Motor processing difficulties: guidance for teachers in mainstream classrooms

Difficulties in motor processing are often seen in children with specific literacy difficulties. Indeed many children with dyslexia may also have a diagnosis of dyspraxia. This article seeks to increase understanding of difficulties in motor processing and to provide practical advice to teachers to assist in identification of such difficulties. It will examine a range of presenting issues in the classroom, but with a primary focus on handwriting. Drawing on the experience of the authors and literature in this area, practical strategies are offered that may be implemented by teachers in mainstream classrooms.     

A Model to Systematize Competencies in Counselor Education

A domain of 2,186 competency statements was collected from a survey of counseling professionals, liteature, and counselor education programs. An examination of these statements revealed they were written at various levels of specificity and often the areas of knowledge, skills, and personal characteristics were confounded within a single statement. A concept analysis showed that competency statements have not been written for all of the duties performed by counselors. This article presents a model to rewrite existing competency statements in a standardized format; eliminating the problems of nonspecific, confounded, and missing competencies. Examples of the application of the model are given.     

Self-Generated Performance Feedback in Interviewing Training

The present study examined the effect of self-generated performance feedback, of expert performance feedback, and of no performance feedback on novice counselor trainee's production of counselor tacting response leads (CTRLs). Self-generated performance feedback consisted of the participants responding to a video-taped client and then orally evaluating their own response on the basis of a performance standard. Expert performance feedback consisted of verbal feedback from a designated expert given over a bug-in-the-ear apparatus. Analysis of four measures of CTRLs revealed no differences resulting from either source of feedback—self or expert—however, those who received feedback outperformed the controls. These differences were maintained over a short time span.     

Agency and Sovereignty: Georges Bataille's Anti-Humanist Conception of Child

Georges Bataille (1887–1962) is one of the most significant thinkers of the 20th century, whose anti-humanist anthropology influenced subsequent existentialist and post-structuralist philosophy. His wide-ranging writings (across philosophy, archaeology, economics, sociology, poetry, erotica and history of art) frequently mention children, childhood and childishness, and yet there has hitherto been little to no attention paid to this aspect of his work. This article opens up a neglected theme in Bataille studies, and also explores the consequences of Bataille's presentation of the human condition for our understanding of the pedagogical relationship. Of particular interest is the idea of the agentic child, which occupies such an important place in childhood studies, educational theory and public policy. In the light of Bataille's anthropology, I shall explore the idea that the pursuit of children's agency is the victim of its vaunting ambition.     

A Two-Study Comparison of Written and Video Modeling and of Written and Oral Assessment

This article presents the findings from two research studies. In Study I, 21 counseling students were given either a written standard model, written serial model, or a videotape model of how to ask tacting questions. While there were no differences between the written and video models, significant multivariate differences were found between the two forms of the written models. In Study II, 24 counseling students received either the written or video model and then were assessed either by orally responding or by writing reflections of feeling responses to a series of client vignettes. Once again, no differences were found for mode of model presentation. Students who responded in writing, however, outperformed those who responded orally. The discussion focuses on the implications these two studies have for counselor education.     

A New Paradigm for Teaching Counseling Theory and Practice

The author discusses a paradigm for understanding the myriad of counseling theories and their corresponding intervention techniques. The paradigm organizes counseling theory and practice around three principles: a way of being, a way of understanding, and a way of intervening. The paradigm assists counselors in sorting out the similarities and differences between the counseling theories and allows them to eclectically use various theories and techniques without losing the consistency and cohesiveness of working within a structure.