Current state of inclusion of children with special needs in child care programmes in one Canadian province

We suggest that most inquiry in special education is misconceived. We examine the consequences of an allegiance to the erstwhile knowledge of special education in professional assumptions about learning difficulty and the research and practice of special education. We assert that obeisance to that knowledge has proven unfruitful for the children and young people it is intended to serve. Suggesting that the preferred inquiry methods of special education have led only into culs-de-sac, we argue that inclusive education should reinstate the importance of teachers' own experience, insights, and values—restore the significance of reflective practice. It is these that should provide the lead for new developments in inclusion. We suggest that arguments for inclusion have to emerge less out of the kind of supposed knowledge so respected by 20th-century educators—less out of notions of success and failure (of children or of schools)—and more out of ideas about social justice and human rights.     

Effectiveness of the MASTER program for teaching special children multiplication and division

In this study, the utility of a MAthematics Strategy Training for Educational Remediation (MASTER) program, (Van Luit, Kaskens, & Van der Krol, 1993) was examined. The effectiveness of the program, designed to encourage strategy utilization with multiplication and division problems, was investigated for 84 students with poor mathematics skills, some of whom had learning disabilities (n = 42) and others with mild levels of mental retardation (n = 42). The results showed that the use of the self-instruction program resulted in significant improvement over the general instruction program. Furthermore, far transfer was found for the children with learning disabilities in the experimental group when they used effective problem-solving strategies on nontrained tasks. The results are consistent with previous findings suggesting the importance of self-instruction in mathematics training programs.     

Intergenerational Continuity and Discontinuity in Harsh Parenting

The Family Transitions Project began in 1989 to see how rural families in Iowa were coping with the severe economic downturn in agriculture at that time. In this report we show that cohort members who were treated harshly by their parents tended to emulate these behaviors with their children. However, if they co-parented with a partner who demonstrated a warm and supportive parenting style, intergenerational continuity was disrupted.     

Individual Differences in Adapting to Three Different Tasks of Selecting Information from Texts

This study examined individual differences in selecting main points according to three types of tasks. In all, 133 students (10th-graders) participated. Each student studied three instructional texts, and each text was preceded by one instruction. In the linguistic task, the students had to underline the author's main points. In the educational task, students had to underline text elements considered to be important by a portrayed teacher. And in the interest task, interesting text fragments had to be underlined. The students were divided into five groups identified by a typical selection pattern. Only 24 students adjusted their selection of main points to each of the tasks (the adaptive group). This group differed in some study strategies and learning conceptions from the nonadaptive groups. In all, this study begins to give more insight into individual differences in selecting main points.     

Explaining home education: Parents' accounts of their decisions to teach their own children

This paper analyzes the reasons that parents choose to teach their children at home. From data collected over 18 months of qualitative research in a state in the southeast, three broad explanations for choosing home schooling emerged. First, the parents believe that home education will strengthen their families. Second, many home-schooling parents (particularly those who are fundamentalist Christians) believe that schools teach values and beliefs that directly contradict those they want their children to learn. Third, many of the parents believe that only they, as parents, understand their children's unique educational needs well enough to effectively teach them. The failure of educational policy makers to consider the extraeducational issues raised by home-schooling parents is then discussed.     

Effects of reinforcement-paired stimuli on general activity

Two experiments were performed to explore the mechanisms responsible for the increase in activity that occurs in response to stimuli which have been paired with reinforcement (S^R. The first experiment showed a sharp increase in activity to S^R-paired stimuli under conditions in which subjects were not required to perform any instrumental response to obtain the S^R. This result seemed to rule out reinforcement of instrumental “food getting” behavior as the mechanism responsible for the learned activity increases. A second experiment used an “omission training” procedure to further explore the mechanisms underlying the activity increase. In this experiment, S^R was omitted on those trials on which activity increases were present during the stimulus. In this condition, no increases in activity were observed during the stimulus. There was, however, the characteristic increase in activity in a yoked-control group which received the same number and distribution of stimulus-paired S^Rs. The results of the second experiment open the possibility that increases in activity to S^R -paired stimuli could be due to the adventitious reinforcement of motor behavior rather than the Pavlovian conditioning of a motivational state.     

Die offene Ganztagsgrundschule in Nordrhein-Westfalen

Im Mittelpunkt des Beitrags stehen konzeptionelle Hintergründe der 2003/04 begonnenen offenen Ganztagsschule (OGS) in Nordrhein-Westfalen sowie erste Ergebnisse der wissenschaftlichen Begleitung, wie sie sich im Rahmen einer explorativen Erkundungsstudie zeigen. Hintergrund der konzeptionellen Debatte sind zwei Elemente: zum einen die vielschichtiger gewordene Debatte über Betreuungs-, Bildungs- und Erziehungskonzepte, zum anderen die st?rkere Kooperation zwischen der Schule und der Kinder- und Jugendhilfe im Rahmen der offenen Ganztagsschule. Die OGS in Nordrhein-Westfalen beansprucht durch die verst?rkte Einbeziehung au?erschulischer Partner zu einem neuen Verst?ndnis von Schule und Lernen beizutragen. Im Konzept und Modell dieser neuen Angebotsform begegnen sich somit die Vorstellungen beider Bereiche zur ad?quaten Gestaltung schulischer und au?erschulischer Lern- und Bildungsprozesse. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden erste Befunde und sich abzeichnende Trends der realen Entwicklung in diesem Land dargestellt.     

Computerized prompting partners and keystroke recording devices: Two macro driven writing tools

Recent research into composing processes has focused on instructional intervention strategies that promote effective composition practices within computerized writing environments. The field of computers and composition has benefitted both from advances in computing tools and developments in learning theory. The innovative computer tool discussed in this paper uses the macro-command language of a full-featured word processor to enact strategic support designed to help writers with their written work. From a theoretical standpoint, this tool created a writing environment based on Vygotskian theory of mediated learning and was grounded in an instructional strategy known as “procedural facilitation.” To evaluate the effectiveness of this computerprompting tool, a second macro application was used to log student keystrokes, thereby tracking student writing development, revisionary practices, and keystroke reactions to the prompting partner. Students using the prompting tool enacted divergent and convergent thinking assistance that appeared at the bottom of their computer screens while the system saved a process record of their keystrokes. Procedures for creating macro-driven prompting programs and keystroke-logging devices are discussed. Additionally, a catalog of prompts and summary of keystroke-mapping benefits are provided. Finally, our research using the macro-driven prompting partner and keystroke-register tool is detailed.