A Scheme to Promote Social Attention and Functional Language in Young Children with Communication Difficulties and Autistic Spectrum Disorder

This paper describes an approach to intervention that aims to foster the skill of young children with autistic spectrum disorder to share social attention and action to promote socially meaningful communication. It applies principles derived from research into pre‐linguistic development. The efficacy of the approach was evaluated through both a formal research project and within a clinical setting of a Portage scheme with groups of three to five year olds with a severe delay in their ability to communicate/autistic spectrum disorder. Outcome measures showed significantly accelerated levels of participation in social games and associated development of communication skills.     

Questioning reform in the standards movement: professional development and implementation of common core across the rural South

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were adopted in an effort to create a consistent set of standards across schools, districts, and states in order to ensure equality of educational opportunities for all students in the country. Educational reform through standardization implies that across thousands of miles and millions of students, individual classroom teachers are able to create equitable instruction based on policy and curriculum mandates. For such reform efforts to be successful, standards must be implemented with fidelity, thoroughness, and strong support from stakeholders. The present study examines the role of teacher preparation for CCSS implementation, notably in rural and economically depressed districts in the American South. Teachers were surveyed about their CCSS professional development experiences and needs, CCSS instructional and assessment practices, and perceptions of student learning related to new standards. The analysis reveals that teachers do not feel fully prepared to teach according to CCSS, and highlights areas of professional development where districts failed to support effective teacher implementation. Findings from this study illustrate inequitable professional development for teachers and provide implications for professional development types, content, and quality that teachers perceive as essential for CCSS success.     

Investigating Classroom Discourse Surrounding Partner Reading

This study examined the functions that student talk served during partner reading events in a second grade classroom. Five major themes of talk emerged from the data including organizational, disputational, word strategy, meaning making and personal talk. All of these types of talk functioned to support partner reading except for personal talk, which occurred infrequently. The classroom teacher also provided support for these same discourses through her mini-lessons and read alouds.     

Skills‐Based Training and Counseling Self‐Efficacy

The authors studied the effectiveness of the skilled counselor training model (SCTM). Counseling students who completed the SCTM demonstrated greater gains in skills acquisition and counseling self‐efficacy than counseling students who did not receive the training. At pretest, the counseling students in both groups, doing self‐appraisals, rated their performance of counseling skills significantly higher than trained raters assessed the students' performance of counseling skills. At posttest, members of the control group continued to overestimate their skills levels when compared with the ratings given by the trained raters, whereas, in comparison, students who received SCTM training underestimated their performance.     

Beyond employer engagement and skills supply: building conditions for partnership working and skills co-production in the English context

Education providers and employers working together to prepare young people and adults for employment is internationally accepted as a key factor in effective technical and vocational education. In the English context, however, we argue that two related orthodoxies have prevailed – ‘employer engagement’ and ‘skills supply’ – in which education providers have striven to gain employer involvement in their programmes and meet their skills needs. The effectiveness of these twin orthodoxies has been limited by the ‘New Low Skills Equilibrium’ (NLSE) involving a symbiosis of weaknesses on both the education and employer sides. The article draws on findings of a two-year research and development programme in East London which explored the process of education-employer partnership working to support inclusive growth in key economic sectors. The research suggested that this aim was best supported by processes of ‘co-production’ that actively involved both partners in attempting to address features of the NLSE. The research also pointed to constraining factors. The article concludes by identifying the conditions required for the realisation of co-production approaches that include the development of new collaborative structures – High Progression and Skills Networks (HPSNs) – involving a wide range of social partners at the local and regional levels.     

The risk of subsequent maltreatment allegations in families with substance-exposed infants

OBJECTIVE: This study seeks to: (1) assess the relationship between identified prenatal substance use and the risk of subsequent maltreatment allegations among families involved with child protective services; and (2) compare the types of safety threats encountered by children whose parents had substance-exposed infant (SEI) allegations to the types of safety threats faced by children whose parents had other types of allegations. METHOD: Survey data from a probability sample of parents were linked to state administrative data over a 33-month time frame. Cox regression models were conducted to assess the relative risk of subsequent allegations associated with parents whose child welfare case opened following an SEI allegation (the SEI group) compared to parents whose case opened following other types of allegations. RESULTS: The likelihood of subsequent allegations is greater among parents in the SEI group. However, the increased risk stems almost entirely from subsequent SEI-related allegations. Parents in the SEI group are not more likely to incur other types of allegations such as physical abuse or lack of supervision. CONCLUSIONS: An increased risk of subsequent maltreatment has been used to justify opening child protective cases on the basis of an SEI allegation alone. By looking closely at the types of subsequent allegations as well as the incidence of subsequent allegations, this research helps to clarify the maltreatment risks associated with SEI cases.     

Must Evolution Education that Aims at Belief Be Indoctrinating?

Science & Education - Can a teacher aim for students to believe evolution without indoctrinating them? Recent discussions of indoctrination in evolution education suggest that such teaching...     

Complementing the Australian primary school Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum: exploring children's HPE learning experiences within varying school ground equipment contexts

This paper unearths how primary school children experience and can complement the Australian HPE curriculum within three unique school ground equipment scenarios that include an ‘empty’, ‘loose parts’ and a ‘traditional’ school ground context. Using direct observation, 490 scans were undertaken of the school grounds over five days. Field note observations recorded children's HPE learning experiences according to the curriculum, and predominant physical activity types and intensities were recorded. Implementing a variety of school ground equipment provisions was revealed to be important compared to the ‘empty’ school ground context for primary school children to meet HPE curriculum objectives.