A Little Learning is a Dangerous Thing: Factors Influencing the Increased Identification of Special Educational Needs from the Perspective of Education Policy-makers and School Practitioners

This article considers the increased identification of special educational needs in Australia’s largest education system from the perspectives of senior public servants, regional directors, principals, school counsellors, classroom teachers, support class teachers, learning support teachers, and teaching assistants (n = 30). While their perceptions of an increase generally align with the story told by official statistics, participants’ narratives reveal that school-based identification of special educational needs is neither art nor science. This research finds that rather than an objective indication of the number and nature of children with special educational needs, official statistics may be more appropriately viewed as a product of funding eligibility and the assumptions of the adults who teach, refer, and assess children who experience difficulties in school and with learning.     

Communication between Children with Deafness,Blindness and Deafblindness and their Social Partners: An Intersubjective Developmental Perspective

Trevarthen’s theory of innate intersubjectivity is relevant to understanding communication problems in children with sensory disabilities. Trevarthen and Aitken used the term “intersubjectivity” to describe “the ability of humans to detect and change each other’s minds and behavior”. When children lack auditory and/or visual means of interaction, they may not be able to fully develop intersubjectivity, which impedes the development of more complex interpersonal communication. This article presents a review of 31 studies about intersubjectivity in children with sensory disabilities. The results indicate that the intersubjective development of children with sensory disabilities is often delayed. The studies also describe similar strategies for mediating intersubjectivity in children with sensory disabilities and in typical children, but say that specific adaptations may be needed. From an intersubjectivity perspective, symbolic communication delays in children with sensory disabilities may be improved through specific, purposeful forms of social interaction.     

Learning through Feature Prediction: An Initial Investigation into Teaching Categories to Children with Autism through Predicting Missing Features

Individuals with autism have difficulty generalising information from one situation to another, a process that requires the learning of categories and concepts. Category information may be learned through: (1) classifying items into categories, or (2) predicting missing features of category items. Predicting missing features has to this point been little used in special education. Children with autism were taught novel category information through either classification or feature prediction tasks. Both methods resulted in successful category learning. Furthermore, feature prediction learning resulted in better performance when predicting missing features of items at test. These results suggest that while both tasks are valuable tools for teaching categories to children with autism, the feature prediction task provides more successful post-learning use of the information acquired.     

Are our Special Education Students Ready for Work? An Investigation of the Teaching of Job-related Social Skills in Northern Taiwan

This study is concerned with the current job preparation programmes for special education students in Taiwan. Two hundred and three randomly selected special education teachers in Northern Taiwan responded to a questionnaire about job-related social skills. The relationship between teachers’ demographic characteristics and their teaching of job-related social skills was examined. In general, teachers’ pedagogical practices were found to focus more on the basic job-related social skills (such as proper attire, hygiene, punctuality and attendance) than on the advanced job-related social skills (such as cooperation and emotion management). Interestingly, teachers with a special education degree tended to nurture both dimensions of job-related social skills. Additionally, teacher experience was found to be a key contributor to the teaching of job-related social skills, with less experienced teachers more likely to downplay the teaching of such skills.     

The Inclusion of Children with ASD: Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour as a Theoretical Framework to Explore Peer Attitudes

This study used the Theory of Planned Behaviour to explore the attitudes, behavioural intentions and behaviour of 318 mainstream primary school children in an urban East London borough towards peers with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Pupils were presented with a vignette about a hypothetical peer with ASD then completed self-report questionnaires and peer socio-metric measures. The results showed that children’s attitudes, the social pressure they felt from others and the amount of control they felt they had over their own behaviour, significantly predicted their behavioural intentions to befriend a peer with ASD. The strongest association was between perceived behavioural control and behavioural intentions. A significant association was also found between children’s behavioural intentions and actual behaviour towards an included peer. Support was therefore found for the use of the Theory of Planned Behaviour as a valuable tool by which to explore the social inclusion of children with ASD.     

The Pedagogic Beliefs of Indonesian Teachers in Inclusive Schools

This research explores, for the first time, the pedagogical orientations of Indonesian teachers in the context of inclusive education. A mixed-method approach was used for an analysis of questionnaire data from 140 teachers and qualitative interviews from 20 teachers in four inclusive schools. The findings suggest that, in general, the implicit orientation of teachers is social constructivist. This orientation is also reflected in their reported classroom practices. Although less common, more directive pedagogical approaches appear to have an impact upon the flexibility of roles within two teacher inclusive classrooms. Whilst the number of disabled pupils within each class was a significant issue for interviewees, no pupils were deemed unteachable in their classrooms. Furthermore, what is described by the teachers as a “special pedagogy” typically entailed additional teaching time and modified assessments, and consequently could be framed as “good teaching for all”. The questionnaires also contained responses from student and special school teachers and support the view that teachers’ beliefs about inclusive pedagogy are mediated by experience and occupation.     

The psychology of containment: (mis) representing emotional and behavioural difficulties in Australian schools

The number of students in special schools has increased at a rapid rate in some Australian states, due in part to increased enrolment under the categories of emotional disturbance (ED) and behaviour disorder (BD). Nonetheless, diagnostic distinctions between ED and BD are unclear. Moreover, despite international findings that students with particular backgrounds are over-represented in special schools, little is known about the backgrounds of students entering such settings in Australia. This study examined the government school enrolment data from New South Wales, the most populous of the Australian states. Linear and quadratic trends were used to describe the numbers and ages of students enrolled in special schools in the ED and BD categories. Changes between 1997 and 2007 were observed. Results showed an over-representation of boys that increased across the decade and a different pattern across age for boys and girls. Consistent with international findings, these results indicate that trends in special school placements are unrelated to disability prevalence in the population. Rather, it is suggested that schools act to preserve time and resources for others by removing their more challenging students: most typically, boys.     

高校健美操专项课教学现状与社会需求相关分析

运用文献资料法、比较分析法、专家访谈法对大连市15所健身俱乐部与辽宁师范大学体育学院体育教育专业健美操专选课现状及专选学生的就业情况进行了调查与分析,结果表明：学生就业于健身俱乐部趋势明显;体院健美操课程滞后于健身俱乐部的发展,健美操课程改革势在必行。     

价值文化视角下习练太极拳对聋哑人群影响研究

在这个现代化及数字化的时代里,人们的生活质量越来越好,消费方式越来越多,但同时也伴随着越来越多疾病的发生,例如脑瘫、残疾、聋哑等等现象（其统称为特殊人群）,导致这一类人群很大程度上疏远了社会生活,以及对他们的身心、生活等各方面造成不必要的麻烦。文章就是从价值方面,以聋哑人为例,采用文献资料法、逻辑分析法、归纳法,对习练太极拳会对他们的生活各方面可能产生的影响进行分析研究。     

新型无缝球时代乒乓球专项体能训练方法与研究

采用问卷调查法,专家访谈法,文献资料法,数据分析法研究新型无缝球的各种特点,针对新型无缝球的特点与要求研究适应的乒乓球专项体能的训练方法。