Transition planning and writing instruction: the effects of a brief intervention

This study used a multiple probe design across behaviours to determine if four high school students with learning disabilities could plan post‐school transition goals using a modified GO 4 IT … NOW! intervention while learning essential paragraph and essay writing skills. The results of this study indicate a functional relationship between the intervention and increased writing skills needed for high‐stakes testing and increases in students' knowledge of transition planning. During baseline, students produced extremely short essays and did not include essential paragraph elements. After instruction, students wrote longer compositions and included more details, and paragraphs contained more paragraph elements. All participants increased essay quality during the intervention as measured by the rubric used to evaluate end‐of‐instruction writing prompts.     

Parental cognitive impairment and child maltreatment in Canada

Objectives

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of parental cognitive impairment in cases opened for child maltreatment investigation in Canada, and to examine the relationship between parental cognitive impairment and maltreatment investigation outcomes including substantiation, case disposition and court application.

Methods

The method was secondary analysis of the Canadian Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS-2003) core-data, which is derived from a multi-stage stratified cluster sample of 11,562 child maltreatment investigations.

Results

Parental cognitive impairment was noted in 10.1% of sampled cases that were opened for child maltreatment investigation in 2003, and in 27.3% of sampled cases that resulted in child welfare court application. Neglect was the most common cause of concern. With child and case characteristics held constant, parental cognitive impairment predicted investigation outcomes. The data further suggest that the relationship between parental cognitive impairment and investigation outcomes was partially mediated by perceived parent non-cooperation, mental health issues and low social support.

Conclusions

The number of children who are living with a parent with cognitive impairment and who are referred for protective services is thought to be increasing. Building systems capacity to support parents with cognitive impairment and promote child wellbeing is therefore essential to containing the human and economic costs of maltreatment and out-of-home care.

Practice implications

A broad-spectrum approach is needed to support parents with cognitive impairment and their children. Equipping services with the knowledge, skills, and mandate they need to deliver evidence-based parent training is vital. However, strategies are also needed to tackle discrimination, alleviate family poverty, strengthen the social ties of parents with cognitive impairment and in turn, improve the life chances of their children.     

Identifying young gifted children and cultivating problem solving abilities and multiple intelligences

The “Enrichment Program for Cultivating Problem Solving Abilities and Multiple Intelligences for Gifted Preschoolers” (PSMIGP program) was the first enrichment program for young gifted children in Taiwan. It was an extra-curricular program that was implemented over a 3-year period. The assessment and curriculum were designed by adapting the main part of the DISCOVER curriculum.The purpose of this paper was to introduce the identification model and to analyze the participants' performance in problem solving activities and in demonstrating their special talents. To offer enrichment services for gifted young children, the researchers developed an identification model to discover more young gifted children and serve their needs in learning, regardless of the nature of their talents, disabilities, or cultural or socio-economical status. All participating young children were screened in a three-stage process that included both objective and subjective assessments, including checklists, interviews, portfolio assessment, group intelligence tests, observation in the play corner, individual intelligence tests, and structured observation activities. It was also necessary to adjust the standardized test procedure to fit the needs of twice exceptional young children.In total there were sixty-one preschoolers participated in this three-year program, including eleven twice exceptional children and one child from a new immigrant home. Among these sixty-one preschoolers, eight of them participated in two years of the program; the others only participated in one year of the program.The results of this enrichment program found significant correlations among the measurement scores; the scores of teacher assessment of problem solving abilities also showed that most students performed well on all five kinds of problem solving types. From children's archives, participating children presented scientific thinking characteristics, such as rich knowledge with fascinating imagination and the ability to seek many approaches to solving problems. They were delighted to challenge others and pleased to be challenged. The twice exceptional children also performed well in the program, especially those children with autism whose progress in social skills and group adaptability were remarkable. In sum, the researchers in this program had a belief that children, whether gifted or not, did not get the satisfaction of making progress until they had opportunities to find and develop their potentials.     

When A. Rose is not A. Rose: the vagaries of author searching

Creation of a faculty database is a challenging but worthwhile project. In 2002, librarians at the University of Missouri-Columbia were approached by the School of Medicine to create a database of faculty publications. This article outlines the project and gives special emphasis to the problems of author searching. Discussion items include author searching syntax and providing ideas for how to determine if a publication was written by a particular author.     

Student evaluation in “individualized” science programs

In recent years there has been increasing focus, particularly in the USA and England but also elsewhere, on individualizing instruction in the school. The techniques of such endeavors, especially as they relate to student evaluation, will be the major theme of this paper.     

核心期刊评价的分学科方法解析——以《中文核心期刊要目总览》为例

大多数期刊评价体系都是分学科进行评价,但是不同的评价体系在进行期刊分学科评价时,对于期刊分类归属的方法都不相同.文章针对北京大学图书馆主持的《中文核心期刊要目总览》的分学科方法进行详细解读,分析了按学科论文入手进行指标值统计,然后根据期刊所载论文和施引论文的分类进行综合计算给期刊自然归类的方法,并提出进一步研究的设想.