Intensive instruction affects brain magnetic activity associated with oral word reading in children with persistent reading disabilities

Fifteen children ages 7 to 9 years who had persistent reading difficulties despite adequate instruction were provided with intensive tutorial interventions. The interventions targeted deficient phonological processing and decoding skills for 8 weeks (2 hours per day) followed by an 8-week, 1-hour-per-day intervention that focused on the development of reading fluency skills. Spatiotemporal brain activation profiles were obtained at baseline and after each 8-week intervention program using magnetoencephalography during the performance of an oral sight-word reading task. Changes in brain activity were found in the posterior part of the middle temporal gyrus (Brodmann's Area [BA] 21: increased degree of activity and reduced onset latency), the lateral occipitotemporal region (BA 19/37: decreased onset latency of activation), and the premotor cortex (increased onset latency). Overall changes associated with the intervention were primarily normalizing, as indicated by (a) increased activity in a region that is typically involved in lexical--semantic processing (BA 21) and (b) a shift in the relative timing of regional activity in temporal and frontal cortices to a pattern typically seen in unimpaired readers. These findings extend previous results in demonstrating significant changes in the spatiotemporal profile of activation associated with word reading in response to reading remediation.     

Information Systems and Nongovernmental Development Organizations: Advocacy, Organizational Learning, and Accountability

This article highlights a set of critical issues for information systems research that can be fruitfully explored through the study of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in developing countries. At the same time, the article argues that research on development NGOs needs to draw more fully on the study of information systems. A case study of the Association for Credit and Empowerment (ACE), a large NGO in Bangladesh that is currently reviewing its information management systems, forms the main part of the article. Our analysis identifies contextual factors that influence the effectiveness of information systems and the overall management of NGOs.     

E-Government Policy and Health Information Systems Implementation in Andhra Pradesh,India: Need for Articulation of Linkages Between the Macro and the Micro

In recent years, many different types of e-government projects have been implemented across the developing world. One important application area, especially following the Millennium Development Goals, is the introduction of health information systems to improve the management of health care for development. Despite significant investments in these projects, experience reveals a disjuncture between macro-level policy priorities and micro-level implementation of these programmes. We use a broad conceptualization of evaluation to synthesize priorities at different levels during the implementation of an e-government project—the Health Information Systems Project (HISP) in Andhra Pradesh, India. This enables us to identify important enabling processes and conditions which serve to connect policy and implementation priorities. Our findings suggest that evaluation does help us to understand the disjuncture between policy at the macro level and implementation at the micro level and to identify linkages between the two. Finally, we discuss some of the key institutional issues that need to be addressed to translate the learning derived from the field into policy actions.     

Validity and reliability of the classroom participation questionnaire with deaf and hard of hearing students in public schools

The Classroom Participation Questionnaire (CPQ) was administered to 136 deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) students attending general education classrooms in Grades 4-10. The CPQ is a student-rated measure that yields scores for Understanding Teachers, Understanding Students, Positive Affect, and Negative Affect. Validity and reliability of a long (28-item) and a short (16-item) form are reported. We provide evidence of (a) internal structure validity through an examination of the relationships between the subscales and an analysis of interitem reliability within each scale, (b) reliability over time by examining the scores of students over a 3-year period, and (c) external structure validity through an examination of the relationships of the CPQ with measures of teacher-rated academic competence and Stanford achievement scores. The results suggest that both the long and short form of the CPQ can be used to assess participation of D/HH students in general education classrooms.     

An Information-Based Model of NGO Mediation for the Empowerment of Slum Dwellers in Bangalore

With the rapid increase in population coupled with the seemingly irreversible flow of people from rural to urban areas, cities in the developing world are acquiring unplanned and uncontrolled squatter settlements at their peripheries. The provision of urban services and infrastructure in these cities is hampered by the failure of formal bureaucratic government institutions to collect appropriate information for planning, especially in areas that fall outside the remit of the formal networks. A growing number of grass-roots nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have sought to rectify the situation by acting as intermediaries between urban slum dwellers and the government. In this article, we review the literature on forms of intermediation by NGOs and other organizations working for citizen groups. We then present a case study of Jana Sahayog, an NGO operating in the slums of Bangalore, which employs an information-based model of NGO-mediated intervention. The article describes the various information-based initiatives that Jana Sahayog has undertaken to open up channels of communication between citizens and the government. Jana Sahayog's experience offers valuable lessons for NGOs operating in other parts of the world.     

E-Government Policy and Health Information Systems Implementation in Andhra Pradesh, India: Need for Articulation of Linkages Between the Macro and the Micro

In recent years, many different types of e-government projects have been implemented across the developing world. One important application area, especially following the Millennium Development Goals, is the introduction of health information systems to improve the management of health care for development. Despite significant investments in these projects, experience reveals a disjuncture between macro-level policy priorities and micro-level implementation of these programmes. We use a broad conceptualization of evaluation to synthesize priorities at different levels during the implementation of an e-government project—the Health Information Systems Project (HISP) in Andhra Pradesh, India. This enables us to identify important enabling processes and conditions which serve to connect policy and implementation priorities. Our findings suggest that evaluation does help us to understand the disjuncture between policy at the macro level and implementation at the micro level and to identify linkages between the two. Finally, we discuss some of the key institutional issues that need to be addressed to translate the learning derived from the field into policy actions.