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Generalised imitation has often been cited in the behaviour analytic literature as a paradigm case of a higher-order response class. However, its determinants have not been established, When, as is the case in published experimental studies of children's imitative performances to date, the to-be-matched behaviours are actions on objects, many nonimitative processes can result in apparently emergent matching. Such confounding sources of control are minimised when the target behaviours are arbitrary gestures. The present experiments explored the matching of (i) arbitrary actions on novel objects with minimal affordances in 3 infants (9 - 15 months), and (ii) gestures alone in 13 infants (15 - 25 months), and in 20 young children (24 - 42 months). In Experiment 1, the infants' performance of the target actions was measured firstly in response to each of four novel objects (Baseline) and next to the target action (Modelling) on each of these objects. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants' unreinforced responses to target behaviours, and their intermittently-reinforced responses to four behaviours that featured in their trained baseline matching relations, were measured. No evidence of higber-order matching was found; rather, the performances of the infants in Experiments 1 and 2, and of the young children in Experiment 3, could be explained in terms of generalisation of extra-experimentally trained matching repertoires. Infants' bigher-order matching abilities were directly tested in Experiments 4 and 5- Following training of four baseline matching relations, and identification of four target behaviours that the infants failed to match, they were trained to produce the target behaviours in the absence of the corresponding modelled behaviour. Infants' unreinforced responses to the modelled target behaviours, interspersed with modelling of the intermittently reinforced baseline behaviours, were then re-tested. The data showed no evidence of higher-order matching and suggest that infants' higher-order matching abilities, not previously directly tested, have been overestimated in the behaviour analytic literature.

Diabetes is a long-term health condition. All individuals with diabetes should have access to psychological care and support to alleviate psychological suffering and promote self-management (Diabetes UK, 2022). Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in childhood and affects both children and their families. However, to date, there had been very little research into psychological effects on primary-age children (8-11 years) and their carers. This thesis explored the relationship between mental health, well-being, and lifestyle of children with Type 1 diabetes and their healthy counterparts in Kuwait. It also investigated the effects that COVID-19 restrictions had on psychological functioning and lifestyle variables in childparent dyads. The thesis consists of three main sections. • Systematic reviews of the literature: These present what is known about psychological and lifestyle characteristics in children with Type 1 diabetes and their parents. It was concluded that most studies examined wide age ranges, and few were adequately powered with appropriate control groups. There was a gap in the literature for using developmentally appropriate, narrower age range and appropriate methodology to elucidate the psychological variables associated with Type 1 diabetes in children and the effects on parents, particularly when primary-age children are increasingly reported to have poor mental health. • A comparison study was conducted to investigate the link between the mental health, well-being, and lifestyle of 8-11-year-old children with Type 1 diabetes and their parents, as well as a healthy comparison group (N=200 dyads). It was concluded that children with Type 1 diabetes may experience more mental health and well-being concerns than their peers. Moreover, a relationship between higher BMI and poorer mental health was found in the diabetes group. It was concluded that concerns can be identified at a young age, which would be helpful in designing preventative interventions. However, no differences in mental health and well-being were detected between parents of children with Type 1 diabetes and parents of the control group. • COVID-19 study: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of Kuwait's first lockdown on the mental health, well-being, and lifestyle of children with Type 1 diabetes and their parents (N=70 dyads). Baseline measures came from the diabetes cohort in the comparison study, and follow-up measures were administered a year later. The findings suggest that the COVID-19 lockdown had a significant psychological and possibly physiological effect on children and parents with Type 1 diabetes. As a result, there is a need for mental health support services tailored to these populations. Overall, the findings reported in this thesis add to the literature investigating psychological functioning of primary-age children with Type 1 diabetes and their parents, and call attention to the importance of healthy lifestyle, well-being, and mental health in this, previously under-researched, population.

Poor childhood nutrition is a global phenomenon, contributing to obesity and the development of non-communicable diseases. The present thesis explores methods of improving child nutritional intake in a school setting. Here, we present four papers: • A methodological paper, describing the validation of a newly designed method of collecting nutritional data in a canteen setting. We find that it is possible to accurately estimate nutritional intake in a fast-paced free-living environment using digital photography; • An evaluation paper, exploring the impact of a school-based multicomponent intervention, the Food Dudes programme, on lunchtime nutritional composition. Results indicate that participation in the Food Dudes programme is associated with an increase in the consumption of fruit and vegetables, and a decrease in consumption of unhealthy food items; • A systematic review, describing those studies in the literature focussed on improving children’s eating behaviour through behavioural nudging. We report that, though many studies are successful, few studies use validated and reliable data collection methodologies, rendering results inconclusive; • An experimental pilot study, exploring the influence of behavioural nudges on the fruit and vegetable consumption of primary school children. Significant improvements in fruit, vitamin C, and fibre consumption were observed following a simple behavioural nudge intervention. The results presented in this thesis contribute to the literature investigating methods to measure, and promote childhood nutrition, and have implications for promoting research best-practice, and policy targeting poor childhood nutrition.

The global obesity epidemic is a multifactorial problem associated with severe health consequences. The lifestyle behaviours of diet and physical activity are learned early, often tracking into adulthood. Identifying preventive interventions to establish children’s healthy lifestyle behaviours, in line with recommended guidelines, is a public health priority. The ‘Food Dudes’ programme is a well-evidenced behaviour change intervention, producing large and lasting increases in children’s consumption of fruit and vegetables in primary school settings. An extension of the programme, targeting physical activity, is the novel ‘Dynamic Dudes’intervention, recently trialled in primary schools. This thesis aimed to develop and evaluate a ‘Super Dynamic Food Dudes’ intervention, underpinned by the same behavioural principles as the respective primary school programmes. Chapter 1 provides a detailed literature review and identifies a paucity of such interventions. Chapter 2 modified and evaluated the Food Dudes Early Years intervention designed to increase pre-school children’s consumption of fruit and vegetables. To identify a suitable activity measurement tool, Chapter 3 validated use of the consumer-grade Fitbit Zip accelerometer to measure pre-school children’s step counts. Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 describe the development and feasibility of two physical activity components, interactive stories and in-class exercise DVDs, respectively, which were later integrated in a controlled pilot of the new physical activity intervention in Chapter 6. Drawing on outcomes and process evaluation from the preceding chapters, Chapter 7 describes and justifies further modifications to the interventions. Chapter 8 presents a controlled evaluation of the finalised two-pronged multi-component intervention in the school setting, with extension to the home. Main short-term outcomes were large and significantly greater increases in consumption of fruit and vegetables, and physical activity, in the intervention conditions, compared to the control conditions, replicating findings in primary school children. The pre-school multi-component intervention provides a promising method of preventing childhood obesity.

Humans are distinguished from other animals by their extensive imitation repertoires, but the determinants of this behaviour are still not fully established. The present programme of research explored the relationship between children's ability to name the components of modelled actions and their matching accuracy, in tests that presented them with modelling of empty-handed gestures that terminated on different parts of body. A total of 106 children, aged between 2 and 4 years, participated in seven experiments. The first two studies, presented in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6, employed correlational group designs to establish which body parts and movements children can accurately name in response to the experimenter's modelling, and produce in response to the experimenter's verbal instructions. Children's responses were more accurate for body parts than for body movements; they responded best to those body parts that commonly feature in naming-and-matching games played with their caregivers; and their patterns of errors were similar to those previously observed in imitation tests. Next, three single-case experiments presented in Chapter 7 systematically tested the effects of tact and listener training of previously unnamed body parts on children's generalised imitation of gestures that terminated on these locations. Children's matching of hand-to-body gestures markedly improved as the result of body part naming training. Next, a single-case experiment presented in Chapter 8, and a group experiment presented in Chapter 9, tested the effects of training the children to name the movements "across" and "to the side" on the accuracy of their matching of hand-to-body gestures that incorporated these movements. This training was effective in reducing the rates of ipsilateral mismatches to contralateral models, which are typically very high in imitation tests. These results are in agreement with the predictions of the naming account of Horne and Lowe (1996), who consider naming to be the earliest form of self-instructional behaviour. The present results show that the ability to name features of the actions that they see is an important determinant of imitation in children. These findings have wide-reaching implications for the interpretation of children's performances in matching tests, and for the evaluation of behaviour-analytic and cognitive-developmental accounts and theories of imitation.

It is widely agreed that imitation drives the acquisition of novel behaviours in children. However, there is less agreement about how this behaviour is established. This thesis explores two areas of research in an attempt to identify the determinants of imitation in young infants. Chapter 2 investigated the effects of local stimulus enhancement and objects' affordances on imitation tests. Infants aged 6-, 9- and 12-months-old were presented with a puppet wearing a mitten (with a bell inside) and observed either a demonstration of mitten removal (modelling group), the experimenter pointing at the mitten (stimulus enhancement group), the mitten falling off, apparently by itself (affordance demonstration group), or no actions directed at the mitten ( control group). Next all infants were presented with the puppet, and their mitten removal behaviours were recorded. The results indicated that local stimulus enhancement and affordance demonstration were as effective as full modelling in evoking the target action in 6-month-old infants. The results from the 9- and 12-month-old infants did not replicate this finding. A further study was conducted with the older infants to investigate the effect of locating the bell in the mitten, but the results were inconclusive. The behaviour analytic account of imitation ( which explains the development of imitation in terms of trained matching and generalised imitation) was evaluated in Chapter 4. The determinants of generalised imitation were investigated in a multiple-baseline single-participant design. Infants were trained to match eight baseline gestures; next, four novel gestures that infants did not match in probe trials were selected as target behaviours. Imitation was then tested after (i) repeated modelling, (ii) skills-training, (iii) staggered matching training, and (iv) mixed matching training of the target behaviours. Only the last intervention resulted in matching of all targets in subsequent generalised imitation tests, showing that to establish durable new matching relations infants require extensive matching training. The study found no evidence of untrained matching in generalised imitation tests in infants under 2-years-old.