Reflections on “teaching discrete skills to students with moderate mental retardation in small‐group instructional arrangements”

Several response‐prompting strategies exist for teaching students with disabilities (Wolery, Ault, & Doyle, 1992). With these strategies, prompts are provided to ensure that students perform the target behaviors in the presence of the target stimuli. However, to transfer stimulus control from the prompts to the target stimuli (i.e., to establish independent and appropriate responding), the prompts must be faded. Often, the various strategies differ on the manner in which prompts are faded.     

Physician‐patient communication: Mutual role expectations

This study examined physician‐patient communication as it relates to expectations that patients and physicians hold for themselves and each other. Dimensions of mutual role expectation were determined to be physician as humanistic practitioner, physician authority, patient in the sick role, and patient as consumer. The study tested five hypotheses. Results showed patients had significantly higher expectations for patients in the sick role than had physicians. Other role expectations varied significantly by age within physician and patient groups. The implications of these differences for physician‐patient communication are discussed.     

Contents of Volume 24

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 24     

The Literacy Early Action Project (LEAP): exploring factors underpinning progress with literacy for a child in his first year of school

In this article, Anthony Feiler, senior lecturer in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Bristol, and Elaine Logan, lecturer in early years education at the City of Bristol College, present a case study of a child who made strong progress with literacy during his first year at school. The child and his family participated in the Literacy Early Action Project (LEAP), a home-visiting scheme for children judged by school staff to be at risk of struggling with literacy. A teaching assistant made weekly home visits during the year and developed literacy support activities with the child's mother and grandparents. Five key factors underpinning the child's progress are identified here: the flexibility in the teaching assistant's approach that enabled extended family members to become engaged in literacy support; the teaching assistant's sensitivity to family culture; the playful approach to learning adopted by the teaching assistant; putting the child at the centre of the intervention; and the existence of a school culture that strongly promoted involvement for parents. Anthony Feiler and Elaine Logan conclude that teaching assistants in the UK might be given more scope to develop support strategies for early childhood education that involve collaborative work with parents.     

A Social Development Curriculum: Applying Nurture Group Principles and Practices to Support Socially and Emotionally Vulnerable Children Within Mainstream Classrooms

Rebecca Doyle set up the first nurture group in Thetford Education Action Zone in 2000. In 2001, she published an account of her work to reintegrate pupils from the nurture group into the mainstream of their infant school in the pages of BJSE. In this article, Rebecca Doyle describes how mainstream class teachers requested further support in working with socially and emotionally vulnerable children in their classes using the principles and practices from the nurture group. A social development curriculum was written to support this interest, offering mainstream staff a planning tool to complement their existing schemes of work and to help in the drive to make the curriculum appropriate for every child, regardless of their barriers to learning. This article indicates that mainstream staff are now able to bring the increasing knowledge of nurture group working to the fore in their planning, supporting the development of whole-school nurturing approaches. The social development curriculum has become a well-used document alongside current planning frameworks, supporting staff in meeting the diverse needs of pupils within mainstream classrooms with minimal cost and little additional workload.
In closing her article, Rebecca Doyle argues that the social development curriculum has had a positive impact upon the pupils in her school and upon her colleagues on the staff. She is pursuing her research into nurturing approaches through her membership of the National Nurture Group Network and her studies for a higher degree at the University of East Anglia.