Effective Life Management in Parents of Children with Disabilities: A Cross-National Extension

This study is part of an on-going research program exploring life management in families of children with a variety of disability characteristics and age ranges. Scorgie, Wilgosh, and McDonald (1996) used a qualitative, interview methodology to identify effective strategies, qualities, and transformational outcomes for parents of children with disabilities who had been identified, by service agencies, as having effective life management strategies. A larger group of parents, from similarly identified, effectively managing families, was surveyed (Scorgie, Wilgosh, & McDonald, 1997), using the Life Management Survey (LMS) developed from the nine themes found in the qualitative study, supporting the original findings. A replication of the LMS survey study (Wilgosh, Scorgie, & Fleming, 2000) confirmed the previous findings with parents who were not preselected as effective life managers. In fact, the consistency across the three Canadian studies supported examination of family life management cross-nationally. The present study shows that Catholic Italian parents of children with disabilities have patterns of effective life management strategies, parent qualities, and parent transformational outcomes which characterize them and are similar to those of the Canadian parents. However, in the Italian study, some differences were found related to type of disability, emphasizing the need for qualified professional support, guidance and counselling, focused on the unique needs of each family, as related to the child's disability needs.     

Monitoring health,activity and fitness in physical education: its current and future state of health

Various government policies, strategies and responses in England over the years have highlighted schools and physical education to be instrumental in addressing health and the focus on health has been strengthened within subsequent revisions of the National Curriculum. Whilst this might seem encouraging, concerns have been expressed that such policies and governmental regulation increasingly bear features of a ‘performative culture’ and that these have led to increasingly widespread health surveillance in schools. Linked to this are long-standing concerns over the way in which health is addressed in schools and physical education, as well as over some of the monitoring measures and practices employed within the curriculum. Despite this, little is known about monitoring practices in physical education. This article, therefore, presents findings of a study which aimed to (1) determine the nature, prevalence and purpose of monitoring health, physical activity and physical fitness within the physical education curriculum and (2) establish physical education teachers' views of and approaches to monitoring. The study comprised two phases. The first phase involved a survey completed by Heads of Physical Education in 110 secondary schools from across England, and the second semi-structured interviews with 18 of those from the original sample. The findings revealed monitoring, and in particular fitness monitoring, to be a common feature within the physical education curriculum in many schools. However, a number of issues and limitations associated with monitoring and some of the schools' monitoring practices were identified, and the individualistic nature and performative culture reflected in and reinforced through monitoring were acknowledged as potentially problematic. It was thus suggested that if the findings are typical, then monitoring practice is currently not in a good state of health. The article concludes proposing a way forward for monitoring within physical education in the form of some recommendations for practice.     

The Reliability of the [Vdot]O2-HR Relation during Graded Treadmill Exercise in Prepubertal Boys and Adult Men

Abstract

When subjects make simultaneous aiming movements of the upper limbs over different distances, assimilation effects are shown; the shorter distance limb overshoots when paired with a longer distance limb. However, it is not known whether assimilation effects are due to variations in distance per se or to variations in target location. To separate the possible influences of distance and location, 60 subjects made rapid bimanual aiming movements in one of four conditions. The two different-distance groups made a 20° movement in the left hand and a 60° movement in the right hand to either the same or different target locations. The comparison groups moved 20° in each limb. Somewhat surprisingly, spatial assimilations were greater when moving different distances to the same, rather than different, target locations, which suggests interlimb differences in distance mediate assimilation effects rather than target location. Temporal assimilations were greater when distance and location were varied, but the assimilations were not related to interlimb differences in velocity, as predicted by Marteniuk and MacKenzie (1980).     

Our Friends Are Killing Us

The benefits and limitations of library consortia for acquiring serials are examined and explored through examples and experience. Underlying assumptions predicating group purchasing of serials are scrutinized for their role in endorsing this pervasive purchase option.     

The Limits of Due Diligence

Best practices endorse using “due diligence” scrutiny of a company to establish the viability of the corporation prior to releasing large sums of money in a buy–sell transaction. Theoretically libraries should be able to utilize this approach to ensure protection against bankruptcy such as seen in the recent Swets failure and the earlier RoweCom/divine collapse. Using the Swets company as a case study, the steps needed to be taken to complete the due diligence process are enumerated and critiqued. The conclusion is drawn that a comprehensive financial appraisal in the current serials acquisitions framework requires expertise, effort, and investment that are outside the bounds of what many would consider to be reasonable.