Supporting children with Down syndrome within mainstream education settings: parental reflections

This study draws upon data gathered from five parents who have children with Down syndrome (DS), being educated in mainstream settings in England. The parental perspective of practices, both inclusive and otherwise, is explored through a qualitative lens. Findings suggest that early intervention, such as portage, is important. However, access to services varied across authorities. Additionally, some participants highlighted issues around the Education, Health Care Plan and subsequent annual reviews. Overall, this study offers examples of inclusive practice in the areas of supporting language and communication needs, parental partnership and transition between educational phases for children with DS. However, there are inconsistencies across providers and there is a need for more research into these areas in the future.     

Rural classroom environments as contexts for teacher-child relationships

The authors examined the associations between observed classroom management and teacher-child relationships with individual children during kindergarten and Grade 1. We used a sample of nonstruggling and struggling readers and their teachers in rural schools in the Southeastern United States to examine whether gender and struggling reader status explained associations between classroom management and conflictual or close teacher-child relationships. After controlling for child- and teacher-level characteristics, results from multilevel model analyses indicated that stronger classroom management was significantly related to less teacher-rated conflict, but was not related to teacher-rated closeness. Gender was a significant moderator, with boys who were in classrooms with lower levels of classroom management having poorer teacher-child relationships as rated by their teachers. Struggling reader status was not a significant moderator of the association between classroom management and teacher-child relationships.     

‘Either You Have Misunderstood the Directions,or You are Not Playing the Game’. South Australian Women in Educational Administration 1900–1960

This article examines continuity and change in the management of gender with specific reference to infant mistresses, whose quest for autonomous control of their own departments in the largest South Australian primary schools threatened the maintenance of patriarchal authority in and through the administration of state schooling. The complex location of these women is discussed in relation to the broader history of infant education in South Australia and the sexual division of labour in teaching. In taking account of their active resistance to the imposition of male hegemony in a sphere of education which was traditionally ‘woman’s work’, the article describes infant mistresses’ networks, the strategies of power and rhetoric they deployed, and how they built professional boundaries to protect their distinctive interests. It also examines the means adopted by headmasters and the Education Department to manage the troubling spectre of the independent female principal so that men’s self‐esteem, social and professional status, ‘natural’ authority over women, and employment opportunities in the ‘manly’ realm of school administration might be preserved.     

Four-year follow-up study of language impaired children

Children identified as normal or as specifically language impaired (SLI) were given speech, language, and intelligence testing on a longitudinal basis. Fourteen normal and 29 SLI children between the ages of 4 1/2 and 8 years were tested at Time 1. They were retested three to four years later when they were 8 to 12 years old. The results indicated that both the normal and the SLI children continued to develop skills in receptive and expressive language and speech articulation across the 3- to 4-year period intervening between evaluations. Overall, however, the SLI children appeared to develop language skills at a slower than normal rate and 80% of them remained language impaired at Time 2. In addition, the majority of the SLI children manifested reading impairment at Time 2, while none of the normal children did so. The implications for the educational management of SLI children are discussed. Research supported by the March of Dimes, Grant #12-84. Presented at the 32nd Annual Conference of The Orton Dyslexia Society, Baltimore, Maryland, November 1982.     

A treatment program for failure to thrive: A cost/effectiveness analysis

Failure to thrive (FTT) is a frequent cause for the admission of infants to the hospital. Such hospitalizations are often lengthy and expensive, and usually do not contribute to an understanding of the etiology of FTT. Generally, organic causes of FTT can be ruled out by a thorough history and physical examination. In this study two groups were examined: 17 infants who were admitted to foster medical placement homes (MPH), private homes with specially trained parents; and a comparison group of 18 infants who were treated in a more traditional way with diagnostic hospitalization. The groups were similar in all regards prior to admission. All infants were less than a year of age. Family disruption was a prominent feature in both groups, but socio-demographic analysis showed them to be similar in all areas studied. The comparison group gained an average of 276 grams in the hospital over 8.6 days. The MPH group gained 362 grams in the hospital over 8.7 days, with an additional 1270 grams in the medical placement home over 31.1 days. Five children were admitted to the medical placement home without hospitalization. After correcting for an expected weight gain of 15 grams per day (normal growth), the comparison group showed a catch-up growth of 16 gms/day, while the MPH group gained 29 gms/day in excess of expectation, almost twice the comparison group. A 100-gram weight gain cost +308 in the MPH program and +1,635 in the traditional approach. This five-fold difference was felt to be a significant deterrent to the continuing approach of admitting children to the hospital for for the workup of FTT.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Rhymes and phonemes in the common unit task: replications and implications for beginning reading

Theorists and practitioners in the field of reading development are currently debating the importance of rhymes and phonemes in beginning reading. In a recent study, Duncan, Seymour and Hill (1997) provided evidence that explicit or meta- awareness of sound is closely linked to reading strategy. Meta-awareness was measured by asking beginning readers to identify the ‘common unit’ shared by two spoken words. Results showed that meta-awareness of phonemes emerged prior to meta-awareness of rhyme, and that reading strategy followed a similar small-to-large progression. This study reports on a replication of the ‘common unit’ task which includes modifications to the original procedure (randomisation of conditions, increased practice, removal of positional references from instructions). The results confirm the pattern observed in the original study. Beginning readers learning by a mixed method can identify shared phonemes but not shared rimes in the common unit task. The implications of this and similar replications are discussed.     

In Partnership with Industry: The Educational — Industrial Interface

The paper discusses the long-term strategic approach to collaboration between education and industry initiated by Glasgow School of Art's Department of Product Design, and examines the opportunities and benefits of the investment in the post of an Industrial Liaison Officer (ILO) over a four year period which furthered this partnership. The paper shows the need for a professionally and adequately resourced approach to provide mutual benefits to industry and education, and to the economy in general