de247bcf0ae1b967cfee17a3 (MD5) ulfpie055617_tm_anexoC.pdf: 144207919 bytes, checksum: 18dc8f0c844c73df43901afde8fadeec (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the validity, reliability, sensitivity and specificity of the European-Portuguese version of the Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS-EP). Seventy-six children (age: M = 60.6, SD = 8.1 months), 25 having a parent or teacher concern about how they talked and 51 with no concern, were assessed with the phonetic-phonological test (TFF-ALPE) to calculate the following severity measures: percentage of phonemes correct (PPC), percentage of consonants correct (PCC), and percentage of vowels correct (PVC). Parents also filled out a questionnaire about their child's development (e.g. concern about how the child talks). The ICS was then completed by parents to estimate their children's intelligibility with different communicative partners. The results showed that item-level scores were different according to communicative partners. The mean ICS score for the whole sample was 4.5 (SD = 0.6), showing that children were "usually" to "always" intelligible. The ICS had excellent internal consistency (α = 0.96). Children with parental concern about their speech presented significantly lower mean scores (M = 3.91, SD = 0.59) than children without parental concerns (M = 4.78, SD = 0.36). There was a positive correlation between the ICS scores and PPC (r = .655), PCC (r = .654), and PVC (r = .588). A simple linear model was also obtained between the ICS mean score and the severity measures analyzed. High values were obtained for sensitivity (0.80) and specificity (0.84), using a cut-off point of 4.36. We conclude that the ICS-EP has good psychometric properties, suggesting it to be a valid tool for estimating children's intelligibility when talking with different communicative partners. Therefore, this version of the ICS can be used as a screening measure for children's speech intelligibility. published

Background/Aims: This study aims to analyse psychometric characteristics of the Portuguese Paediatric Speech and Language Screening (RALF) test. Methods: 202 Portuguese children aged 3; 0–5; 11 were recruited from 4 kindergartens participating in this study. Reliability and validity (sensitivity and specificity) data were obtained and analysed. Results: Content validity, analysed by an expert panel (general practitioner, kindergarten, teacher, nurse, and speech and language pathologist) revealed that the items were representative and relevant for the content the instrument intends to measure. Sensitivity values were 95, 96, and 83% and specificity values were 85, 84, and 71% for the age groups 3; 0–3; 11, 4; 0–4; 11, and 5; 0–5; 11, respectively. Internal consistency, calculated through Cronbach’s alpha, was 0.7, 0.8, and 0.7, respectively. The inter-judge reliability (interclass correlation coefficient) was 0.951. The results ensure the content validity of RALF. Sensitivity and specificity values revealed that RALF could discriminate typical from disordered speech-language developing children. RALF also presented good internal consistency and excellent reliability. Conclusion: RALF is a reliable and valid screening instrument that health and educational professionals can use in Portuguese children to identify children who may need a speech-language diagnosis for consideration or referral to speech therapy services.

There is no standard phonetically balanced short passage for Portuguese research and clinical practice. This paper presents results of a novel analysis of ‘The North Wind and the Sun’ (NWS) passage that aims to determine if it is phonetically balanced for European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP), based on new transcriptions resulting from algorithms developed for grapheme–phone transcription in these two varieties of Portuguese. These algorithms (based on standard EP and São Paulo BP varieties) are the same as those used to collect the frequency data, which is central to determining if a text is phonetically balanced. Results showed that neither transcription violates phonotactic rules, i.e. permissible combinations of speech sounds. The NWS is not phonetically balanced for BP if the phonemes are considered individually but is evenly distributed in terms of manner of articulation. The EP version of the NWS passage is a phonetically balanced text for EP.

The interplay between neurons and glia cells has recently gained new interest in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathogenesis. Neuroinflammation is a well-known hallmark, where microglia and astrocytes play a major role. Extracellular vesicles, such as exosomes, are crucial in the interplay between neurons and glial cells, and in AD spreading. However, exosomes may have both beneficial and harmful effects in AD process, thus requiring further clarification. Our first goal was to assess microglia response to exosomes derived from an AD in vitro neuronal cell model, using respectively human CHME3 microglia and SH-SY5Y neurons expressing APP Swedish mutation (SH-SY5Y APPSwe). Exosomes were collected by differential centrifugation and incubated with microglia for 24 h to assess microglia direct response. Microglia was then left for an additional 24 h period to evaluate microglia recovery ability. SH-SY5Y APPSwe cells displayed increased levels of miR-155 and miR-21, which were recapitulated in their exosomes. They also showed upregulated levels of alarmins and cytokines, from which two of them (HMGB1 and TNF-α) were not part of exosomal cargo. Exosome-treated microglia revealed an increase in miR-155 and miR-21, as well as in S100B and TNF-α gene expression, together with miR-124 decrease. In addition, uptake of exosomes by microglia led to lysosomal impairment and to a sustained elevation of miR-155 over the 24 h recovery period. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are indicated as a gold model to investigate AD pathology. Such feature, led us to the second goal of evaluating the phenotype of iPSCs-derived astrocytes from AD patients with the PSEN1ΔE9 mutation. AD-astrocytes evidenced a depressed RAGE/miR-155 axis, not recapitulated in their exosomal cargo with decreased levels of HMGB1, TNF-α and S100B genes. In sum, AD-neurons determine microglia activation and dysfunction through their exosomes, and AD-astrocytes display a less reactive phenotype, while releasing exosomes depleted in inflammatory machinery.

Background Negative public attitudes toward stuttering have been widely reported, although differences among countries and regions exist. Clear reasons for these differences remain obscure. Purpose Published research is unavailable on public attitudes toward stuttering in Portugal as well as a representative sample that explores stuttering attitudes in an entire country. This study sought to (a) determine the feasibility of a country-wide probability sampling scheme to measure public stuttering attitudes in Portugal using a standard instrument (the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes–Stuttering [ POSHA–S ]) and (b) identify demographic variables that predict Portuguese attitudes. Methods The POSHA–S was translated to European Portuguese through a five-step process. Thereafter, a local administrative office-based, three-stage, cluster, probability sampling scheme was carried out to obtain 311 adult respondents who filled out the questionnaire. Results The Portuguese population held stuttering attitudes that were generally within the average range of those observed from numerous previous POSHA–S samples. Demographic variables that predicted more versus less positive stuttering attitudes were respondents’ age, region of the country, years of school completed, working situation, and number of languages spoken. Non-predicting variables were respondents’ sex, marital status, and parental status. Conclusion A local administrative office-based, probability sampling scheme generated a respondent profile similar to census data and indicated that Portuguese attitudes are generally typical.

Background Event- and interval-based measurements are two different ways of computing frequency of stuttering. Interval-based methodology emerged as an alternative measure to overcome problems associated with reproducibility in the event-based methodology. No review has been made to study the effect of methodological factors in interval-based absolute reliability data or to compute the agreement between the two methodologies in terms of inter-judge, intra-judge and accuracy (i.e., correspondence between raters’ scores and an established criterion). Aims To provide a review related to reproducibility of event-based and time-interval measurement, and to verify the effect of methodological factors (training, experience, interval duration, sample presentation order and judgment conditions) on agreement of time-interval measurement; in addition, to determine if it is possible to quantify the agreement between the two methodologies Methods & Procedures The first two authors searched for articles on ERIC, MEDLINE, PubMed, B-on, CENTRAL and Dissertation Abstracts during January–February 2013 and retrieved 495 articles. Forty-eight articles were selected for review. Content tables were constructed with the main findings. Main Contribution Articles related to event-based measurements revealed values of inter- and intra-judge greater than 0.70 and agreement percentages beyond 80%. The articles related to time-interval measures revealed that, in general, judges with more experience with stuttering presented significantly higher levels of intra- and inter-judge agreement. Inter- and intra-judge values were beyond the references for high reproducibility values for both methodologies. Accuracy (regarding the closeness of raters’ judgements with an established criterion), intra- and inter-judge agreement were higher for trained groups when compared with non-trained groups. Sample presentation order and audio/video conditions did not result in differences in inter- or intra-judge results. A duration of 5 s for an interval appears to be an acceptable agreement. Explanation for high reproducibility values as well as parameter choice to report those data are discussed. Conclusions & Implications Both interval- and event-based methodologies used trained or experienced judges for inter- and intra-judge determination and data were beyond the references for good reproducibility values. Inter- and intra-judge values were reported in different metric scales among event- and interval-based methods studies, making it unfeasible to quantify the agreement between the two methods.

Objectives To test an alternative Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) service delivery model based on partnerships between a University and local schools and charities, and to report on the impact and feasibility of intervention based on long-term outcome measures and three case studies with individual analysis of Reliable Change. Study design The following six-step model was tested: 1—establishing partnerships; 2—flagging children; 3—pre-treatment SLT assessment; 4—reporting and discussion with parents and teachers; 5—treatment; 6—post-treatment assessment. Case studies are presented. Methods A partnership was established with one kindergarten in a pre-test and a total of 25 kindergartens during the second phase of the process. A group of 139 children were then flagged and assessed. The following long-term outcomes (18 months post-therapy) were investigated: phonetic-phonological standardised test percentiles and raw scores; receptive and expressive language percentiles and raw scores according to a standardised language test; percentage of syllables stuttered; duration of stuttering moments; academic achievement in norm-tests’ core areas (mathematics, Portuguese language and social studies). Case studies and a 95% credible interval analysis to assess Reliable Change are presented. Results Seventy five (54%) children needed SLT support. Fifty (67%) of those children returned to the clinic for long-term assessments and the analysis of all outcome measures showed significant improvements in their performance, 18 months post-therapy. Case Studies Reliable Change analysis revealed a statistically significant improvement, which also clearly shows the feasibility and the positive impact of the intervention. Conclusions This specialised and differentiated care network constitutes an alternative delivery system of SLT services that addresses the lack of support currently experienced by children and their families. The long-term outcome measures and the 95% credible interval analysis are reliable methods to determine the impact of interventions.

In flight simulation, motion-cueing algorithms are used to transform aircraft motion into motion within the simulator limits. When looking for the best match between visual and inertial amplitude in a simulator, researchers have found that there is a range of inertial amplitudes, rather than a single inertial value, that is perceived by subjects as optimal. This zone, hereafter referred to as the optimal zone, seems to correlate to the perceptual coherence zones measured in flight simulators. However, no studies were found in which these two zones were compared. This study investigates the relation between the optimal and the coherence-zone measurements within and between different simulators. An experiment was conducted at NASA Langley Research Center, where two simulators were used to measure the optimal and the coherence zone in the sway axis. Results show that the optimal zone lies within the coherence zone. The center of the optimal zone is significantly lower than the center of the coherence zone. I...

Background In Portugal, the routine clinical practice of speech and language therapists (SLTs) in treating children with all types of speech sound disorder (SSD) continues to be articulation therapy (AT). There is limited use of phonological therapy (PT) or phonological awareness training in Portugal. Additionally, at an international level there is a focus on collecting information on and differentiating between the effectiveness of PT and AT for children with different types of phonologically based SSD, as well as on the role of phonological awareness in remediating SSD. It is important to collect more evidence for the most effective and efficient type of intervention approach for different SSDs and for these data to be collected from diverse linguistic and cultural perspectives. Aims To evaluate the effectiveness of a PT and AT approach for treatment of 14 Portuguese children, aged 4.0–6.7 years, with a phonologically based SSD. Methods & Procedures The children were randomly assigned to one of the two treatment approaches (seven children in each group). All children were treated by the same SLT, blind to the aims of the study, over three blocks of a total of 25 weekly sessions of intervention. Outcome measures of phonological ability (percentage of consonants correct (PCC), percentage occurrence of different phonological processes and phonetic inventory) were taken before and after intervention. A qualitative assessment of intervention effectiveness from the perspective of the parents of participants was included. Outcomes & Results Both treatments were effective in improving the participants’ speech, with the children receiving PT showing a more significant improvement in PCC score than those receiving the AT. Children in the PT group also showed greater generalization to untreated words than those receiving AT. Parents reported both intervention approaches to be as effective in improving their children's speech. Conclusions & Implications The PT (combination of expressive phonological tasks, phonological awareness, listening and discrimination activities) proved to be an effective integrated method of improving phonological SSD in children. These findings provide some evidence for Portuguese SLTs to employ PT with children with phonologically based SSD.

Dissertação de mestrado em Psicologia Clínica (Intervenções Cognitivo-Comportamentais em Perturbações Psicológicas da Saúde) apresentada à Faculdade de Psicologia e Ciências da Educação da Universidade de Coimbra. A considerable range of studies report an association between being currently in a volunteering activity and greater life satisfaction. This study aims to provide a better understanding of a specific population: volunteer women. Specifically, the present study establishes a comparison between volunteers and non-volunteers, and also tests the emotional regulation strategies as well as the volunteering variables hypothesized to be associated with volunteer’s quality of life. Self-reported measures were used to assess quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF) and self-compassion (SCS). Additionally, the volunteer sample was given a questionnaire to measure volunteering characteristics. Participants were 301 females, comprising two different samples: volunteers (N = 151) and non-volunteers (N = 150). Results showed significant differences between the two groups: volunteers presented higher levels of quality of life and self-compassion comparing to non-volunteers. Furthermore, the results revealed that the perception of positive impact of the volunteering activity has implications on this group’s levels of quality of life. These findings strengthen the importance of volunteering activity on quality of life and provide new insights about the emotional regulation strategies involved in volunteer women’s quality of life. Um número considerável de estudos demonstram uma associação entre indivíduos que desempenham atualmente uma atividade de voluntariado e a existência de maiores níveis de satisfação com a vida. O objetivo deste estudo centrou-se em providenciar uma melhor compreensão de uma população específica: mulheres que fazem voluntariado. Especificamente, o presente estudo estabelece a comparação entre voluntários e não voluntários, assim como pretende testar as estratégias de regulação emocional e as variáveis do voluntariado eventualmente relacionadas com a qualidade de vida nestes sujeitos. Medidas de autorresposta foram implementadas para avaliar a qualidade de vida (WHOQOL-BREF) e a auto-compaixão (SCS). Adicionalmente, a amostra de voluntariado foi sujeita ao preenchimento de um questionário com o intuito de medir as características do voluntariado. Participaram neste estudo 301 mulheres sendo a amostra constituída por duas amostras diferentes: voluntários (n = 151) e não voluntários (n = 150). Este estudo revelou a existência de diferenças entre os dois grupos: os sujeitos voluntários apresentaram níveis mais elevados de qualidade de vida e de auto-compaixão comparativamente com os não voluntários. Além disso, os resultados revelaram que a perceção do impacto positivo da atividade de voluntariado tem importantes implicações no nível de qualidade de vida dos sujeitos deste grupo. Estes resultados reforçam a importância que o voluntariado tem na qualidade de vida e providenciam novos dados sobre as estratégias de regulação emocional implícitas na qualidade de vida das mulheres que desempenham atividades de voluntariado.

Background/Aims: To design and standardize the Preschool Language Test (Teste de Linguagem-Avaliação da Linguagem Pré-Escolar, TL-ALPE) which assesses European Portuguese (EP)-speaking children's receptive and expressive language abilities. Methods: To standardize TL-ALPE, data was collected on 817 EP-speaking children aged 3 years and 0 months to 5 years and 12 months. The standardization, validity and reliability procedures of TL-ALPE followed the standard recommendations. Results: TL-ALPE presented a strong cohesion (internal consistency, >80%) and strong inter- and intrajudge reliability (>90%). The content validity was verified by the description of instrument domain and the items. The construct validity of TL-ALPE was confirmed by the proportional increase in mean score values with age for both receptive and expressive abilities. The results of concurrent validity revealed strong correlations between TL-ALPE and other EP preschool language tests for expressive and total language scores. Conclusion: TL-ALPE is a valid and reliable instrument to assess language skills of EP-speaking preschool children. © 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel

Dissertação de mestrado em Psicologia Clínica e Saúde (Sistémica, Saúde e Família) apresentada à Faculdade de Psicologia e Ciências da Educação da Universidade de Coimbra. O presente estudo tem como principal objetivo perceber se os terapeutas contribuem para a construção da aliança terapêutica de forma distinta com famílias involuntárias e voluntárias. Mais concretamente, esta investigação visa comparar os contributos dos terapeutas (em regime de coterapia) para a aliança terapêutica, em ambas as condições. A prossecução desse objetivo geral foi operacionalizado através da utilização do System for Observing Family Therapy Alliances (SOFTA - Friedlander, Escudero, & Heatherington, 2006), aplicado a uma amostra portuguesa constituída por 40 casos arquivados de terapia familiar, subdividida em 20 casos com famílias involuntárias e 20 casos com famílias voluntárias. Os resultados da primeira sessão revelam a existência de diferenças estatisticamente significativas nos contributos dos terapeutas em duas dimensões, Envolvimento no Processo Terapêutico e Sentimento de Partilha de Objetivos dentro da Família, com resultados superiores para o grupo de famílias involuntárias. Na 4ª sessão não foram encontradas diferenças estatisticamente significativas entre as subamostras, em nenhuma das dimensões da aliança terapêutica. Da primeira para a quarta sessão, também não foram encontradas diferenças nos contributos dos terapeutas, em nenhuma das subamostras. Os resultados são discutidos e compreendidos atendendo às especificidades da condição de involuntário e voluntário e tendo em conta a concetualização de aliança terapêutica proposta pelos autores do SOFTA. This study aims to explore the differences in therapeutic alliance construction between involuntary and voluntary families. Particularly, our research pretends to compare the therapists’ role (in cotherapy) on both conditions. The achievement of this overall goal was accomplished using the System for Observing Family Therapy Alliances (SOFTA - Friedlander, Escudero, & Heatherington, 2006). It was applied to a Portuguese sample composed to 40 field families in familiar therapy whose 20 was involuntary families and the other 20 was volunteer families. The first sitting results showed significant differences between both conditions, in particular on Engagement in the Therapeutic Process and Shared Sense of Purpose. The volunteer families show higher results. On the 4th sitting there were no significant differences between groups on the therapeutic alliance. The first to the fourth session, we did not find differences in the contributions of therapists in any of the groups.The results are discussed and understood considering both condition specificities and the SOFTA therapeutic alliance conceptualization

Objective: To develop and standardize a phonetic-phonological test (Teste Fonético-Fonológico-Avaliação da Linguagem Pré-Escolar, TFF-ALPE) for the assessment of European-Portuguese (EP) children’s articulation and phonological abilities. Patients and Methods: In order to standardize TFF-ALPE, 768 children aged 3;0–6;11 participated in this study. The standardization, validity and reliability of TFF-ALPE were analyzed. Results: TFF-ALPE presents strong cohesion and has strong inter- and intrajudge reliability. There was also a strong correlation between the TFF-ALPE data and those obtained in other studies. The content validity was demonstrated by the description of the test domain and the items that comprise TFF-ALPE. Conclusion: TFF-ALPE is a valid and reliable phonetic-phonological assessment instrument that speech-language pathologists can use with EP-speaking children.