Spelling errors and phonemic segmentation ability: the nature of the relationship

Poor spellers/readers and younger normal children of similar spelling and reading ability carried out phonemic segmentation and spelling tasks. The poor spellers were impaired relative to controls in their ability to detect the odd word out where the middle or final phoneme of the word differed from that of the other items in the list. For example, in the series ‘dot',‘cot',‘pot', 'bat', the word ‘bat’ differs from the other items in terms of its middle vowel. Spelling errors were classified as being ‘pre-phonetic',‘phonetic', or ‘transitional’ in character, according to Morris and Perney's (1984) developmental scheme.‘Transitional’ errors indicate a knowledge of English orthography, and are relatively easy for the reader to decode phonetically, for example, green ?>‘grene', whereas ‘phonetic’ errors indicate a level of phonetic awareness which is not matched by an ability to represent the word according to the conventions of English spelling, for example green ?>‘gren'. Poor spellers were found to make significantly fewer ‘transitional’ errors than controls, there being a non-significant tendency for them to make more ‘pre-phonetic’ and ‘phonetic’ errors. It was found that performance on the odd word out task correlated significantly with the occurrence of ‘transitional’ errors, there being no such relationship with ‘phonetic’ errors.     

An investigation of listening and listening‐while‐reading accommodations on reading comprehension levels and rates in students with emotional disorders

Researchers used alternating treatment designs to investigate the effects of listening‐while‐reading (LWR) and listening interventions on comprehension levels and rates in four middle school students with emotional disorders. During LWR, students were instructed to read passages silently along with experimenters. During the listening condition, we did not give students a printed copy of the passage but merely instructed them to listen as an experimenter read the passages aloud. The control condition consisted of students reading passages silently. After each condition, students answered 10 comprehension questions without referring back to the printed passage. Although neither intervention resulted in comprehension levels consistently superior to those of the silent reading control condition, LWR and listening resulted in higher rates of comprehension than the silent reading control condition across all four students. However, listening appeared to improve reading comprehension rates in only two students. These results suggest that LWR may be an efficient procedure for enhancing comprehension across content areas with groups of students who have heterogeneous reading skills. The discussion focuses on future applied research with students with disabilities. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 42: 39–51, 2005.     

The impact of the GATS on transnational tertiary education: Comparing experiences of New Zealand,Australia, Singapore and Malaysia

This paper examines the impact of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) on transnational higher education in four countries: New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia. The GATS is a multilateral agreement through which WTO members commit to voluntary liberalisation of trade in services, including education. Transnational (or offshore) education refers to education that is delivered by an institution based in one country to students located in a different country. Two of the countries considered, New Zealand and Australia, have made commitments under GATS to allow relatively unrestricted cross-border provision of education in their countries, while the other two countries, Singapore and Malaysia, have made no such commitment. There is currently considerable activity in renegotiating countries’ commitments to GATS as part of the Doha round of WTO negotiations, and simultaneously bilateral free trade agreements are being proposed between countries in the region. In this context, this paper examines the practical impact that GATS has had on these two countries that have made commitments regarding education, and the likely impact that similar commitments by Malaysia and Singapore would have on the tertiary education systems in those major importing countries.     

Trinucleotide repeats and neuropsychiatric disorders

Expansions of trinucleotide repeats at the level of genomic DNA are increasingly recognized as a cause of a number of neuropsychiatric disorders. Triplet repeat disorders are commonly classified into two groups, those with moderate CAG expansions that result in a polyglutamine stretch in the gene products and those with very long expansions, usually non-CAG, that are not translated. The triplet repeat intergeneration and intra-generational instability, and genetic anticipation characterize disorders. Most of the diseases caused by expanded CAG repeat share common features, which include neurodegeneration, a dominant pattern of inheritance and widespread expression of the gene products with neuronal loss restricted to distinct subset of neurons. Neurodegenerative changes associated of CAG expansion disorders is explained in terms of intra and extra cellular aggregation of mutant gene products, the insoluble nature of the protein(s) being attributed to the presence of polyglutamine stretches, hence their neurotoxic effects. methods based on poymerase chain reaction have become handy in the diagnosis of these genetic disorders. Progress in transgenic animal models for these disorders will be critical for understanding the progress of these disorders and for testing new therapeutic strategies.     

Examining agreement and longitudinal stability among traditional and RTI-based definitions of reading disability using the affected-status agreement statistic

Rates of agreement among alternative definitions of reading disability and their 1- and 2-year stabilities were examined using a new measure of agreement, the affected-status agreement statistic. Participants were 288,114 first through third grade students. Reading measures were Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills Oral Reading Fluency and Nonsense Word Fluency, and six levels of severity of poor reading were examined (25th, 20th, 15th, 10th, 5th, and 3rd percentile ranks). Four definitions were compared, including traditional unexpected low achievement and three response-to-intervention-based definitions: low achievement, low growth, and dual discrepancy. Rates of agreement were variable but only poor to moderate overall, with poorest agreement between unexpected low achievement and the other definitions. Longitudinal stability was poor, with poorest stability for the low growth definition. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

The Impact of University of Zululand Structural and Cultural Contexts on Postgraduate Supervision Practice (2011–2016)

There is a constant interplay between the “people” (agency) and the “parts” (structure and culture), not only in teaching and learning, but also in postgraduate supervision practices globally. However, in South Africa, the tendency to use structure (higher education architecture, institutional history, institutional rules, policies and procedures) to address all challenges related to postgraduate (especially doctoral) studies has resulted in university managers ignoring the role that institutional research culture (social norms, expectations and practice) plays, not only in perpetuating some of these challenges, but also in understanding and resolving them. At the University of Zululand (UniZulu), these factors combine to affect not only the postgraduate supervision practices of supervisors, but also the quality of doctoral throughput (doctorateness) with overall implications for society in general. This article is a critical self-reflection on the author’s postgraduate supervision practice at UniZulu between 2011 and 2016 with a view to highlight how structure and culture combine to impact on his supervision work at the institution. The discussion shows how these factors impact on the quality of doctoral output with implications for the author’s practice and society in general. To deal with the challenges arising from the discussion, the article recommends: establishing a dedicated postgraduate studies unit headed by a director or dean as supervisors and supervisees need a support system that functions optimally; improving staff qualifications and training of supervisors to keep up with best practice in postgraduate supervision; and the Department of Higher Education and Training factoring differentiation realities into its funding modules for universities.     

Why Go to a Counsellor? Attitudes to, and Knowledge of Counselling in Australia, 2002

Knowledge about, and attitudes to counselling and counsellors were surveyed in 226 participants representative of the general public in northern New South Wales and the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia. As well as information about the training required, types of treatment offered, familiarity with a counselor, benefits and drawbacks of counselling, and issues of cost, professionalism and registration, participants were also asked whether they had sought, or would ever seek the assistance of a counselor, and what it was that counsellors did that could be of benefit to participants. Data indicated that the sample considered that counsellors' primary roles were listening, supporting, and helping to solve problems. About 80% of all participants thought there needed to be more counsellors, and 79% stated that they would be willing to pay for a counsellor's services. A series of questions asked participants to make some comparisons between counsellors, psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers on issues such as: communicative ability, whether they would refer a friend in need, type of treatment offered, and what specific problems were best treated by each of the four professionals. Overall, counselors were most likely to be consulted for 13 of 20 presenting problems. Issues of professional training and recognition are discussed.