In need of review: Developing Sensory Provision in Northern Ireland’s Mainstream Primary classrooms

The impact of Sensory Processing Difficulties across a range of Special Educational Needs is well researched. More recently, the impact on children’s mental health and well-being, linked with anxiety, depression and self-injurious behaviours, have redirected international research to consider the holistic benefits of sensory provision, for those with special educational provision and the wider classroom population. A SMART SURVEY was designed to collate empirical evidence regarding current sensory awareness and provision in mainstream primary schools throughout Northern Ireland, in a time efficient manner. Out of 809 schools, 164 (20.27%) fully completed the online survey. Findings indicate that Special Educational Needs Coordinator confidence in developing practice, supporting staff and children was limited and impaired by insufficient and inconsistent training opportunities. While healthcare research recommends provision by trained professionals, Occupational Therapy input was limited (n = 34; 24.8%), resulting in practice that could be detrimental rather than beneficial to children’s progress. Respondents identified a need for sensory training for teachers (n = 124; 93.94%) to ensure that the impact of Sensory Processing Difficulties on the holistic development of all children is understood. Pupil voice was undervalued (n = 5; 3.6%). Active involvement of children in the process of evaluation and intervention is recommended to enhance pupil autonomy and well-being.     

How Should Reading Disabilities Be Operationalized? A Survey of Practicing School Psychologists

School psychologists' perceptions of how reading disabilities (RD) should be operationalized were examined and compared to those of journal editorial board members in the learning disabilities field ( Speece & Shekitka, 2002 ). Participants were practicing school psychologists drawn from the membership directory of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). The sample consisted of 549 participants and was generally representative of the demographic characteristics of NASP membership at large. Results indicated that over 75% of participants endorsed using treatment validity/response to intervention (RTI), cognitive processing, and phonemic awareness as components of RD operationalization. A large percentage (61.9%) also endorsed use of an IQ‐achievement discrepancy criterion. Statistically significant differences were found between the endorsements of this study's participants and those in the Speece and Shekitka (2002) study, with our participants reporting higher endorsement of RTI, cognitive processing, and IQ‐achievement discrepancy criteria.     

Credentialling competency based education and training: a review of the literature

This paper summarises the results of a literature review conducted in late 1993 on issues related to the credentialling of competency based education and training. The credentialling review focused on seven major issues: describing the minimum requirments for a qualification; distinguishing different qualification levels; issuing statements and qualifications gained by the recognition of prior learning; using short courses to build a qualification; recording the results of competency based assessments; responsibility for keeping the records of individual achievement; and, whether the exact competencies held should be recorded on a qualification. The recent (1993) move by the National Training Board to abandon any general criteria for the determination of qualification levels and to rely solely on the advice of the relevant Competency Standards Body when determining the level of a qualification emerges as a significant development in Australian credentialling. This abandonment of general criteria,which mirrors a development in theUK system, may yet undermine the goal of achieving a more rational qualifications system in Australia. It was clear from the review that the issues and trends in the accreditation of competency based education and training in Australia, and the problems encountered, have broad parallels in the UK experience. It was also clear that much of the story is yet to unravel, and that many issues remain unresolved.     

Preschool Center Quality and School Readiness: Quality Effects and Variation by Demographic and Child Characteristics

This article examines associations between observed quality in preschool center classrooms for approximately 6,250 three‐ to five‐year‐olds and their school readiness skills at kindergarten entry. Secondary analyses were conducted using data from four large‐scale studies to estimate the effects of preschool center quality and interactions between quality and demographic characteristics and child entry skills and behaviors. Findings were summarized across studies using meta‐analytic methods. Results indicate small, but statistically significant associations for preschool center quality main effects on language and mathematics outcomes with little evidence of moderation by demographic characteristics or child entry skills and behaviors. Preschool center quality was not reliably related to socioemotional outcomes. The authors discuss possible explanations for the small effect sizes and lack of differential effects.     

Visual Attention to Global and Local Stimulus Properties in 6‐Month‐Old Infants: Individual Differences and Event‐Related Potentials

Event‐related potentials (ERPs) were utilized in an investigation of 21 six‐month‐olds’ attention to and processing of global and local properties of hierarchical patterns. Overall, infants demonstrated an advantage for processing the overall configuration (i.e., global properties) of local features of hierarchical patterns; however, processing advantages were found to vary based on individual differences in look duration. Short‐looking infants showed differences in the negative central ERP component and the late slow wave (LSW) indicating greater attention to and discrimination of changes in global properties. Analysis of the LSW revealed that long‐looking infants discriminated changes in local features, but did not discriminate changes in global properties of visual stimuli. These findings indicate that short‐ and long‐looking infants utilize different approaches when processing hierarchical patterns.     

Using Cue Cards in Inclusive Middle School Classrooms

With the increase in the number of students with disabilities receiving the majority of their instruction in inclusionary settings, middle school teachers are seeking effective methods that support all learners. Cue cards are a flexible instructional tool that middle school teachers can use to differentiate instruction. This article describes cue cards and provides examples based on middle-level common core state standards.     

Expressions of the Attachment Relationship Outside of the Strange Situation

41 preterm infants and 38 full-term infants and their mothers were observed at home at 8 and 12 months of age and in the Strange Situation at 18 months in order to compare expressions of attachment relationships in these 2 settings. There was 84% concordance in the distinctions between secure and nonsecure classifications of the mother-infant relationship made at home at 12 months and in the Strange Situation. Classifications of avoidant relationships also displayed high concordance, but only 6 of the 15 dyads classified at home as ambivalent were classified in the same way in the Strange Situation. Mothers in secure relationships as assessed in the Strange Situation were rated as more sensitive at both 8 and 12 months than mothers in either avoidant or ambivalent relationships, whereas the sensitivity of mothers in these two nonsecure relationships did not differ significantly. Infants in secure relationships in the Strange Situation were characterized by more effective secure base behavior and more affective sharing and enjoyment of physical contact, and they were less fussy or difficult during the 12-month home observations.     

The pedagogy of saneness: a schizoaffective storying of resisting sane pedagogy

This article is an autoethnographic account of a ‘schizoaffective’ sufferer learning about and navigating the environs of saneness as a graduate student resisting traditional sane pedagogic structures. Culling from theories found in adult education, Whiteness Studies, and Mad Studies to show that saneness can be conceptualized as a site of critical pedagogy, the author narrates numerous ways in which saneness is embedded in schools and society. In addition, he describes how sane performativity is taught and made educational by inducting a new notion into educational studies: the pedagogy of saneness.     

Spaces of Remembering and Forgetting: The Reverent Eye/I at the Plains Indian Museum An earlier version of this essay was presented at the 2002 convention of the Western States Communication Association.

Museums, memorials, and other historic places are key sites in the construction of collective memory and national identity. The Plains Indian Museum in Cody, Wyoming is one such space of memory where the (pre)history of “America” and its native peoples is told. Based on the view of texts as experiential landscapes, it is argued that this museum works to absolve Anglo-visitors of the social guilt regarding Western conquest through a rhetoric of reverence. This rhetorical mode invites visitors to adopt a respectful, but distanced observational gaze. A concluding section assesses the social and political consequences of memorializing in this mode.