Revisiting the Strange Stories: Revealing Mentalizing Impairments in Autism

A test of advanced theory of mind (ToM), first introduced by F. Happé (1994) , was adapted for children (mental, human, animal, and nature stories plus unlinked sentences). These materials were closely matched for difficulty and were presented to forty-five 7- to 12-year-olds with autism and 27 control children. Children with autism who showed ToM impairment on independent tests performed significantly more poorly than controls solely on the mental, human, and animal stories with greatest impairment on the former and least on the latter. Thus, a mentalizing deficit may affect understanding of biologic agents even when this does not explicitly require understanding others' mental states.     

On Consultation and Beginner Educational Psychologists

In this article, we describe some of our purposes and processes when introducing consultation as a comprehensive model of service delivery to course members in their programme of initial professional education. We also note some of the impacts from this model, both in the course modules and the placement experiences. While it is written from the perspective of course tutors, we hope that this account may trigger useful thoughts for readers-about their own initial training, about their current model of practice, about their current professional development or even their current contribution to initial training.     

Exclusion from School and Racial Equality: an examination of government proposals in the light of recent research evidence

Throughout the 1990s there have been growing concerns from teacher unions, local education authorities (LEAs) and central government about the rising level of pupil exclusions from schools in England and the related issue of school discipline. School exclusion has also been given a high profile in the media, with attention often focusing on cases where the original decision to exclude has been overturned on appeal. Although certain ethnic groups are over‐represented among those excluded from school, issues of race and ethnicity have largely been ignored in the public debate on exclusions and the question of possible racial discrimination overlooked. This article reports on a study to identify good practice in reducing the number of exclusions from school, particularly the disproportionate number amongst African‐Caribbean boys. The study draws on statistical data from Birmingham, the largest metropolitan LEA, and on interviews with teachers and headteachers in six West Midlands case study schools. This data was supplemented by interviews with key personnel from a variety of West Midlands authorities and by questionnaires to pupils in the case study schools. We examine recent government proposals to cut exclusions in the light of this study's findings and the context of racial equality     

Transcending widgets: the nature of technical services

This paper was presented as the keynote address at the Ohio Library Council, Technical Services Division conference,“Technical Services, 2003: Inspiration, Example, Synthesis” at Mohican State Park, Ohio, May 7, 2003. The keynote was to fill the role of “inspiration.” The author considers why technical services personnel may feel isolated, misunderstood, or dispensable; why technical services personnel may be misunderstood or underappreciated by others; the nature and mission of librarianship and how technical services relates to them; the consequences of having a bad image and a bad self-image; and how harmful opinions and actions might be countered.     

Assessment of Customer Service in Academic Health Care Libraries (ACSAHL): an instrument for measuring customer service

OBJECTIVES: In a pilot study, the library had good results using SERVQUAL, a respected and often-used instrument for measuring customer satisfaction. The SERVQUAL instrument itself, however, received some serious and well-founded criticism from the respondents to our survey. The purpose of this study was to test the comparability of the results of SERVQUAL with a revised and shortened instrument modeled on SERVQUAL. The revised instrument, the Assessment of Customer Service in Academic Health Care Libraries (ACSAHL), was designed to better assess customer service in academic health care libraries. METHODS: Surveys were sent to clients who had used the document delivery services at three academic medical libraries in Texas over the previous twelve to eighteen months. ACSAHL surveys were sent exclusively to clients at University of Texas (UT) Southwestern, while the client pools at the two other institutions were randomly divided and provided either SERVQUAL or ACSAHL surveys. RESULTS: Results indicated that more respondents preferred the shorter ACSAHL instrument to the longer and more complex SERVQUAL instrument. Also, comparing the scores from both surveys indicated that ACSAHL elicited comparable results. CONCLUSIONS: ACSAHL appears to measure the same type of data in similar settings, but additional testing is recommended both to confirm the survey's results through data replication and to investigate whether the instrument applies to different service areas.