Voluntary deposit of electronic publications: a learning experience

During the second half of 2002, Electronic Publishing Services (EPS) carried out a study on the likely cost impact of extending legal deposit to non‐print publications. This article is not a summary of the report, which is publicly accessible on the Web, but focuses on a number of interesting phenomena and issues that EPS encountered in the course of the study. Statistics collected confirm the rise of email for serials and the demise of CD‐ROM, yet original material in e‐book format remains scarce. The voluntary deposit scheme for non‐print publications in the UK has been a successful experiment, though not necessarily exactly as originally planned. New legislation may be enacted in 2003.     

Deficits in Orthographic Knowledge in Children Poor at Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) Tasks?

The degree to which orthographic knowledge accounts for the link between rapid automatized naming (RAN) and reading is contested, with mixed results reported. This longitudinal study compared two groups of 10- and 11-year-old children, a low RAN group (N = 69) and matched controls (N = 74), on various measures of orthographic knowledge. The low RAN group showed a deficit in orthographic knowledge, both at the level of subword letter sequences and of whole words, as well as an unexpected strength in orthographic learning. Our findings underline the persistence of RAN-related reading problems and raise questions about reading strategies in this group.     

Institutionelle Dimensionen inklusiver Schulbildung – Herausforderungen der UN-Behindertenrechtskonvention für Deutschland,Island und Schweden im Vergleich

The human rights-based orientation embedded in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which mandates inclusive education for all students and counts segregation as discrimination, poses fundamental challenges to institutionalized (special) education systems. However, it does so to different extents, with the Nordic countries having the most inclusive systems worldwide. This analysis contrasts the challenges and opportunities regarding the institutional transformation of special education and inclusive education in Germany, Iceland and Sweden. We address the questions: How do these countries provide educational supports for students considered to have special educational needs? What perspectives can be derived for the implementation of inclusive education, especially for Germany, which is still among the most segregated systems in Europe, from such comparative analysis? The study reveals key differences in three institutional dimensions that hinder or enable inclusive education ? educational ideals and disability paradigms, organizational forms, and regulations.     

General Media

THE CRITICAL COHHUNICATIONS REVIEW III: POPULAR CULTURE AND MEDIA EVENTS edited by Vincent Mosco and Janet Vasko (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1985—price not given)

GETTING INTO PRINT: THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS IN SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING by Walter W. Powell (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1985—$19.95)

MEDIA NOW edited by Donald F. Ungurait et al. (New York: Longman, 1985—price not given, paper)     

The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and Naive versus Trained Examiners

The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test is marketed as an instrument suitable for use by persons without special training in testing. A total of forty children, ranging from retarded to gifted, were tested in counter-balanced order by eight elementary school teachers and by three school psychologists. No significant differences between the S’s mean I.Q.’s in the experienced versus the naive examiner’s data were found and there were no significant treatment effects, trial effects or interactions. However, differences in the test results for certain individuals were large suggesting the necessity for cautious use in the absence of corroborating data.     

NEIGHBORHOOD SOCIOECONOMIC WELL‐BEING,HOME LITERACY,AND EARLY LITERACY SKILLS OF AT‐RISK PRESCHOOLERS

In response to growing research and policy interest in the developmental contexts of early literacy, this study examined relations between neighborhood socioeconomic well‐being, home literacy (parent–child shared reading and number of books at home), and directly assessed early literacy outcomes among 551 Head Start students in the fall of preschool. In Structural Equation Models, neighborhood socioeconomic well‐being predicted home literacy, which in turn predicted early literacy (a latent variable derived from receptive vocabulary, letter‐word identification, and concepts about print). Implications for future research concerning parent involvement at home in the context of neighborhoods and the early literacy of at‐risk preschoolers is discussed.