Intervention for children with language impairments: a model of evidence-based outcome research

Over the past 30 years successive governments in the UK have endeavoured to make the statutory framework suitable for children with special educational needs (SEN). More recently, efforts have been made to personalise children's learning, making educational experience more innovative and responsive to the diversity of needs in schools. A drive is emerging in health and education to develop and evaluate intervention strategies for children with language impairments (LIs), which is both methodologically challenging and rewarding. The current review demonstrates difficulties encountered with using evidence-based (evidence-related) outcome research involving children with LIs. Many studies have inherent methodological problems such as small sample sizes, ill-matched groups and designs that are difficult to replicate or compare. Such approaches are unlikely to yield significant results, or if they do, it is difficult to devise clear guidance regarding choice of intervention strategies. In the light of these difficulties, theoretical, methodological and practical issues are discussed herein and a model is proposed to assist in enabling interventions to be identified, evaluated in a robust manner, and the results shared with educators. We suggest that the use of a process-driven model ensures a more rigorous approach when undertaking large-scale systematic, evidence-based research into the effective approaches to teaching children not only with LIs but across the field of special needs education.     

The nature and treatment of childhood anxiety

Several issues pertinent to childhood anxiety and related disorders are reviewed. These include the reliability and validity of existing classification systems, the diversity and shortcomings of behavioral assessment techniques, and the nature and efficacy of intervention strategies with this population. Particular attention is paid to the need to interface taxonomic, assessment, and treatment methods. A functional model of assessing and treating children and adolescents with school refusal behavior is presented as a preliminary example. Recommendations for future research by educators and psychologists are also discussed.     

新课改背景下高师地理科学专业课程体系改革研究

以部分师范学院地理科学专业为例,在分析目前高师地理科学专业人才培养体系中存在问题的基础上,提出了高师地理科学专业人才培养体系改革尤其需要注意的几个方面,包括调整必修课与选修的比重,增加教师教育课程门类,课程分类设置,拓展专业方向,重视实践类课程体系建设等,目的是在21世纪构建起符合素质教育要求的地理教育课程体系.     

Issues in the definition and diagnosis of learning disabilities: a perspective on Guckenberger v. Boston University

This article reviews issues related to the definition of learning disabilities in the context of the Guckenberger v. Boston University case. Four major questions are addressed: (a) Who is learning disabled? (b) How should learning disabilities be assessed? (c) Who is qualified to make a decision about whether or not an individual has a learning disability? and (d) What accommodations should be provided by a postsecondary institution and how should they be selected? Although these are complicated and difficult questions, it is possible to develop a simple, reasonable classification system for learning disabilities, and to conduct assessments based on a coherent and relevant set of achievement tests in which individuals who score below a cutoff are considered learning disabled. Scores on IQ tests are irrelevant and not useful and may even be discriminatory. The issues of decision making regarding learning disabilities and appropriate accommodations remain significant dilemmas for the field; resolution of these issues seems virtually impossible without agreement on appropriate procedures for the definition, identification, and assessment of learning disabilities.     

The Contribution of Educational Psychology to Intervention Research and Practice

Advances in psychological theory have made significant contributions to the considerable progress that has been achieved in intervention research and practice, especially in the past two decades. This article presents a discussion of the major conceptual and methodological issues that have arisen in intervention research, with a focus on interventions for children with learning problems, particularly reading problems. Examples from our own research are presented to illustrate how conceptual and methodological factors in intervention research can be taken into consideration in the design of intervention studies.     

English language learners, LD, and overrepresentation: A multiple-level analysis

Continuing unresolved problems in the field of special education include the continued use of discrepancy models; the need for better identification models; continued debate over programmatic issues, ranging from inclusion to self-contained models; and the continued overrepresentation of certain ethnic and racial groups in the learning disabilities (LD) category. This article focuses on students with mild learning disorders in general, and LD in particular, providing a perspective on how this problem has been addressed and suggesting a multilevel approach in which local context plays a central role. We suggest that overrepresentation is best conceptualized as an indicator of underlying issues rather than as the proper focal point of remediation efforts.     

School matters: how context influences the identification of different types of special educational needs

Despite dramatic changes in Irish special education policy during the last decade, there is little understanding of the factors influencing how special educational needs (SEN) are identified and whether identification varies across different school contexts. International research has tended to focus on how individual child characteristics influence SEN identification. Less attention has been given to other factors such as teacher characteristics or school social mix. Using data from the nine-year-old cohort of the Growing Up in Ireland study, this article examines which children are most likely to be identified with different SEN types taking into account student social background characteristics, teacher characteristics and school social mix. Findings show that children attending highly disadvantaged school contexts are far more likely to be identified with behavioural problems and less likely to be identified with learning disabilities than children with similar characteristics attending other schools. It seems that ‘behavioural’ issues take precedence over learning difficulties in these schools pointing to a culture of care/containment rather than academic progress.     

General and Specific Issues for Researchers' Consideration in Applying the Risk and Resilience Framework to the Social Domain of Learning Disabilities

In this article, I discuss several general and specific issues that pertain to the risk and resilience framework. I propose that these issues deserve consideration by researchers using or interested in using the risk and resilience framework to guide their research in the social domain of learning disabilities. General issues discussed include: (1) integrating current research findings with those from prior longitudinal research by Emmy Werner and her associates, and from research in the 1980s and 1990s on problems in social perception and communication in children with learning disabilities; (2) measurement problems; and (3) the need for more differentiation in research regarding gender and the severity of learning disabilities. The specific issues discussed include: the need to continue to search for potential risk and protective factors; the need to research mediating processes or mechanisms that render a factor a risk or a protection; and the nature of intervention research.     

First impressions formed of boys with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder

The present study examined the first impressions that are formed of boys with either learning disabilities (LD), attention deficit disorder (ADD), or both disorders, in an effort to understand better why they are so often unpopular with and rejected by their peers. The intent of the study was to remedy methodological problems of previous first-impression studies to determine whether devaluation of boys with either LD or ADD after a brief exposure is a reliable and valid finding. To this end, physical attractiveness data were gathered, children were employed as judges, subgroups of stimulus children were formed, and situational demands were varied. Results indicated that the boys with either LD or ADD were devalued relative to controls on a variety of dependent variables, including popularity. Both situational demands, as well as judgments of physical attractiveness, appeared to play a role in accounting for these differences.     

儿童早期学习品质的本质内涵、因素结构及学习效应

近年来儿童早期学习品质受到国内外学术界的广泛关注。对61个国内外实证研究及25份新修订政策文本的分析表明,学界对儿童学习品质最基本的理解是学习品质关注的是儿童如何学习,而不是儿童学到了什么,描述的是儿童在趋近学习的过程中和投入学习时表现出来的一系列行为、认知与态度倾向;就其构成因素来说,主动性、坚持性、专注力、好奇心、创新创造、灵活性是实证研究与政策文件共同反映的高频因素;学习品质与儿童的在园学习与入学准备显著相关,且能直接预测儿童未来不同阶段的学业成就;学习品质对儿童的同伴关系、社会能力的发展也有显著影响,并能显著降低行为问题与学业困难方面的风险;学习品质在儿童的学习与发展中起着重要的调节作用,如可以调节低质量学校教育或家庭贫困对儿童学习与发展的负面影响,可以降低个体行为问题对其学业成就的不利影响等。学习品质在儿童早期学习与毕生发展中都具有重要的奠基性作用,未来应进一步探索更为低龄儿童学习品质的因素结构及其发展规律,加强我国教育背景下学习品质对儿童学习效应的实证检验与纵向追踪,探索学习品质发展的个体差异及其增长轨迹,开展相关准实验研究以进一步明确学习品质与学习效应之间的关系。不仅要促进我国儿童早期教育实践领域高度重视和践行儿童学习品质的培养,而且应在宏观政策层面把儿童学习品质的发展纳入学前教育质量评价体系,建立儿童学习品质发展数据库,实施儿童学习品质发展监测。     

Using aromatherapy massage to increase shared attention behaviours in children with autistic spectrum disorders and severe learning difficulties

Children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) characteristically display a lack of shared attention behaviours and the lack of these behaviours impacts on their ability to develop social interactions and relationships with others. Steve Solomons, assistant headteacher at Rectory Paddock School and Research Unit in the London Borough of Bromley, set out to explore these issues as an aspect of practice when he was working at St. Ann's School in the London Borough of Merton. He carried out this research as part of his MEd in special education at the University of Birmingham, for which he received the prestigious Annie Deakins prize in 2003. The aim of his study was to investigate whether aromatherapy massage could increase shared attention behaviours in a sample of four children with autistic spectrum disorders and severe learning difficulties (SLD). Aromatherapy massage was introduced into the daily timetable and children's responses were observed. The results indicate that children's shared attention behaviours increased during aromatherapy massage and that other aspects of their behaviour also changed over the course of the research. Family involvement in the study enabled these changes to be transferred from school to home. In this article, Steve Solomons explores the implications of his research for new teaching and learning opportunities for children with autistic spectrum disorders and severe learning difficulties.     

Clinical importance of parent ratings of everyday cognitive abilities in children with learning and attention problems

This study addressed two issues: first, whether parental reports contribute information over and above a standardized psychometric assessment, and second, whether parental reports of everyday cognitive functioning might be useful in distinguishing between children with reading disabilities (RD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and combined ADHD + RD. Parent-reported information on 159 children with learning or attention problems was obtained using a questionnaire called the Parent Ratings of Everyday Cognitive and Academic Abilities (PRECAA). Psychometric information used for comparison included the Woodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery-Revised, the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency-Short Form, the Vocabulary and Block Design subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, 3rd edition, and the Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration. The PRECAA was found to be sensitive to group differences between children with RD and children with ADHD and combined ADHD + RD. Its inclusion resulted in a significant increase in the number of children correctly classified compared to the use of psychometric measures alone. The PRECAA correctly classified more children (66%) than did the standard psychometric measures (50%). In fact, a very high percentage of children with ADHD (81%) were correctly classified using the PRECAA. These findings suggest that the PRECAA may be a useful aid to clinicians in the identification of children with learning and attention problems.     

Children's Reasoning About Self-Presentation Following Rule Violations: The Role of Self-Focused Attention

Rule violations are likely to serve as key contexts for learning to reason about public identity. In an initial study with 91 children aged 4–9 years, social emotions and self‐presentational concerns were more likely to be cited when children were responding to hypothetical vignettes involving social‐conventional rather than moral violations. In 2 further studies with 376 children aged 4–9 years, experimental manipulations of self‐focused attention (either by leading children to believe they were being video‐recorded or by varying audience reactions to transgressions) were found to elicit greater attention to social evaluation following moral violations, although self‐presentational concerns were consistently salient in the context of social‐conventional violations. The role of rule transgressions in children’s emerging self‐awareness and social understanding is discussed.     

自闭症儿童共同注意干预的现状与展望

自闭症是一种发展性障碍.共同注意作为自闭症儿童的核心技能缺陷,与社会认知技能障碍如语言、游戏、积极情感等存在紧密的联系.目前很多研究针对自闭症儿童的共同注意实施干预,已取得较好的干预效果.文章在阐述国内外相关共同注意干预研究和干预方案的基础上,对当前取得的成果和有待解决的问题进行了系统评价和总结,并就自闭症干预方面提出了建议.     

Methodological issues in researching online representations: production,classification and personal web space

This paper argues that if education practitioners, policy‐makers and researchers are to gain insights from new forms of online self‐representations, there is a need to take stock of research involving homepages in order to identify important methodological issues and lessons that need to be addressed in future research. Home page authorship research is characterized as being associated either with production or classification, very much as other areas of research in literacy such as new literacy studies and multimodality have identified process and product. In this paper, key aspects of research into homepage authorship are reviewed and tensions and contradictions identified. From this review four key implications for methodology are discussed: the varying degree to which content or context are defined in research; the interaction between researcher and researched, within learning disability contexts and more widely; a consideration of the sometimes blurred distinction between public and private online spaces and a wider discussion of the ethical issues facing researchers.     

Utility of kindergarten teacher judgments in identifying early learning problems

Most existing research on early identification of learning difficulties has examined the validity of methods for predicting future academic problems. The present study focused instead on the sensitivity of kindergarten teachers to learning problems in their students and on the continuity of teacher-identified problems over time. To identify early learning problems, kindergarten teachers in a suburban school district rated student progress toward six academic objectives as satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Twenty percent of the district's 303 kindergarten children received unsatisfactory ratings in at least one area. Thirty-eight of these children (identified group) were matched to 34 children with satisfactory ratings in all areas (nonidentified group). Results of testing conducted during kindergarten revealed poorer academic achievement in identified children than in nonidentified children. Children from the identified group also performed more poorly than children from the nonidentified group on tests of phonological processing and working memory/executive function and were rated by teachers as having more behavior and attention problems and lower social competence. Follow-up of the sample to first grade documented continued learning problems in the identified group. These findings support the use of teacher judgements in early detection of learning problems and argue against reliance on discrepancy criteria.     

Understanding turn commands in Logo: A cognitive perspective

When learning to program in Logo, many young children experience difficulties using the right and left turn commands. This paper looks at the spatial concepts required for the understanding and manipulation of these commands. We begin by providing an overview of research on children's Logo learning and point to specific problems children have with right and left commands and to related characteristics of standard Logo systems that seem to contribute to these problems. To shed further light on the source of these problems, the psychological-cognitive literature on the development of spatial concepts concerned with the use of frames of reference and obliques is reviewed. It is argued that in order for children to handle meaningful programming projects they need to master a set of prerequisite skills. These skills, involving the development of elaborated and explicated spatial concepts, include a distinction between right and left, the intentional reference to the Turtle as a frame of reference, the assignment of appropriate axes and the application of units of measurement for determining distance and angles. We conclude by suggesting that children need to be exposed to Logo programs designed to facilitate the development of spatial concepts which would enable the successful progression to more complex Turtle Geometry programming tasks.     

Evaluating text-based information on the World Wide Web

This special section contributes to an inclusive cognitive model of information problem solving (IPS) activity, touches briefly IPS learning, and brings to the notice methodological pitfalls related to uncovering IPS processes. Instead of focusing on the IPS process as a whole, the contributing articles turn their attention to what is regarded the heart of IPS, namely the evaluation of information. In this commentary we reflect on theoretical, methodological, and instructional design issues. Results are commented upon and future research is addressed. A vignette is presented to illustrate the aforementioned issues.     

Accountability through access,authenticity and advocacy when researching with young children

ABSTRACT

Research with children involving their use of digital and mobile technologies either as a methodological tool or in relation to their learning foregrounds emerging ethical issues and practices. This paper explores some of the ethical and practical challenges we faced in studies involving the recruitment of young children as research participants, and where the integrity of these research collaborations was critical. We propose an ethical framework to foreground these challenges that is shaped by a view of children as social actors and experts on their own lives, information and communication technologies as ubiquitous in children’s lives, and ethics as a situated and multifaceted responsibility. This framework has three aspects: access, authenticity and advocacy. We draw on examples from different research projects and use ethically important moments to illustrate how notions of access, authenticity and advocacy can foreground the ethical challenges in teaching–learning research contexts to better consider and offer children greater agency in research collaborations.     

自闭症儿童语言康复训练的思考

儿童自闭症是广泛性发育障碍的一种亚型,以男性多见,起病于婴幼儿期。自闭症儿童属于特殊儿童,他们在某些方面与正常的儿童相比,处于一定的弱势,对自闭症儿童的关怀和重视,需要建立长效机制。尤其是,针对自闭症儿童的语言康复训练,更应该引起足够的重视和关注。本文以自闭症儿童语言康复训练的思考为题,围绕自闭症儿童的语言特点、康复训练的现状、存在的不足,以及相关的思考等内容展开论述,得出了相应的结论,具有重要的意义。