Evaluation of oral language disorders in children

Summary This paper has reviewed some approaches to the evaulation of oral language and indicated how different views influence our assessment and management of oral language problems. Some systems for classifying responses and input modalities have been discussed. Suggestions for evaluating receptive and expressive language and some skills of auditory analysis and synthesis have been presented. This paper is adapted from a presentation at a workshop at the 28th Annual Conference of The Orton Society in Dallas, Texas, November 1977.     

Written language disorders

Summary Significant numbers of children referred for evaluation of learning disabilities demonstrate written language disorders. They may have problems with handwriting, spelling, written formulation, or a combination of all three. Some questions that may be asked for assessment and some general suggestions for remediation have been provided. Integrating components of spoken, read, and written language is necessary in teaching children who have written language disorders. This paper is based upon a presentation at the 30th Annual Conference of The Orton Society, Indianapolis, November 1979.     

Special issue of TEJ: what is to be done with curriculum and educational foundations’ critical knowledges? New qualitative research on conscientizing preservice and in-service teachers

ABSTRACT

In this essay, we provide a brief introductory statement to the special issue of Teaching Education titled What is To Be Done with Curriculum and Educational Foundations’ Critical Knowledges? New Qualitative Research on Conscientizing Preservice and In-Service Teachers. In our introductory statement, we describe the specific aim and broad purposes of the special issue and characterize its contents. Our specific aim with the special issue is to advance the conscientization of preservice and in-service teachers via critical pedagogies and race-based epistemologies. Our broad purposes are to (a) resist the ascendant, whitened, and Eurocentric fascism via our collective pedagogical labor in teacher education and (b) reorient curriculum and educational foundations' critical knowledges toward institutional praxis. We conclude our introductory statement by characterizing the contents of the special issue for teacher educators and teacher education researchers.     

Black on Black Education: Personally Engaged Pedagogy for/by African American Pre-Service Teachers

Public schools have increasing numbers of its teachers fitting into one demographic, white and female, while the numbers of African American teachers decrease (Ladson-Billings, Crossing over to Canaan: The Journey of New Teachers in Diverse Classrooms. San Francisco: Josey-Bass [2001]). Furthermore, African American collegiates who decide to enter teaching may face a chilly climate as a result of their cultural and educational experiences as they encounter devaluation in the classroom (Delpit, Other Peoples Children: Cultural Conflict in the Class room. New York: The New Press [1995]). As a result, African American pre-service teachers may question the validity of the formal curriculum presented in college as it conflicts with their perceptions of school, thereby, leaving teacher-educators largely responsible for the quality of life and subsequent devotion to profession of these students. Critical autoethnography, using fieldnotes/research journaling, and student memoirs all through a theoretical backdrop of critical race feminism provide a glimpse into the teaching and learning experiences and dilemmas of one African American female teacher educator utilizing what I call personally engaged pedagogy as a means of enhancing the quality of the learning experiences of her African American pre-service teachers.     

Striking a Balance Between Innovation and Standards: A Study of Teachers Implementing Project-Based Approaches to Teaching Science

This research reports on the efforts of six middle school and high school science teachers in a public school district in New York City to balance innovative teaching methods and strategies with the New York State Learning Standards and Regents requirements. More specifically, this research examines the factors that influenced the implementation of project-based approaches to teaching and learning science. Observations of meetings and classrooms, and collection of artifacts such as curricula, project planners, demographic profiles, student work, and test results served as the primary data sources that were triangulated and related to current theory on project-based learning in science. Four teachers embraced aspects of project-based learning in science and two rejected most aspects of teaching project-based learning in science. Implications for science professional development are discussed.     

Innovative Work Behaviour in Vocational Colleges: Understanding How and Why Innovations Are Developed

In workplaces, innovative products and processes are required to address emerging problems and challenges. Therefore, understanding of employees’ innovative work behaviour, including the generation, promotion, and realisation of ideas as components of this behaviour is important. In particular, what fosters innovation development and what triggers these activities is important for its promotion and adoption in contemporary workplaces. To investigate how and why innovations at work are developed and enacted, an explorative study comprising structured interviews with vocational teachers in the German vocational system was conducted. The teachers reported on activities they undertook during the development of a specific innovation. Furthermore, they provided information on factors that made this innovation necessary and that they were activated by. The study indicates that even when opportunities for innovation development existed in a workplace, the needs and goals of teachers were pivotal for these opportunities to be recognised and teachers’ innovative work behaviour to be triggered. By analysing vocational teachers’ work activities, we found that the development of innovations was a complex, iterative and primarily social process. By encouraging teachers to act on opportunities for change and by establishing a collaborative structure at schools, innovation development can be facilitated. We also found that throughout the development of an innovation, reflection played an important role. If the importance of reflective activities is acknowledged by workplaces such as these participants’ vocational schools, this not only fosters innovations but also the teachers’ professional development.     

The Impact of a Death Row Exoneration Testimonial on Social Work Students: A Teaching Note

Criminal-justice-involved clients often are a complicated population for students to consider through a lens of oppression. Nevertheless, it is critical that they do so given that many will serve clients with criminal records during their careers. An attempt to challenge students’ prejudice toward criminal-justice-involved people was deployed using a teaching technique derived from intergroup contact theory. The authors invited Juan Melendez to share his story of incarceration on death row for more than 17 years for a crime he did not commit. This article is an examination of the impact of Mr. Melendez’s story and the application of intergroup contact theory.     

Impact of stimulus format and reward value on quantity discrimination in capuchin and squirrel monkeys

Quantity discrimination abilities are seen in a diverse range of species with similarities in performance patterns, suggesting common underlying cognitive mechanisms. However, methodological factors that impact performance make it difficult to draw broad phylogenetic comparisons of numerical cognition across studies. For example, some Old World monkeys selected a higher quantity stimulus more frequently when choosing between inedible (pebbles) than edible (food) stimuli. In Experiment 1 we presented brown capuchin (Cebus [Sapajus] paella) and squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) with the same two-choice quantity discrimination task in three different stimulus conditions: edible, inedible, and edible replaced (in which choice stimuli were food items that stood in for the same quantity of food items that were given as a reward). Unlike Old World monkeys, capuchins selected the higher quantity stimulus more in the edible condition and squirrel monkeys showed generally poor performance across all stimulus types. Performance patterns suggested that differences in subjective reward value might motivate differences in choice behavior between and within species. In Experiment 2 we manipulated the subjective reinforcement value of the reward by varying reward type and delay to reinforcement and found that delay to reinforcement had no impact on choice behavior, while increasing the value of the reward significantly improved performance by both species. The results of this study indicate that species presented with identical tasks may respond differently to methodological factors such as stimulus and reward types, resulting in significant differences in choice behavior that may lead to spurious suggestions of species differences in cognitive abilities.     

What is to be done with curriculum and educational foundations' critical knowledges? Toward critical and decolonizing education sciences

ABSTRACT

As editors of the special issue in Teaching Education titled What Is To Be Done with Curriculum and Educational Foundations’ Critical Knowledges? New Qualitative Research on Conscientizing Preservice and In-Service Teachers, our purpose with this conceptual essay is twofold. First, we historicize and characterize the critical knowledges deployed in this special issue as a broad array of criticalities. Second, we provide a reading of these criticalities that together we tentatively call critical and decolonizing education sciences. In our discussion and conclusion, we focus on the dual challenges of developing work in critical and decolonizing education sciences: (a) better historicizing academic work and (b) clearly responding to demands of institutional praxis.