Academic achievement following childhood brain disease: implications for the concept of learning disabilities.

The present study examined three hypotheses regarding the consequences of early brain damage for academic achievement: First, early brain insults will have a negative impact on achievement, even in children with normal intelligence. Second, underachievement in these children will be at least partially independent of IQ (i.e., not fully accounted for by a lowering of IQ within the average range). Third, normally intelligent children with histories of brain insult will also manifest selective cognitive dysfunctions. To test these hypotheses, we compared two groups of children who had recovered from Haemophilus influenzae type b meningitis. The "complicated" group consisted of children who, as a consequence of having sustained neurologic complications during their illness, were more likely to have had brain insults. Children in the "uncomplicated" group did not have complications with their illness and were regarded as having escaped significant central nervous system (CNS) pathology. Only children with normal hearing and a prorated Full Scale IQ of at least 80 (WISC-R) were considered. Group differences on the Wide Range Achievement Test-Revised were consistent with the first two hypotheses. Although the two groups had similar Verbal IQs, the complicated group also had a lower mean Performance IQ and performed less well on perceptually demanding neuropsychological tasks. Findings suggest that learning disabilities may have selective, brain-related cognitive antecedents; but they challenge the practice of using IQ criteria for clinical diagnosis.     

Analysis of the urban/rural broadband divide in Canada: Using GIS in planning terrestrial wireless deployment

Millions of Canadians residing in Canada's northern, isolated, rural, and remote communities do not have broadband Internet access. This situation has led to a national “broadband divide.” That is, the deployment of wireline broadband is very limited in Canada's northern, isolated, rural, and remote areas because of the significant expense of installation and maintenance of the wired infrastructure needed to reach dwellings in these locations.Terrestrial broadband wireless technology, on the other hand, does not entail the same kind of physical infrastructure. As a result, there are dramatic changes in how spatial considerations affect the provision of broadband Internet services (BIS) to areas beyond the urban zone. In particular, the spatial question is now focused on assessing the capacity for different technological solutions to reach profitable population bases, and brings to the forefront organizations that are developing non-line-of-sight (NLOS) technologies that would permit wireless Internet access over much greater distances than current solutions.We begin this paper by establishing the importance of broadband connectivity to Canada's northern, isolated, rural, and remote communities. This discussion comments on the role of the Government of Canada in the provision of broadband connectivity to residents of these communities, and outlines the current regulatory issues that govern wireless services and policy formulation.The second part of the paper illustrates the use of geographic information system (GIS) approaches in the study of wireless broadband planning and deployment. Case study findings suggest that GIS applications can make a significant contribution to the analysis of wireless deployment planning, to the understanding of the relationships between wireless signal sources and consumers, and to the spatial configuration of terrestrial wireless broadband networks. We conclude the paper by discussing how the GIS approach employed could be used to inform the public policy process with regard to increasing access to broadband Internet services in all regions of the country, and thereby providing the opportunity for all Canadians, regardless of location, to fully participate in the Information Society.     

Anonymous personalization in collaborative web search

We present an innovative approach to Web search, called collaborative search, that seeks to cope with the type of vague queries that are commonplace in Web search. We do this by leveraging the search behaviour of previous searchers to personalize future result-lists according to the implied preferences of a community of like-minded individuals. This technique is implemented in the I-SPY meta-search engine and we present the results of a live-user trial which indicates that I-SPY can offer improved search performance when compared to a benchmark search engine, across a variety of performance metrics. In addition, I-SPY achieves its level of personalization while preserving the anonymity of individual users, and we argue that this offers unique privacy benefits compared to alternative approaches to personalization.     

Science Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities: A Meta‐Analysis

Although science has received much attention as a political and educational initiative, students with learning disabilities (LD) perform significantly lower than their nondisabled peers. This meta‐analysis evaluates the effectiveness of instructional strategies in science for students with LD. Twelve studies were examined, summarized, and grouped according to the type of strategy implemented. Effect sizes (ES) were calculated for each study. Across all studies, a mean ES of .78 was obtained, indicating a moderate positive effect on students with LD science achievement. Findings also align with past reviews of inquiry‐based instruction for students with special needs, indicating that students with LD need structure within an inquiry science approach in order to be successful. Additionally, results suggest that mnemonic instruction is highly effective at increasing learning disabled students' acquisition and retention of science facts.     

Pedagogically bereft! Improving learning outcomes for children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorders

Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is the most common non‐genetic cause of learning disability, affecting around 1% of live births in Europe, and costing an estimated $2.9 million per individual across their lifespan. In adulthood, non‐reversible brain damage is often compounded by secondary disabilities in adulthood, such as mental health problems and drug addiction. The challenge for today's educators is: ‘How do we teach children with FASD?’ Their unusual style of learning and their extreme challenging behaviour is out of the experience of many teachers. This article, written by Professor Barry Carpenter, OBE, National Director of the Specialist Schools & Academies Trust Complex Learning Difficulties and Disabilities Research Project, considers the status of FASD in the UK, and provides an overview of the author's recent research into effective educational strategies within the framework of Every Child Matters. Only government‐led approaches can lead to improvements in the quality of teaching and learning for children with FASD and their future life chances.     

Defining the family: towards a critical framework for families of children with disabilities

ABSTRACT

Family‐centred approaches are widely recognized internationally as the most ecologically appropriate way of working with families of children with disabilities. Pivotal in this approach is its focus upon the needs of the whole family, rather than only the needs of the child (with a disability). It places a significant emphasis on flexible and responsive transdisciplinary service delivery and upon parent choice and decision‐making. For the family‐centred approach to become truly effective, then, we must define what constitutes a family. Or rather ask families how they define themselves. Alongside an exploration of traditional and non‐traditional family roles, this paper challenges stereotypical notions of the family, and seeks to establish the family as the core element in any service team.