Foreword

Annals of Dyslexia -     

Transparency and technological change: Ensuring equal and sustained public access to government information

The Obama administration campaigned on the platform of increased transparency and access to government information after the limitations of the Bush years. As part of this focus on transparency, the Obama administration is emphasizing the use of e-government and new social media services to open up access to government. This paper explores the considerations and challenges of this approach, such as the inclusion of members of the public with limited access to the internet, the use of non-governmental channels to disseminate government information, the permanence of digital-born government information, and the design of e-government.     

A twin-study of sleep difficulties in school-aged children

This study examines frequency, overlap, and genetic and environmental influences on sleep difficulties, which are understudied in school-aged children. The Sleep Self Report and the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire were completed by 300 twin pairs (aged 8 years) and their parents. Child report suggested more frequent sleep problems than parent report (e.g., regular sleep onset delay was reported by 45% of children and 17% of parents). Associations between most of the sleep difficulties were small but significant (e.g., r(s)=.16 for parent report of bedtime resistance and sleep onset delay). Twin correlations based on parent reports suggest greater genetic influence (M=50%) than those based on child self-report (M=18%). Possible rater effects should be considered when evaluating children's sleep problems.     

Community‐based early intervention for children with behavioural,emotional and social problems: evaluation of the Scallywags Scheme

Scallywags is a community‐based, early intervention programme for young children (aged 3–7) with behavioural, emotional and social problems, which integrates work in the home and school with a parenting curriculum and direct work with children. A pre‐post intervention study across multi‐sites of 340 participants is reported. Using standardised measures, the study found statistically significant reductions in problems at home and school experienced by children who completed the programme, and in parental stress levels. Participation was found to be high and the project acceptable to parents, many of whom would be described as hard to reach. The rigorous evaluation of this real‐life service and its positive outcomes highlight the potential of such programmes to tackle the needs of these children and families, and help prevent longer‐term problems associated with early onset behavioural problems, including social exclusion, antisocial behaviour and educational failure.     

Provision of Special Education Services to Youth in Local Jails

The Alexandria Virginia Office of the Sheriff and the Alexandria Virginia Public School Board participated for two years in a state funded grant which focused on the delivery of special education services and regular compulsory education services to juveniles and young adults through the age of 21 years who were committed to the Alexandra Adult Detention Center. Provision of special education services to eligible individuals in jails is a unique concept and rarely provided given the transient, short-term nature of the population and other demands of the setting. The program model of team teaching supported full time inclusion of special education students with the general and compulsory education programs in the jail.     

Developing Service Area Indices for Community Colleges: California's Method and Experience

The economic, educational and social environments of the students served by a community college are important factors in college performance accountability, policy analysis, program evaluation, and strategic planning. For example, previous research shows that income per county is a significant predictor of transfer rates for community colleges. However, conditions for the actual geographic area of the students served by a community college may differ, for various reasons, from the economic conditions for the county in which the college is located. This article describes the development of institutional or college-level indices as an enhancement to county-level data, their use as adjustment variables for California's Accountability Reporting for the Community Colleges (ARCC), and their applicability to other research and planning studies. The service area indices are created by combining the enrollment patterns of students by ZIP Code of residence with ZCTA (ZIP Code Tabulation Area) level economic and educational data from Census 2000.