HUMAN SERVICES FOR THE ELDERLY AND THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITY–COMMUNITY COLLABORATION: PERCEPTIONS OF HUMAN SERVICE AGENCY WORKERS

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, in 1998 the 65-74 years age group (18.4 million) was eight times larger than in 1900, the 75-84 years age group (12 million) was 16 times larger, and the 85 and older years age group (4 million) was 33 times larger. It is anticipated that if this trend continues, by 2030, there will be about 70 million older American persons, more than twice their number in 1998. To meet the needs of the older population, governments, foundations, nonprofit organizations, and other groups will have to continue to work on how to increase availability, accessibility, and adequacy of community-based services. One approach will be to encourage community collaboration and partnerships. Funding agencies have encouraged university-community collaboration in recent years. However, none of the studies reviewed for this paper addressed the need for the type of university-community collaboration that our study deals with (i.e., university-community agency collaboration). In particular, our study investigates human service agency workers' perceptions of the availability, accessibility, and adequacy of services to the elderly in Northwest Ohio, and how collaboration with a university can improve service delivery to consumers. The findings of the study provide a general indication of trends, experiences, and problems common to these agencies. The findings also suggest that agency workers do not necessarily have a negative perception of university-community agency collaboration, rather many do not understand how such collaborations will improve services to consumers. Recommendations regarding how to enhance university-community collaborations are made.     

Exploring the role of logographemes in Chinese handwritten word production

Reading and Writing - Recent research has demonstrated that abstract orthographic representations such as morphemes, syllables, and graphemes, influence handwritten production in languages with...     

An assessment of the minimum reading comprehension of prospective teachers as defined by a de facto standard

This study contrasts minimum reading comprehension of prospective teachers and average readability of required undergraduate textbooks. The Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) test represents student test scores and textbook readability measurements on the same scale. Over 2,274 teacher education program applicants at 21 institutions in one state participated. A representative sample of 237 books used in these schools was selected. Since the mean DRP test score for students (79.6) was much higher than the mean DRP readability for books (69.9), any difficulties in understanding the average text by the average student cannot be due to basic deficiencies in reading comprehension. However, 20% of the applicants scored below the average DRP value for all books and 33% below the average for the more difficult books. Minimum reading ability varied with plans for teaching at different grade levels and academic areas and with level of commitment to the teaching profession.