Social skills interventions across school settings: Case study reviews of students with mild disabilities

This study investigates the efficacy of a social skills training program with seven mildly handicapped students across three school settings: regular classroom, special education resource room, and recess. It was found that social skills training generated improvement on both pre-post measures and behavior ratings. Improvements were maintained 2 weeks after treatment was discontinued for seven students. All students' performance generalized from resource room to regular classroom settings; only four students' performance generalized to the recess setting.     

Gravity-oriented microfluidic device for uniform and massive cell spheroid formation

We propose a simple method for forming massive and uniform three-dimensional (3-D) cell spheroids in a multi-level structured microfluidic device by gravitational force. The concept of orienting the device vertically has allowed spheroid formation, long-term perfusion, and retrieval of the cultured spheroids by user-friendly standard pipetting. We have successfully formed, perfused, and retrieved uniform, size-controllable, well-conditioned spheroids of human embryonic kidney 293 cells (HEK 293) in the gravity-oriented microfluidic device. We expect the proposed method will be a useful tool to study in-vitro 3-D cell models for the proliferation, differentiation, and metabolism of embryoid bodies or tumours.     

Size-dependent trajectories of DNA macromolecules due to insulative dielectrophoresis in submicrometer-deep fluidic channels

In this paper, we demonstrate for the first time that insulative dielectrophoresis can induce size-dependent trajectories of DNA macromolecules. We experimentally use λ (48.5 kbp) and T4GT7 (165.6 kbp) DNA molecules flowing continuously around a sharp corner inside fluidic channels with a depth of 0.4 μm. Numerical simulation of the electrokinetic force distribution inside the channels is in qualitative agreement with our experimentally observed trajectories. We discuss a possible physical mechanism for the DNA polarization and dielectrophoresis inside confining channels, based on the observed dielectrophoresis responses due to different DNA sizes and various electric fields applied between the inlet and the outlet. The proposed physical mechanism indicates that further extensive investigations, both theoretically and experimentally, would be very useful to better elucidate the forces involved at DNA dielectrophoresis. When applied for size-based sorting of DNA molecules, our sorting method offers two major advantages compared to earlier attempts with insulative dielectrophoresis: Its continuous operation allows for high-throughput analysis, and it only requires electric field strengths as low as ∼10 V∕cm.     

Supervision and evaluation: The Wyoming perspective

The intent of this study was to assess the perceptions and actions of Wyoming principals concerning their role in supervising and evaluating teachers. A survey was sent to all 286 principals in the state of Wyoming, of which, 143 returned surveys, a response rate of 50%. Findings suggested that principals utilized supervisory behaviors more often than evaluative behaviors. Elementary principals perceived their evaluative practices as significantly more prevalent than secondary principals. Furthermore, principals indicated that their greatest frustrations in supervising teachers were time, the evaluation instrument, and teachers’ unwillingness to change. Additionally, findings suggested that Wyoming principals utilized classroom walkthroughs because they provided a snapshot of teaching and provided a medium for providing feedback. In regards to developmental supervision, principals indicated that novice teachers received much more supervision than veteran teachers. However, their reported use of differentiated supervision only applied to teacher autonomy concerning professional development goals. Principals reported that teachers had little input concerning the methods by which they were supervised. Finally, a majority of the Wyoming principals felt that improvement plans were effective at changing mediocre teaching behaviors, but 40% were speculative that such plans truly remediated poor teachers.     

Memory Self-Efficacy,Aging, and Memory Performance: The Roles of Effort and Persistence

The relative importance of mental effort, as indicated by strategy use, and persistence as potential mediators of the memory self-efficacy (MSE)/memory performance relationship was investigated within a sample of 26 adults aged 65 years and older. It was found that persistence but not strategy use was predictive of performance on a free-recall task. Age-related declines were found in persistence, performance, and MSE but not in strategy use. Counter to expectation, neither strategy use nor persistence was significantly related to a global measure of MSE. These results highlight the importance in MSE research of distinguishing mental effort and persistence, of task-specific measures of MSE, and of considering age-related changes within the elderly population. Implications for MSE intervention programs are briefly discussed.     

Multi‐sensory storytelling as an aid to assisting people with profound intellectual disabilities to cope with sensitive issues: a multiple research methods analysis of engagement and outcomes

The importance of storytelling in social, cultural and educational contexts is well established and documented. The extension of storytelling to people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) has in recent years been undertaken with an emphasis on the value of sensory experience and the context storytelling provides for social interaction. The present study builds on earlier curriculum orientated research with a view to describe patterns of social and story‐oriented interaction during storytelling. The stories dealt with sensitive topics raised by family carers who wished the young person with PIMD to understand. Behavioural observation during storytelling sessions explored changes in engagement while semi‐structured interviews with parents and professionals explored the extent to which the experience had benefitted the young person with respect to the sensitive topic. Positive changes in engagement with the story were shown for seven of the eight participants. For six of the seven, a parent and a professional agreed that the outcome of the experience positively enabled the participant to cope better with the sensitive topic. The specific multi‐sensory storytelling factors leading to these outcomes are discussed, as is the issue of proxy reporting and determining the nature of understanding in people with PIMD.     

STUDY COURSE PROVISION IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A CASE STUDY

This paper describes the origins, development and characteristics of a study course for teacher‐education and industrial‐design undergraduates. Starting from identification by a handful of staff of a range of student needs, the course developed an informal, gaming approach that encouraged pooling of and reflection on a wide range of participants' study practices. This approach was found to require, and indeed to prove inseparable from, a broader reflection on the roles and rules, processes, products and assessment of undergraduate study. Staff — staff and staff — student negotiations, stimulated by the processes of planning, delivering and reflecting upon this course, come to be seen as constituting a promising kind of staff and curriculum development.     

Cumulative childhood trauma and psychological maladjustment of sexually abused children in Korea: Mediating effects of emotion regulation

The purpose of the present study was to identify the mediating effects of emotion regulation on the association between cumulative childhood trauma and behavior problems in sexually abused children in Korea, using structural equation modeling (SEM). Data were collected on 171 children (ages 6–13 years) referred to a public counseling center for sexual abuse in Seoul, Korea. Cumulative childhood traumas were defined on the basis of number of traumas (physical abuse, witnessing domestic violence, neglect, traumatic separation from parent, and sexual abuse) and the severity and duration of traumas. Children were evaluated by their parents on emotion regulation using the Emotion Regulation Checklist and internalizing and externalizing behavior problems using the Korean-Child Behavior Checklist. SEM analyses confirmed the complete mediation model, in which emotion dysregulation fully mediates the relationship between cumulative childhood traumas and internalizing/externalizing behavior problems. These findings indicate that emotion regulation is an important mechanism that can explain the negative effects of cumulative childhood traumas and that there is a need to focus on emotion regulation in sexually abused children exposed to cumulative trauma.