The use of methods for learning to learn for students with special needs in Slovenia

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the quality of instruction among professionals who implement additional professional support for students with special needs in Slovenia, with a focus on methods for learning to learn. A total of 1863 professionals with various job positions participated in the study. The results revealed that seven groups of professionals most often use methods for achieving standards in different learning subjects. The largest significant differences are in methods for developing social emotional skills, methods for rehabilitation and compensation of disabilities and methods for development of attention and concentration. The results also revealed that subject teachers use most of the methods significantly less than other professionals, which rise concerns about the quality of additional professional support in the group of subject teachers.     

Cognitive support embedded in self-regulated e-learning systems for students with special learning needs

This paper presents an anthropocentric approach in human – machine interaction in the area of self-regulated e-learning. In an attempt to enhance communication mediated through computers for pedagogical use we propose the incorporation of an intelligent emotional agent that is represented by a synthetic character with multimedia capabilities, modelled to imitate human behaviour. The agent is aiming to provide cognitive support to users with learning difficulties and attention disorders and is designed to accommodate self regulated learning elements. We review the basic principles of self regulated learning which, in turn, act as a basis for designing and implementing our system. Kolb’s learning cycle is used to provide a framework upon which agents’ pedagogical behaviour is constructed. A study between 24 students from higher education with learning difficulties and attention disorders is presented. The learning particularities of this special group that contradict with the principles of self regulated learning are reported. The study refers to students in higher education, in the domain of information technology. The analysis of results indicates that emotional agents improve communication between users of the particular learning group and learning environments by providing cognitive support through behavioural communication, compared to agents with neutral behaviour.     

The quality of special education for students with special needs in ordinary classes

Teachers and the school psychological services were asked to assess the quality of educational programmes offered to students who were found eligible for special education in Norway and who attended ordinary classes. Adequacy and equity of the programmes and an assessment of social inclusion were used as indicators of quality and as dependent variables. Financial resources, centrality of residence of the students, presence of physical restrictions, availability of teaching materials, grade level, class size and students’ disabilities were used as independent variables. The results showed that resources made available by the municipalities had an impact on equity as well as adequacy. This was also found for the availability of teaching materials, which had a significant impact on the quality of the programmes. A significant relationship between the three dependent variables and grade level was found as quality decreased with grade level. Special problems with equity as well as adequacy of the programmes offered to students with moderate to severe problems in reading, writing and arithmetic, and for students with psychosocial problems, are reported. Although the students scored low on social inclusion as assessed by the teachers, the parents reported that most of them thrived well or very well at school.     

关爱和帮扶五种特殊学生群体的实践与探索

党中央国务院十分重视大学生思想政治教育工作,制定颁布了《关于进一步加强和改进大学生思想政治教育的意见》等文件。我院党委认真贯彻落实文件精神,结合新形势、新任务、新要求,在实践中积极探索加强和改进大学生思想政治教育的方式方法,通过理论与实际相结合,在调研、分析、实践、总结、提高的基础上,探索出了关爱和帮扶五种特殊学生群体思想政治教育工作的新路子新方法。     

Cognitive processes related to counting in students with special educational needs

This study is aimed at the mechanisms used by students with an intellectual disability in the counting process. The assessment of the counting process is carried out through experimental tests inspired by the basic principles of Gelman and Gallistel, namely one‐to‐one, stable order, cardinality, abstraction and order irrelevance. This is a comparative study of participants with a developmental age of between 4 and 5 years, in two populations: a group of students with intellectual disability attending special education (SEN) schools, with chronological ages of between 8 and 12 years,whose developmental age was determined by the Cambrodí Dimensional Method, and another group of students without intellectual disability attending mainstream schools (MS). The data do not show significant differences between the one‐to‐one and stable order principles with respect to the variables MS and SEN, while significant differences are demonstrated for the principles of cardinality, abstraction and order irrelevance.     

Inclusive education and students without special educational needs

Background:?In the debate on inclusive education, students without special educational needs (SEN) are an important topic. However, there is a lot unknown about differences between these typical students in inclusive and non-inclusive classes. For example, the neutral results that are often found in earlier research could be caused by positive effects for some students, and negative effects for others.

Purpose:?This study investigated whether there is a relation between inclusive education and the academic achievement and socio-emotional functioning of typical students, and, more importantly, whether inclusive education affects the achievement and socio-emotional functioning of more and less intelligent typical students differently. Furthermore, we investigated whether differences occur by type of SEN of the included students. Here, we made a distinction between students with behavioural, cognitive and other problems.

Sample:?A representative sample of 27,745 students without SEN in Dutch primary education from a large cohort study in the Netherlands was used.

Design and methods:?Language and arithmetic tests were used to assess academic achievement. For socio-emotional functioning, both teacher and student questionnaires were used. A non-verbal IQ test was used to assess student intelligence. Based on the number of students with diagnosed SEN, the students without SEN were divided into several groups: typical students with no, a few and more than a few students with (certain types of) SEN in their class. Multi-level regression analyses were used to compare these groups.

Results:?For academic achievement, no differences were found between students without SEN in inclusive and non-inclusive classes. In this, we found no differences between intelligent and less intelligent typical students. For socio-emotional functioning, some differences were found, but the practical importance of these differences is unclear, since the effect sizes were small. The functioning of typical students does not meaningfully differ by type of SEN of the included students.

Conclusions:?The findings of this study are interesting in the light of the ongoing inclusion debate. Arguments against inclusive education often concern an assumed adverse effect on typical students. As in this study, hardly any differences were found between typical students in inclusive and non-inclusive primary school classes, this research strengthens the scientific evidence in support of inclusive education.     

The relationship between adaptive behavior and intelligence for special needs students

This study employed the technique of factor analysis to study the relationship between social system adaptive behavior, as measured by the Adaptive Behavior Inventory for Children, and intelligence, as measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised, in a sample of 100 special needs students, ages 6–11. The results clearly supported the existence of two distinct factors among the WISC-R and ABIC subscales, with each factor composed primarily of either intelligence or adaptive behavior subscales. Thus, the data supported the discriminant validity of the two measures. Implications for the evaluation of special needs students are discussed.     

Today's learning objective is to have a party: playing research with students in a secondary school special needs unit

The use of creative methods has been advocated within disability and childhood research as a means of including voices of inarticulate participants in research, as it can support and supplement the use of conventional language. This paper draws on a research project aimed at designing ‘the best school in the world’ with five students in a special needs unit of a secondary school in a socially deprived community in England, to suggest the use of playful creative methods in generating and representing data in inclusive education research. Play, as an activity occurring in an actual social reality yet not completely governed by its rules, offers an interesting starting point for researchers interested not only in describing the existing world but also in imagining viable alternatives to it. This paper discusses how using a playful methodology had an impact on power relations and provided an accessible context to foster participants' engagement in reflexive discussions about social norms and values. Creative and playful methodology was also useful in transgressing the primacy of language in educational research, thus opening spaces for other aspects of experience to be included in the analysis. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: http://youtu.be/Lt9l1eab6rQ .     

Serving students with special needs: Equity and access

Ph.D. A Professor of Educational Psychology, Wang is the founder and current director of the Temple University Center for Research in Human Development and Education (CRHDE) in Philadelphia, which is a broad-based interdisciplinary research and development centre focusing on the human development and education-related fields. Dr. Wang is recognized nationally and internationally for her research on learner differences and classroom learning, student motivation, implementation and evaluation of innovative school programmes responsive to student diversity. She is the author of several books and articles dealing with special needs education and children at risk.     

Teacher attitude towards inclusion practices and special needs students

This paper investigates the varying attitudes of regular (mainstream) education teachers towards the implementation of inclusion in elementary and secondary school classrooms. This paper tries to take into account the need for a better understanding of teacher attitude towards inclusion and how the inclusive environment can be improved. The present paper concentrates on examining whether there is a difference in attitude between elementary regular education teachers and secondary regular education teachers. The participants of this study were 73 teachers from three public elementary and secondary schools in rural, southeastern USA who completed the Scale of Teachers' Attitudes Towards Inclusive Classrooms (STATIC). The results indicated that most teachers support the practice of inclusion in regular education classrooms or possess a neutral consensus towards the practice of inclusion as it relates to teaching assignment. For example, grade level, subject area or type of inclusion practice (full or partial). Meaning that the results for this study were mixed.     

Actual and ideal roles of school staff to support students with special needs: current needs and strategies for improvement

To optimise school-based service delivery for students with disabilities, it is important to understand roles and needs of school staff. This study aimed to clarify ideal and actual roles of school staff (teachers, special educators, administrators) working with students with special needs, and to identify potential strategies to support actual roles. Ninety-five school personnel (64% teachers) from 3 different elementary schools and school boards in Quebec completed a 14-question survey. Open-ended responses were coded and analysed thematically. Common actual roles included task adaptation, offering individualized support, being available and teamwork. Respondents felt roles could improve through in-context professional support, continuing education, teamwork opportunities extending to partnerships with families and access to resources. Clarifying roles and expectations within a tiered-model to best support students also emerged, emphasizing the importance of sharing responsibilities across all service providers. Findings can guide implementation strategies and processes for providing effective services, enabling inclusion for students.     

Dual PowerPoint presentation approach for students with special educational needs and note-takers

Abstract

In higher education, supporting students with special educational needs (SEN) necessitates an understanding of these needs, additional teaching aids and innovative ideas. The teacher must be an integral part of this support process, and this is difficult for the majority of teachers, due to their lack of core understanding of SEN. However, teachers can focus on their core skills and content knowledge, and have immense alacrity to explore potential options to support their students with SEN. I decided to support my students with SEN by adapting my PowerPoint presentations according to their requirements. PowerPoint presentations usually provide concisely summarised information to students that often lead to confusion in their pre-lecture or post-lecture review. This lack of comprehensive subject information within PowerPoint presentations can have serious implications for students with SEN and their note-takers if no other teaching resources or aids are available to help them. Students with SEN and note-takers reported this concern to me at Aberystwyth University, UK. Consequently, I began to explore ways to make my PowerPoint presentations extra helpful for my students with SEN. After a review of best practices for students with SEN based on universal design for learning and a few trials, I developed a dual PowerPoint presentation (DPP), lecture handouts and comprehensive lecture notes. Subsequently, I successfully employed this approach in the delivery of some of the undergraduate modules of a BSc computer science programme. Feedback from students with SEN, note-takers and the student support department, and examination results showed the success and potential of this DPP approach.     

Word processing as an assistive technology tool for enhancing academic outcomes of students with writing disabilities in the general classroom

This study investigated the use of a word processor for enhancing the academic outcomes of three students with writing disabilities in a junior high school. A single-subject ABAB design was used to compare academic output produced during class time with and without a computer equipped with a word processor. The number of spelling errors, the number of reading errors, and the number of words used per text were counted, and the overall structure and organization of text were examined across all in-class materials. The data demonstrated a clear difference between handwritten and computer phases. In traditional paper-and-pencil phases, students produced outcomes that had more spelling mistakes, more reading errors, and lower overall quality of organization and structure in comparison with the phases in which a computer equipped with a word processor was used. The results did not indicate any noticeable difference in the number of words per text. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Breaking through: Using educational technology for children with special needs

Barbara Albers Hill markets the book, Breaking Through: Using Educational Technology for Children with Special Needs, as a tool providing assistance with use of educational technology as it relates to children with special needs. The mention of specific special needs, such as children with Autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), leads readers to believe the book will provide detailed information on how educational technology will assist a child according to each specific need. Hill organizes the book in two parts. The first part provides an overview of tablet technology and how to use it to enhance learning for children with special needs. Part two of the book provides the reader with information that will assist a consumer with purchasing the right tablet for the special need. Upon review of the content, the book is less about detail and more about a shopping guide for the consumer as to the best tablet to select for children with special needs.