‘I'm always up against a brick wall with them’: parents' experiences of accessing support for their child with a newly recognised developmental disorder

Three of the most prevalent developmental disorders (DDs) are autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). As part of a study screening for DDs in Greater Manchester, UK, a unique opportunity was taken to explore parents' experiences of receiving reports about their child's previously unrecognised DD. Six parents out of a possible 16 took part in interviews, which were analysed thematically. Findings drawn from parental responses revealed a number of barriers to accessing support for their child's additional needs, including perceived resistance from schools, particularly for quiet, well-behaved girls, and difficulty in accessing assessment or referrals. There needs to be greater awareness of additional needs in children without externalising behaviours, the presence of gender-specific differences in the presentation of DDs, and FASD as a commonly occurring DD. Ultimately, better support for children with DDs would reduce the burden of unmet needs for the children and their families, and for wider services.     

Interactive Influences of Perceived Social Contexts on the Reading Achievement of Urban Middle Schoolers with Learning Disabilities

This study examined the effects of social influences in the lives of an ethnically diverse sample of fifth through eighth grade students with and without learning disabilities (LD) using survey data and academic achievement scores collected in 19 Chicago public schools from 1993–1997. Similarities and differences in student perceptions of school, family, and peer group contexts were examined. In addition, longitudinal data were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to identify contextual influences on changes in student reading achievement over time. Comparisons of student responses confirm and extend existing findings in the literature concerning the perceptions of students with LD of their social environments. In particular, having a learning disability was associated with consistent, mostly negative, effects on social relations across the contexts of students’ lives, regardless of gender, race, grade, and socioeconomic status. In addition, student perceptions of their friendship groups were found to have small, but significant, effects on their growth in reading achievement over the course of middle school. While students with and without LD had somewhat different views of their social contexts, the processes working within these environments appeared to affect their reading achievement in similar ways. The results suggest that careful attention should be paid to the social contexts of students’ lives when planning academic interventions.     

CHALLENGING BEHAVIOUR: The impact of challenging student behaviour upon teachers' lives in a secondary school: teachers' perceptions

In this article, Tina Axup, an educational psychologist working in Southend‐on‐Sea, and Irvine Gersch, director of educational and child psychology programmes at the University of East London, describe a small‐scale study of teachers' attitudes regarding the impact of student behaviour on their professional lives. Anecdotal evidence within a local authority educational psychology service suggested that increasing teacher concern about student disruptive behaviour was causing significant professional anxiety. Tina Axup formulated a brief questionnaire to explore teacher perceptions of the student responses that appeared to cause them stress. Although it is difficult to generalise from the results because of the small sample size and low return, the most frequently selected behaviours seen as challenging were found to be ‘low level’, ‘verbal’, ‘work avoidance’ and ‘out of seat behaviour’. The most frequent teacher reactions were said to be ‘frustration’, ‘bewilderment’, ‘shock’ and concern about the impact on other students in the class. The key favoured coping strategies reported included behaviour management techniques, praise and trying to understand the difficult behaviour, while personally talking to peers, switching off after the lesson, taking exercise and talking to family and friends. For future help, the preferred teacher options included the employment of more specialist behaviour support staff. Tina Axup and Irvine Gersch discuss the implications of these findings and identify further areas for research.     

Negative school factors and their influence on math and science achievement in TIMSS 2003

The aim of the present study was to conduct an analysis of TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) 2003 database and to determine how negative school factors, such as aggression, are associated to the mathematical and science achievement of students. The analyses were conducted separately for national and international data. National analyses for Slovenia show significant associations between math and science achievement and the experience of aggressive behaviour. Students who experienced aggressive behaviour scored lower in math and science, both in the fourth and in the eighth grade. The results of the regression analysis show that negative factors, such as aggressive behaviour, are good predictors of educational achievement in Slovenia. International analyses for the selected countries (high‐ and low‐achieving countries from the whole TIMSS population) confirm that this type of finding is culturally impartial as well as valid for the level of achievement both in math and in science.     

四个范式:欧洲档案学的观念和战略的变化——1840年以来西方档案观念与战略的变化

本报告首先梳理了西方档案理论与档案史,探讨了那些激发档案专业思想、战略及方法的概念,其次又着重阐述了档案鉴定这个由档案工作者从人类文献记录中挑选出很小比例作为档案长久保存的过程。19世纪至今的档案工作者对其工作、职能、活动及社会作用的认识经历了(或者说显示了)四个大的思想框架(或范式),探讨和了解这个背景可以让我们更好地认识和应对我们现在所处的这个数字时代的挑战。     

Simplifying Causal Complexity: How Interactions Between Modes of Causal Induction and Information Availability Lead to Heuristic‐Driven Reasoning

This article considers a set of well‐researched default assumptions that people make in reasoning about complex causality and argues that, in part, they result from the forms of causal induction that we engage in and the type of information available in complex environments. It considers how information often falls outside our attentional frame such that covariation falls short, mechanisms can be nonobvious, and the testimony that others offer is typically subject to the same constraints as our own perceptions. It underscores the importance of multiple modes of causal induction used in support of one another when discerning and teaching about causal complexity. It considers the importance of higher order reflection on the nature of causality that recognizes the challenging features of complex causality and how it interacts with human causal cognition.     

社会化搜索研究进展综述

首先,引入互联网群体协作的思想,对社会化搜索的概念进行初步界定;随后,在宏观与微观两个层面上,重点从动因（why）、用户（who）、目标（what）、形式（how）4个维度对社会化搜索的概念进行深入解析,并分别从行为、技术、应用、资源4个视角对当前社会化搜索的主要研究内容和主题进行归纳,试图从理论上明晰社会化搜索今后的研究思路与方向;最后阐述当前社会化搜索的研究不足和发展趋势。