Screening for hearing loss in early childhood programs

This study assessed the feasibility of doing hearing screening in Migrant, American Indian and Early Head Start programs using otoacoustic emissions (OAE) technology. Staff members were trained to screen 0–3-year-old children for hearing loss using hand-held OAE equipment and a multi-step screening and referral protocol. Of the 3486 children screened as a part of the study, 77% passed an OAE screening at the first step, 18% more passed an OAE screening at the second step, and 5% were ultimately referred for medical or audiological follow-up. Eighty children were identified as having a hearing loss or disorder of the outer, middle or inner ear requiring treatment. Of these 80, six had permanent bilateral or unilateral hearing loss. Although the protocol suggested that the multi-step screening procedure should be completed within a 4-week time period or less, analysis of the data showed that for children requiring more than an initial OAE screening, the length of time over which the screening was completed ranged from 7 to 12 weeks. The median time required to complete a single OAE screening session was 4 minutes per child. The results demonstrate that OAE screening of young children using this protocol is practical and effective. The implications for conducting periodic hearing screening throughout early childhood are discussed.     

An Informetric Investigation into the Potential for Change in Belgian Art Education at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

The beginning of the twentieth century was a period of pedagogical enthusiasm and renewal in the field of education. Based on a list of articles concerning art education published in Belgian periodicals between 1903 and 1923, the author undertakes an analysis of the title words in order to study how the subject was able to evolve. For this purpose, the pertinent title words are grouped into content categories. It can be seen that these content categories demonstrate specificity compared to other periods. The specificity of the subject at a given moment implies that the transformation of the subject consists of the emergence, the decline or the exchange of categories, which can also be demonstrated. The connections of these variations to historical facts are substantiated. It can therefore be stated that these variations represent the historical evolution of the subject. However, such emergence, decline and exchange of categories is only possible on condition that each category is able to vary independently of the others. This is shown by an autonomy index as well as by an 2‐test. Thus, art education did not drop from the sky as a ready‐to‐teach school subject. Art education is always what the people make of it, which makes reflection on what it could be or has to be so important at any given moment too.     

“Montrose” child life protection unit: A treatment and assessment model in child abuse intervention

In New South Wales, Australia, the Department of Youth and Community Services is empowered by statute to deal with cases of child abuse and neglect. Its child protection services include the Montrose Child Life Protection Unit which is designed to support and complement the work of both the Intake Service, Field Service and most importantly the work of child protective facilities in the community. The service has intake crisis counselling and call out resources; maintains a central register; provides a facility for crisis residential care for children and families, diagnostic assessment, and a day programme. The emphasis in service delivery in New South Wales in the area of child protection is on multidisciplinary intervention. The Department of Youth and Community Services is involved in promoting interagency cooperation and co-ordination. Over and above a philosophy that underlies service delivery is the Montrose Unit's involvement in sensitising the community to the difficult and often demanding role of parenting. Montrose represents an attempt to create an environment where parenting myths can be examined from a reality base and strategies implemented for reeducation.     

EXPERTISE AND GIFTEDNESS

The thesis of this paper is that to be gifted means being able to go through the developmental curve from novice to expert more rapidly. Central in growing expertise are the building up of pattern recognition capabilities, schema formation, proceduralization of the knowledge base, and the development of a multistrategy control structure. However gifted the person, in most domains this development takes thousands of hours of hard work. For this reason the contribution to success of sheer intellectual ability is hypothesized to be overshadowed by the personal and situational characteristics that have been found to differentiate between actually (not potentially) creative and less creative persons, e.g., an early, passionate, personal interest in a domain.     

Girls in science — An evaluation of one school's approach to the gender bias in science

Conclusions As the pilot project has only been in operation for one semester there are no profound statements that can be made. What we have at present is the base information for comparison of all data over the duration of the project. Cross tabulation of the data to date has begun. However it should be re-iterated here that there appears to be a lack of understanding by the parents' as to the reason for the all-girls classes at the school and that this situation may be due to the fact that in this school community we have the typical sex-stereotyping roles and attitudes existing. The big question is, Will this intervention strategy of single-sex science classes be effective in altering the girls views about what is appropriate for them to study or follow as a career?