The Salamanca Statement and sign language education for deaf learners 25 years on

ABSTRACT

The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education proposed a policy shift from special education to inclusive education models that require schools to serve all children. However, alongside this shift was a recognition that sign language access for deaf learners is essential for meeting the right to education and that this access cannot always be provided in mainstream settings. The Statement was written during an apex in bilingual education for deaf students in certain countries, and the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), joined by Swedish and Danish government and deaf advocacy organisation delegates, successfully lobbied for inclusion of Section 21. This section makes three claims regarding the importance of policy-level recognition of differences among learners, the right of deaf learners to education in a national sign language, and the suggested greater suitability of deaf schools or congregated programmes for many deaf learners. The Salamanca Statement, like Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and related General Comments, makes universalising claims within a rights-based framework; however, the competing claims of deaf advocacy organisations have posed a challenge and corrective to such statements since deaf learners are often excluded in inclusive classrooms.     

The effects of loneliness on relational maintenance behaviors: An attributional perspective

This study links the experience of loneliness to the use of relational maintenance behaviors. More precisely, an attributional perspective on loneliness is adopted, wherein chronic loneliness leads to attributions for the cause of loneliness to stable, internal, and uncontrollable factors; situational loneliness is more likely to be attributed to unstable, external, and controllable factors. Over 400 participants completed measures of chronic and situational loneliness, and relational maintenance strategies. Residts indicated that both forms of loneliness are negatively associated with maintenance strategies. As anticipated, chronically lonely people reported the least use of relational maintenance behaviors across relationship types.     

Poison or panacea?: Sarah Moore Grimké's use of the public letter

Rhetors have long used the letter form to overcome difficult situations. This essay considers the difficulties inherent in the form when used by a female rhetor. During her career as an abolitionist, Sarah Grimke attempted to use the apostolic letter to appeal to divergent audiences yet discovered, that the form and its attendant persona limited her audience appeal. In her work as a woman's rights activist, she reformulated the private letter and developed a persona that allowed her to empower herself as well as her audience.     

A Review of “Nations of the World: A Political,Economic, and Business Handbook”

This case study presents the revision of an upper-division one-shot instruction session to include an online tutorial that introduces students to business information sources prior to the library session. In order to complete the assignment and prepare for the library session, students are prompted to find specific information using the given resource, and then consider questions regarding the information retrieved. Students in a 3000-level business writing class responded positively to the activity while providing a good amount of material to inform further iterations of the assignment.     

Student Ethos in the Online Technical Communication Classroom: Diverse Voices

“The study of activity ceases to be the psychology of an individual, but instead focuses on the interaction between an individual, systems of artifacts, and other individuals in historically developing institutional settings” (Miettinen, 1997).

As teaching technical writing online becomes more widespread, teachers and scholars are identifying ways to increase teaching/learning efficacy. One way of accomplishing this goal is by continually reflecting on different types of student ethos being constructed in an online course. The changes that occur in the ethos development process can be contextualized through activity theory, which emphasizes the dynamic, evolving nature of social environments. Activity theory's focus on cultural history and tools makes it ideal for exploring active communication among multiple participants in an online technical communication environment. The triangle of human activity adapted and developed by Engeström (1987) Engeström, Y. 1987. Learning by expanding: An activity theoretical approach to developmental research., Helsinki, Finland: Orienta-Konsultit Oy.  [Google Scholar] provides a framework for exploring ethos as an object within an online course's activity system.     

Looking on the bright side: children's knowledge about the benefits of positive versus negative thinking

Five- to 10-year-olds (N = 90) listened to 6 illustrated scenarios featuring 2 characters that jointly experience the same positive event (and feel good), negative event (and feel bad), or ambiguous event (and feel okay). Afterward, one character thinks a positive thought and the other thinks a negative thought. Children predicted and explained each character's emotions. Results showed significant development between 5 and 10 years in children's understanding that thinking positively improves emotions and thinking negatively makes one feel worse, with earliest knowledge demonstrated when reasoning about ambiguous and positive events. Individual differences in child and parental optimism and hope predicted children's knowledge about thought-emotion connections on some measures, including their beliefs about the emotional benefits of thinking positively in negative situations.