‘I'm always up against a brick wall with them’: parents' experiences of accessing support for their child with a newly recognised developmental disorder

Three of the most prevalent developmental disorders (DDs) are autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). As part of a study screening for DDs in Greater Manchester, UK, a unique opportunity was taken to explore parents' experiences of receiving reports about their child's previously unrecognised DD. Six parents out of a possible 16 took part in interviews, which were analysed thematically. Findings drawn from parental responses revealed a number of barriers to accessing support for their child's additional needs, including perceived resistance from schools, particularly for quiet, well-behaved girls, and difficulty in accessing assessment or referrals. There needs to be greater awareness of additional needs in children without externalising behaviours, the presence of gender-specific differences in the presentation of DDs, and FASD as a commonly occurring DD. Ultimately, better support for children with DDs would reduce the burden of unmet needs for the children and their families, and for wider services.     

Interactive Influences of Perceived Social Contexts on the Reading Achievement of Urban Middle Schoolers with Learning Disabilities

This study examined the effects of social influences in the lives of an ethnically diverse sample of fifth through eighth grade students with and without learning disabilities (LD) using survey data and academic achievement scores collected in 19 Chicago public schools from 1993–1997. Similarities and differences in student perceptions of school, family, and peer group contexts were examined. In addition, longitudinal data were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to identify contextual influences on changes in student reading achievement over time. Comparisons of student responses confirm and extend existing findings in the literature concerning the perceptions of students with LD of their social environments. In particular, having a learning disability was associated with consistent, mostly negative, effects on social relations across the contexts of students’ lives, regardless of gender, race, grade, and socioeconomic status. In addition, student perceptions of their friendship groups were found to have small, but significant, effects on their growth in reading achievement over the course of middle school. While students with and without LD had somewhat different views of their social contexts, the processes working within these environments appeared to affect their reading achievement in similar ways. The results suggest that careful attention should be paid to the social contexts of students’ lives when planning academic interventions.     

四个范式:欧洲档案学的观念和战略的变化——1840年以来西方档案观念与战略的变化

本报告首先梳理了西方档案理论与档案史,探讨了那些激发档案专业思想、战略及方法的概念,其次又着重阐述了档案鉴定这个由档案工作者从人类文献记录中挑选出很小比例作为档案长久保存的过程。19世纪至今的档案工作者对其工作、职能、活动及社会作用的认识经历了(或者说显示了)四个大的思想框架(或范式),探讨和了解这个背景可以让我们更好地认识和应对我们现在所处的这个数字时代的挑战。     

The Impact of David Bearman on Modern Archival Thinking: An Essay of Personal Reflection and Critique

This essay is a preliminary assessment of David Bearman as the leading archival thinker of the late twentieth century. Bearman has revolutionized thinking in archival circles around the world by offering a defence of traditional archival notions of provenance, evidence, recordness, and contextuality that equals the noblest statements of a Hilary Jenkinson, and by positing a relevant, dynamic, engaged future for archivists to transform the Information Age into a Record-Keeping Age. The essay is both a personal reflection and critical analysis. There are three main themes: an assessment of Bearman's ideas and their overall importance to general archival theory; a more specific exposition of the nature and importance of the University of Pittsburgh Project and of where Bearman sees that its results are leading archivists and their profession and institutions in future; and a critique of some of the implications, if not the conscious intentions, of his ideas and methods that seem to exclude the cultural, historical, and heritage dimensions and uses of archives, public or private. The overall aim of the essay is to push the archival discourse to the next stage by challenging and constructively critiquing as well as extolling the work of this archival pioneer.     

What do they know?: An assessment of undergraduate library skills

This article, which examines variables affecting scores on a test of library skills, finds that the frequency with which students receive assignments requiring library research is the best predictor of a score. The unevenness is students' research skills has implications for bibliographic instruction.