Meeting the needs of children with specific speech and language difficulties

Clinical and diagnostic approaches to special educational needs do not translate easily into educational models. In some cases, these approaches can serve to limit understanding of children's wider needs. Children with specific speech and language difficulties (SSLD) are a case in point. Clear criteria exist for identification, but identification mechanisms may not relate to the child's wider educational needs. This paper addresses the ways that children with SSLD present in mainstream educational settings. The study aimed to identify all Year 3 children with SSLD in two English local education authorities. One hundred and thirty-three children (95 boys and 37 girls were identified). Sixty-five per cent of the children were in mainstream schools, 14.3 per cent in mainstream schools with designated units and the remainder in special schools. Half were at stage 5 of the Code of Practice, with most of the remaining participants at stage 3. Children experienced a wide range of difficulties, in addition to their primary speech and language problems. Patterns of difficulties varied across children, and associations existed between particular forms of language problems and learning and relationship problems. Professionals (teachers, educational psychologists and speech and language therapists) varied in their understanding of the children's needs. The data highlight the range and diversity of the needs of children with specific speech and language difficulties and the need for a multi-professional approach to these children. It is argued that ‘best practice’ for these children must consider the impact of speech and language problems on children's access to the curriculum and their social and behavioural needs. Narrow diagnostic models do not provide the appropriate information to inform educational practice and support inclusive policies.     

A lamp for Diogenes: Leadership giftedness and moral education

Science education for the gifted should be modeled upon the professional scientist's approach to solving problems.     

论知识管理与图书馆在知识管理过程中的社会功用

在当今信息-知识时代迅速发展和非连续性变化的社会环境中，一切社会群体、组织和个人只有持续不断地进行知识生成和创新、实现自我超越才能适应这一环境，赢得社会竞争优势和生存与发展的机会。知识管理就是这样一个通过对相关信息和知识资源充分开发利用而实现的一个组织知识的知识生成管理、组织知识管理和社会知识管理三个层次。图书馆在知识管理的三层结构中具有不可替代的重要社会功用。     

In search of the keyword method/vocabulary comprehension link

Previous research has indicated that the keyword method of vocabulary learning facilitates students' performance not just on simple tests of definition recall, but on comprehension-demanding tasks as well. The present study was conducted to determine whether the “comprehension” finding could be accounted for by keyword subjects' superior definition recall per se. The results generally supported that conclusion: When conditions and subjects within conditions were equated with respect to their initial levels of definition recall, the comprehension advantage of keyword subjects disappeared.     

“Think With Me:” David Carr's Enduring Invitation

David Wildon Carr (1945–2016) was recognized in the international cultural community as a scholar and instigator whose critical thinking challenged museum practitioners to reflect on the purpose and responsibility of their work. In his recent papers and lectures, he argued that those discussing museum experiences are late to enter into a dialogue already in progress—a dialogue which carefully considers the whole person in a community, and wherein thinking with a museum is an enterprise embedded in the learner's experience. This forum, written by three museum professionals in response to his recent untimely death, is intended to capture personal impressions of Carr's contribution to the continuing work of museums. Each author quotes from Carr's writings, since his words have such enduring strength—a strength that will continue to resonate long into the future. Each also offers readers some personal background on his work as a teacher.     

Implicit Knowledge of Word Stress and Derivational Morphology Guides Skilled Readers’ Decoding of Multisyllabic Words

In oral language, morphologically conditioned regularities around stress assignment can be found in two classes of derivational suffixes, one that causes lexical stress to shift to the syllable immediately preceding the suffix (ACtive – acTIVity) and one that has no effect on stress (SILLy – SILLiness). In this study, adults listening to spoken “derived” nonwords judged as preferable those wherein the stress placement was consistent with morphological regularities of English. When reading nonwords and a set of nonwords derived from them, readers reliably assigned stress to the syllable predicted by the morphology. This effect was significantly associated with scores on standardized measures of word reading after controlling for nonword reading ability, showing that the relationship was not merely an artifact of decoding skill. These findings support the importance of the interface between morphology and suprasegmental phonology as a key factor in the way English-speaking readers approach multisyllabic, morphologically complex words.