The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers levels of training, perceptions of competence, and past and present practices regarding reading assessment for student with emotional and/or behavioural disorders (EBD). For the purpose of the study, EBD was defined as, a disability characterized by behavioural or emotional responses in school programs so different from appropriate age, cultural, or ethnic norms that they adversely affect educational performance, including academic, social, vocational or personal skills (Forness & Knitzer, 1992, p. 13). An adapted version of the survey entitled, A National Survey of the Training and Practice of School Psychologists in Reading Assessment and Intervention (Machek & Nelson, 2007) was distributed to approximately 200 teachers employed by a large urban school division in Western Canada. One hundred and seventy-five educators responded to a 24-question survey designed to explore teachers perceptions of reading instruction, intervention, and assessment for typically achieving students and students with EBD.<p> Descriptive analyses and analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were used to examine the mean responses of teachers levels or training, perceptions of competence, and past and present reading assessment practices. Teachers with varied levels of teaching experience and specialized training were found to have received little training (university and professional development) in the area of reading instruction and reading assessment for students with EBD. Furthermore, educators believed they have a low level of expertise and confidence in the area of reading assessment and instruction, and believed they would benefit from additional training.

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In this qualitative study, parental perspectives were sought about the overall experiences of seeking support for children with Emotional/Behavioural Disorders (E/BD), from the early signs of disordered behaviour through the processes of diagnosis, assessment, and treatment. The parents of 4 children with Severe E/BD participated in interviews exploring child and family history, previous access to supports and services, and the perceived need for additional services for the child and/or family. Results were examined using multiple case study design, and indicated that parenting a child with E/BD results in significant impact on parental stress, employment, and health. The processes of assessment and diagnosis were perceived as confusing and overwhelming, and relationships with school personnel were often strained. The participants had variable experiences accessing supports outside of school. Examination of these perspectives suggests that continuity, collaboration, and communication continue to be necessary building blocks for developing effective child and family supports. / Special Education

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), according to the DSM-IV-TR, is a developmental disorder that is first identified in childhood, where children display inattention and hyperactivity, impulsivity or a combination thereof. This PhD study focuses on understanding and explaining how educators understand learners who may have ADHD in their classrooms. The main research question is: “How do educators experience learners in their classrooms who may have ADHD? ”The main research question was developed into sub-questions: 1) How do educators experience teaching and teaching the learner who may have ADHD? 2) How do educators manage their classrooms with learners in their classrooms, who may have ADHD? 3) How has the experience of educating learners who may have ADHD influenced or affected the educator? A narrative research design was employed, whereby 17 educators, from three different schools from Gauteng were interviewed. Informed consent was collected from all participants. The textual data was analysed using content theme analysis. The educators’ narratives varied according to teaching experience and maturity within the diverse context of the school environment. Five themes emerged from the data generated from the study. Findings from the study indicate that: (1) learners who may have ADHD appear to be treated differently from the other learners; (2) the educators’ keep learners who may have ADHD busy with different activities as one of the methods most commonly used in managing learners who may have ADHD; (3) the educators feel that learners who may have ADHD challenge them; (4) educators feel that they need to be able to share information with other educators on how to manage and support learners who may have ADHD and that they need outside assistance from a specialist and (5) the educators feel that parents do not pull their part in assisting educators and/or learners who may have ADHD. Subsequent to the theme analysis two interviews were then selected, instrumentally analysed and discussed in order to represent personalised accounts of educators’ experiences of learners who may have ADHD in their classrooms. Lastly, the themes have been presented as a narrative. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

Les études actuelles mettent en avant les liens entre les plans comportementaux et les plans représentationnels ; si le comportement est révélateur de la complexité et de la conflictualité psychique, le discours l’est aussi. Ainsi, par l’intermédiaire de l’activité narrative, cette recherche propose l’étude des représentations mentales, des préoccupations interpersonnelles d’enfants de 6 ans présentant des problèmes de comportements et d’enfants tout-venants. Le point de départ de cette exploration prend appui sur le postulat que l’activité narrative est un processus fondamental du fonctionnement psychique humain et que le contenu, la pauvreté ou la richesse de cette activité doivent être en lien avec la nature des comportements. Pour permettre l’évaluation de dimensions telles que les représentations de soi, de soi avec les autres, de préoccupations interpersonnelles…, nous avons fait appel à la théorie de l’attachement et à la théorie des relations d’objet. Ainsi, les tests projectifs TAT et ASCT ont été utilisés. Nos résultats exposent que chaque groupe possède des fonctionnements psychiques propres et que les liens existants entre les dimensions psychiques étudiées sont interdépendants. Mais également qu’une approche intégrative associant la théorie de l'attachement et la théorie psychanalytique des relations d’objet est possible et utile pour la compréhension des sujets qui ont un fonctionnement social pauvre. Basée sur ces résultats cette étude propose des pistes d’intervention qui visent à cibler davantage les prises en charge des enfants présentant des problèmes de comportement à l’école primaire, ce qui représente pas moins de quelques 200.000 enfants en France. / Recent studies show a link between behavioural and physical indications; that is that, if behaviour shows complex and psychological conflict, then so will speech. This is why this study will examine the narratives of six-year-old children with behavioural problems (which will be followed up by RASED) in comparison with the speech of ordinary children. This study will confirm that the narrative is the fundamental process of the working psyche and its content, poor or good, must be connected to the nature of behaviour. Thus the theories of attachment and of object relations were examined. Certain aspects were looked at such as: the capacity to visualise, consistency of narratives, self-perception, representation of others including the representation of significant people (be it reassuring or not), as well as dominant interpersonal concerns. Projective studies, such as ASCT and TAT, were used and the results showed that each group possessed their own psychological function and that the existing links between these intra-psychological processes are inter-dependent. This study shows that an integrative approach to attachment theory and the theory of psychoanalytical connection with objects is both possible and useful. This is mainly to understand children brought up in socially poor surroundings. To sum up, the results of this study highlight how important it is to use narratives in order to pin point how to take charge of primary school children who exhibit behavioural problems.

Diploma thesis deals with values and life aspirations of clients with ordered institutional education. The hesis consists of theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part deals with legislation related to replacement foster care in the Czech Republic, the etiology of risk behaviour, behavioural disorders of childhood, and the impacts of institutional education on the overall development of the personality of the child. The aim of the practical part is to map the clients of the children's home with the Liběchov School through a research survey. Focus on clients' lives before entering the DDŠ and identify their value orientation and life aspirations in the field of education and partnership in the context of (in connection with) original family environment. The results of the survey point to the perception of family value, partnership in relationships, and education. KEYWORDS eplacement foster care, risk behaviour , behavioural disorders , moral development, attachment, deprivation, family.

Empathy is a construct that plays a pivotal role in the development of interpersonal relationships, and thus ones ability to function socially and often professionally. The development of empathy in children is therefore of particular interest to allow for further understanding of normative and atypical developmental trajectories. This thesis investigated the assessment of affective empathy in children aged 5-12, through the development and comparison of a multimethod assessment approach. Furthermore this thesis evaluated the differential relationships between affective empathy and global behavioural problems in children versus the presence of early psychopathic traits, such as callous-unemotional traits. The first component of this study incorporated; a measure of facial expression of affective empathy, and self-reported experience of affective empathy, as measured by the newly designed Griffith Empathy Measure - Video Observation (GEM-VO) and the Griffith Empathy Measure - Self Report (GEM-SR); the Bryant's Index of Empathy for Children and Adolescents (1982) which is a traditional child self-report measure; and a newly designed parent-report of child affective empathy (Griffith Empathy Measure - Parent Report; GEM-PR). Using a normative community sample of 211 children from grades 1, 3, 5, and 7 (aged 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, & 11-12, respectively), the GEM-PR and the Bryant were found to have moderate to strong internal consistency. As a measure of concurrent validity, strong positive correlations were found between the mother and father reports (GEM-PR) of their child's affective empathy, for grades 5 and 7, and for girls of all age groups. Using a convenience sample of 31 parents and children aged 5 to 12, the GEM-PR and the Bryant demonstrated strong test-retest reliability. The reliability of the GEM-VO and the GEM-SR were assessed using a convenience sample of 20 children aged 5 to 12. These measures involve the assessment of children's facial and verbal responses to emotionally evocative videotape vignettes. Children were unobtrusively videotaped while they watched the vignettes and their facial expressions were coded. Children were then interviewed to determine the emotions they attributed to stimulus persons and to themselves whilst viewing the material. Adequate to strong test-retest reliability was found for both measures. Using 30% from the larger sample of 211 participants (N=60), the GEM-VO also demonstrated robust inter-rater reliability. This multimethod approach to assessing child affective empathy produced differing age and gender trends. Facial affect as reported by the GEM-VO decreased with age. Similarly, the matching of child facial emotion to the vignette protagonist's facial emotion was higher in the younger grades. These findings suggest that measures that assess the matching of facial affect (i.e., GEM-VO) may be more appropriate for younger age groups who have not yet learnt to conceal their facial expression of emotion. Data from the GEM-SR suggests that older children are more verbally expressive of negative emotions then younger children, with older girls found to be the most verbally expressive of feeling the same emotion as the vignette character; a role more complimentary of the female gender socialization pressures. These findings are also indicative of the increase in emotional vocabulary and self-awareness in older children, supporting the validity of child self-report measures (based on observational stimuli) with older children. In comparing data from the GEM-VO and GEM-SR, this study found that for negative emotions the consistency between facial emotions coded and emotions verbally reported increased with age. This consistency across gender and amongst the older age groups provides encouraging concurrent validity, suggesting the results of one measure could be inferred through the exclusive use of the alternate measurement approach. In contrast, affective empathy as measured by the two measures; the accurate matching of the participant and vignette character's facial expression (GEM-VO), and the accurate matching of the self reported and vignette character's emotion (GEM-SR); were not found to converge. This finding is consistent with prior research and questions the assumption that facially expressed and self-appraised indexes of affective empathy are different aspects of a complex unified process. When evaluating the convergence of all four measures of affective empathy, negative correlations were found between the Bryant and the GEM-PR, these two measures were also found to not converge with the GEM-VO and GEM-SR in a consistent and predictable way. These findings pose the question of whether different aspects of the complex phenomena of affective empathy are being assessed. Furthermore, the validity of the exclusive use of a child self report measure such as the Bryant, which is the standard assessment in the literature, is questioned. The possibility that callous-unemotional traits (CU; a unique subgroup identified in the child psychopathy literature) may account for the mixed findings throughout research regarding the assumption that deficiencies in empathy underlie conduct problems in children, was examined using regression analysis. Using the previous sample of 211 children aged 5-12, conduct problems (CP) were measured using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1999), and the CU subscale was used from the Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD; Caputo, Frick, & Brodsky, 1999). Affective empathy when measured by the GEM-PR and the Bryant showed differing patterns in the relationship between affective empathy, CU traits and CP. While the GEM-Father reported that neither age, CU traits nor CP accounted for affective empathy variance, the GEM-Mother report supported that affective empathy was no longer associated with CP once CU traits had been partialled out. In contrast, the Bryant reported for girls, that CU traits were not found to have an underlying correlational relationship. It can be argued from the GEM-Mother data only that it was the unmeasured variance of CU traits that was accounting for the relationship between CP and affective empathy found in the literature. Furthermore, the comparison of an altered CU subscale with all possible empathy items removed, suggests that the constructs of CU traits and affective empathy are not synonymous or overlapping in nature, but rather are two independent constructs. This multimethod approach highlights the complexity of this research area, exemplifying the significant influence of the source of the reports, and suggesting that affective empathy consists of multiple components that are assessed to differing degrees by the different measurement approaches.

The dissertation substantiates the efficacy of evidence-based teacher’s activity, teaching students with emotional and behavioural disorders in the general education school. The efficacy of evidence-based teacher’s activity is analysed according to two criteria: teacher’s learning-in-action and positive behaviour supports of the student with emotional and behavioural disorders. The qualitative study describes the teachers’ activities and experiences, defines the types of teachers’ activities and of developed interactions with the students with emotional and behavioural disorders. In order to go further into the developed interactions of the student with emotional and behavioural disorders, into the reality of the educational process and change it by encouraging evidence-based teachers’ activities and positive behaviour supports of the student with emotional and behavioural disorders, participatory action research was carried out. The reflection of the researcher’s role discloses the researcher’s versatile involvement and influence on the research process, permanently observing and actualising the researcher’s personal interaction with the participants, personal reactions, relating theoretical concepts, practical activities and reflections. The dissertation provides detailed definitions of the concepts of students with emotional and behavioural disorders, and of the structure and principles of evidence-based teacher’s activity; action took place in the reality of the... [to full text] / Disertacijoje pagrindžiamas įrodymais grįstos mokytojo veiklos veiksmingumas, ugdant emocijų ir elgesio sutrikimų turinčius mokinius bendrojo lavinimo mokykloje. Įrodymais grįstos mokytojo veiklos veiksmingumas analizuojamas dviem kriterijais: mokytojo mokymasis veikiant bei emocijų ir elgesio sutrikimų turinčio mokinio pozityvaus elgesio palaikymas. Atlikus kokybinį tyrimą, apibūdinamos mokytojų veiklos ir patirtys, apibrėžiami mokytojų vykdomų veiklų, konstruojamų sąveikų su emocijų ir elgesio sutrikimų turinčiu mokiniu tipai. Vykdyti veiklos tyrimai dalyvaujant, siekiant giliau pažinti emocijų ir elgesio sutrikimų turinčio mokinio ugdymo proceso realybę bei ją keisti, skatinant įrodymais grįstas mokytojų veiklas bei emocijų ir elgesio sutrikimų turinčio mokinio pozityvaus elgesio palaikymą. Atlikta tyrėjos vaidmens refleksija atskleidžia visapusišką tyrėjos įsitraukimą ir įtaką tyrimo procesui, nuolat stebint ir aktualizuojant asmeninę tyrėjos sąveiką su dalyviais, asmenines reakcijas, susiejant teorinius konceptus, praktines veiklas ir refleksijas. Disertacijoje detaliai apibrėžiami emocijų ir elgesio sutrikimų turinčių mokinių ugdymo konceptai, įrodymais grįstos mokytojo veiklos struktūra ir principai, pristatomos ugdymo proceso realybėje vykdytos veiklos. Remiantis atlikto disertacinio tyrimo rezultatais, pateikiamos empiriškai pagrįstos praktinės rekomendacijos mokiniams, tėvams, mokytojams ir specialistams bei mokslininkams.

Bullying, in its many different face-to-face and cyber manifestations, profoundly impacts involved youth, particularly those with special education needs. Schools have typically focused on policing the bullies, while teaching victims of bullying effective reactive responses. The objective of this study was to identify those students at greatest risk, the factors placing them at risk, and to understand the source of their consequently aggressive social behaviours and communication. Understanding root causes thereby enables schools to shift toward proactively preventing bullying behaviours. Evidence suggests that adolescents with Emotional and Behavioural Disorders (EBD) are overrepresented in the face-to-face bullying dynamic. Through a social-ecological lens, the current study compares bullying involvement among typically developing adolescents (n = 134) with EBD adolescents (n = 30), and considers how within-person characteristics of adolescents with EBD are influenced by and interact with bi-directional microsystem (i.e. family, friends, teachers, school) and macrosystem (i.e. social and educational patterns of programming) factors to increase or decrease face-to-face- and cyber-bullying involvement. As hypothesized, adolescents with EBD were significantly more involved in both face-to-face- and cyber-bullying and –victimization. Predictive factors were uniquely identified for on- and off-line bullying and victimization. The current findings demonstrate a need to approach bullying prevention proactively by aiming resources at the source of social aggression. / Graduate

This dissertation employs a case study research design and reviews literature from the field of animal assisted therapy (AAT) with an emphasis on equine facilitated psychotherapy (EFP), as a possible therapeutic alternative for treating inappropriate aggressive behaviour in a young boy. The research suggests that Horse Whispering can indeed be regarded as a viable therapeutic technique when intent on breaking the aggressive behaviour cycle. / Educational Studies / M.Ed.