Using aromatherapy massage to increase shared attention behaviours in children with autistic spectrum disorders and severe learning difficulties

Children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) characteristically display a lack of shared attention behaviours and the lack of these behaviours impacts on their ability to develop social interactions and relationships with others. Steve Solomons, assistant headteacher at Rectory Paddock School and Research Unit in the London Borough of Bromley, set out to explore these issues as an aspect of practice when he was working at St. Ann's School in the London Borough of Merton. He carried out this research as part of his MEd in special education at the University of Birmingham, for which he received the prestigious Annie Deakins prize in 2003. The aim of his study was to investigate whether aromatherapy massage could increase shared attention behaviours in a sample of four children with autistic spectrum disorders and severe learning difficulties (SLD). Aromatherapy massage was introduced into the daily timetable and children's responses were observed. The results indicate that children's shared attention behaviours increased during aromatherapy massage and that other aspects of their behaviour also changed over the course of the research. Family involvement in the study enabled these changes to be transferred from school to home. In this article, Steve Solomons explores the implications of his research for new teaching and learning opportunities for children with autistic spectrum disorders and severe learning difficulties.     

MEDLINE in the UK: pioneering the past, present and future

This article provides a brief history of the development of the MEDLINE database and its huge impact within the UK, from its inception to the present time. The origins of MEDLINE can be traced back to a collection of books in the US Surgeon General's Office during the American Civil War and John Shaw Billings' decision, during 1867, to make this Library as complete as possible. From these beginnings, Index Medicus was developed in the early years of the 20th century, and electronic versions of the database began with the computerized on-demand search service MEDLARS in 1964 and then via CD-ROM and Internet Grateful Med to the web-based and free-to-all service, PubMed, in 1997. The response to PubMed was immediate and startling with usage increasing from 7 million searches per annum in 1996 to 400 million searches per annum in 2001 and the service continues to improve. MEDLINE providers are now offering mapping of natural language queries to the sophisticated indexing vocabulary (Medical Subject Headings, MeSH) and the provision of specific filters for different types of publication to improve searching efficiency, as well as links to full-text versions of the papers where available. The next steps are likely to involve an increased blurring of database and full-text boundaries, incorporating seamless access to the best available evidence within MEDLINE and a wide range of other information resources within a single search and to an increasing amount of full-text via various open-archive initiatives. As ever, the US National Library of Medicine is in the vanguard of research and further applications of its MEDLINE database for users within the UK will be awaited with great interest.     

Documentation for institutional repositories

The documentation of seven academic institutional repositories (IRs) was compared and contrasted. This was followed by semi‐structured interviews with six practitioners experienced in the set‐up, management and maintenance of IRs, including representatives of three JISC FAIR projects. The aim was to identify the requirements of policy documentation provided by IRs. Although many issues were found to be handled differently, several common factors emerged. These included the importance of developing documentation in collaboration with academics, departments and senior management. Policies should be formulated only when the aims of the IR have been clearly defined and the documentation itself should be concise and understandable, with the rights and responsibilities of stakeholders clearly presented.     

Changes in students’ computer literacy

The CLAT provided considerable information about children’s attitudes and knowledge well beyond computer literacy. It revealed improvements in the use of language, as well as in spelling and penmanship. I understand very well that evaluation engineers would prefer to “partner with teachers” to ensure more thorough grant-funded documentation of the many and diverse process and product outcomes of computer technology expenditures (Baker, 1999). However, a simple count of computer-related terms listed by students appeared, for my limited purposes, to be both a valid and reliable indicator of at least one small aspect of computer literacy     

Unreal Friends

It has become quite common for people to develop `personal' relationships nowadays, exclusively via extensive correspondence across the Net. Friendships, even romantic love relationships, are apparently, flourishing. But what kind of relations really are possible in this way? In this paper, we focus on the case of close friendship. There are various important markers that identify a relationship as one of close friendship. One will have, for instance, strong affection for the other, a disposition to act for their well-being and a desire for shared experiences. Now obviously, while all these features of friendship can gain some expression through extensive correspondence on the Net, such expression is necessarily limited –you cannot, e.g., physically embrace the other, or go on a picnic together. The issue we want to address here however, is whether there might be distinctive and important influences on the structure of interaction undertaken on the Net, that affect the kind of identity ``Net-friends'' can develop in relation to one another. In the normal case, one develops a close friendship, and in doing so, one's identity, in part, is shaped by the friendship. To some extent, through extensive shared experience, one comes to see aspects of the world (and of oneself) through the eyes of one's friend and so, in part, one's identity develops in an importantly relational way, i.e., as the product of one's relation with the close friend. In our view, however, on account of the limits of, and/or the kind of, shared contact and experience one can have with another via correspondence on the Net, there are significant structural barriers to developing the sort of relational identity that is a feature of close friendship. In arguing our case here, and by using the case of Net ``friendship'' as our foil, we aim to shed light on the nature and importance of certain sorts of self-expression and relational interaction found in close friendship.     

A comparison of the governing of primary and secondary schools in England

In England, governing bodies continue to be responsible for the conduct of publicly funded schools. This article compares the governing of publicly funded primary schools (for 5–11 year olds) and secondary schools (for 11–18 year olds). The research analysed policy documents and the governing of 16 primary and 14 secondary schools. The main governance mode for both primary schools and secondary schools is hierarchical and similar in nature, and the governing bodies of primary and secondary schools use broadly similar governing instruments. However, they differ in significant ways. In primary schools, governing is smaller in scale and less complex. Primary school governing is closer to the school and children, and the images held by governors of the system to be governed are better developed in primary schools. Functional knowledge was more useful in primary school governing, and the use of informal meetings as instruments of governance was more widespread in primary school governing. The findings and their implications need to be taken into account in the analysis of and policy making for school governing.