Level 6 of the Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) assesses the ease or difficulty with which persons with developmental disabilities (DD) are able to learn a two-choice auditory-visual discrimination. Individuals with DD who have passed ABLA Level 6 are likely to have at least some language skills, and their language is likely to be more complex than those individuals who have not passed Level 6 (Marion et al., 2003). Thus, an individual’s performance on Level 6 of the ABLA may be predictive of the types of language skills he/she will readily learn. Previous research (Verbeke, Martin, Yu & Martin, 2007) demonstrated that an individual’s pass/fail performance on ABLA Level 6 predicted his or her ability to point to pictures of common objects when the tester said the names of the objects. The present research examined whether performance on ABLA Level 6 might predict the ability of a person with a severe DD to learn to say the names of common objects (called tacting). Specifically, this study investigated whether participants who passed ABLA Level 6 (the Auditory-Visual Group – Group 1) would more readily learn object naming behavior (vocal tacts) than those clients who failed ABLA Level 6 (the Visual Group – Group 2). The groups were matched on the Communication Subscale of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale (VABS). Results indicated that: (a) Group 1 met mastery criterion for a significantly larger number of naming responses than Group 2; and (b) the mean number of trials to mastery criterion was significantly lower in Group 1 than in Group 2. The implications for language training are discussed.

Researchers have hypothesized that for people with autism, the deficits in learning certain tasks may be a function of deficits in learning the prerequisite auditory, visual and motor discriminations. The Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) Test is a useful tool by which these discriminations are assessed. This study investigated whether performance on ABLA Level 6, an auditory-visual discrimination, predicts performance on a receptive language task with children with autism. Participants included five children who passed ABLA Level 6, four children who passed ABLA Level 4 but failed ABLA Level 6, and one child who passed ABLA Level 3 but failed ABLA Level 4. Standardized prompting and reinforcement procedures were used to attempt to teach each participant to respond correctly on ten name-recognition tasks. During a task pictures of two objects were placed in randomly alternated left-right positions, and a child was required to point to the picture that was named. Training on a task continued until either a pass or a fail criterion was met, whichever came first. Three of the Level 4 participants passed all ten of the picture name recognition tasks, and one passed eight of the ten tasks. The Level 3 participant passed two of the ten tasks. All five of the Level 6 participants passed all picture name recognition tasks. The difference in performance between children at ABLA Level 4 and Level 6 was not significant at the .05 level. These results suggest that children with autism at ABLA Level 4 or 6 are approximately equally capable of learning receptive name recognition tasks.

Level 6 of the Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) assesses the ease or difficulty with which persons with developmental disabilities (DD) are able to learn a two-choice auditory-visual discrimination. Individuals with DD who have passed ABLA Level 6 are likely to have at least some language skills, and their language is likely to be more complex than those individuals who have not passed Level 6 (Marion et al., 2003). Thus, an individual’s performance on Level 6 of the ABLA may be predictive of the types of language skills he/she will readily learn. Previous research (Verbeke, Martin, Yu & Martin, 2007) demonstrated that an individual’s pass/fail performance on ABLA Level 6 predicted his or her ability to point to pictures of common objects when the tester said the names of the objects. The present research examined whether performance on ABLA Level 6 might predict the ability of a person with a severe DD to learn to say the names of common objects (called tacting). Specifically, this study investigated whether participants who passed ABLA Level 6 (the Auditory-Visual Group – Group 1) would more readily learn object naming behavior (vocal tacts) than those clients who failed ABLA Level 6 (the Visual Group – Group 2). The groups were matched on the Communication Subscale of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale (VABS). Results indicated that: (a) Group 1 met mastery criterion for a significantly larger number of naming responses than Group 2; and (b) the mean number of trials to mastery criterion was significantly lower in Group 1 than in Group 2. The implications for language training are discussed.

Researchers have hypothesized that for people with autism, the deficits in learning certain tasks may be a function of deficits in learning the prerequisite auditory, visual and motor discriminations. The Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) Test is a useful tool by which these discriminations are assessed. This study investigated whether performance on ABLA Level 6, an auditory-visual discrimination, predicts performance on a receptive language task with children with autism. Participants included five children who passed ABLA Level 6, four children who passed ABLA Level 4 but failed ABLA Level 6, and one child who passed ABLA Level 3 but failed ABLA Level 4. Standardized prompting and reinforcement procedures were used to attempt to teach each participant to respond correctly on ten name-recognition tasks. During a task pictures of two objects were placed in randomly alternated left-right positions, and a child was required to point to the picture that was named. Training on a task continued until either a pass or a fail criterion was met, whichever came first. Three of the Level 4 participants passed all ten of the picture name recognition tasks, and one passed eight of the ten tasks. The Level 3 participant passed two of the ten tasks. All five of the Level 6 participants passed all picture name recognition tasks. The difference in performance between children at ABLA Level 4 and Level 6 was not significant at the .05 level. These results suggest that children with autism at ABLA Level 4 or 6 are approximately equally capable of learning receptive name recognition tasks.

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The Structure-of-Intellect - Learning Abilities Test (SOI-LA) (Meeker, 1975) has an enthusiastic following in the USA, but is little-known in Australia. It is based on the Structure-of-Intellect model of J P Guilford, and through a series of up to 26 subtests, purports to identify 14 general learning abilities. Forms are designed to cater for students from Kindergarten to adult. In NSW, classroom teachers can have support for students with learning difficulties through the Support Teacher program; this support often falls far short of need, as there is a paucity of time and material resources. There is a need for a tool which can identify areas of both strength and weakness efficiently and suggest effective strategies to cater for the identified weaknesses; the Meeker paradigm is purported to address this need with a diagnostic approach which identifies learning disabilities which underlie and serve to maintain school-based learning difficulties, and prescribes materials and approaches for remediation. This study explores the first part of the Meeker paradigm, the diagnostic approach of the Structure-of-Intellect - Learning Abilities Test. This exploration is undertaken in the context of four rural Support Teachers and their student with learning difficulties from Grades 2-6. Rather than consider questions of the Test's validity, this study was designed to explore the Test's utility in the Support Teacher context, by giving the Support Teachers a working knowledge of the concepts of SOI-LA, and to compare the application of their knowledge with the information about their students' learning disabilities from the Test results. Problems are evident with the Support Teachers' knowledge and understanding of their students' disabilities; whist they felt comfortable about the approach which the Test takes, they felt they did not know their students well enough to make informed judgements about their disabilities. It was apparent from the study that the Support Teachers' understanding of the concepts of the Test was comparatively superficial, despite their impression that they did understand well. Several difficulties with the instrument itself are highlighted by this study; the assumptions underlying the derivation of the general ability scores are questioned, and the suitability of Test Forms for a learning disabled population of this age is open to criticism. The Structure-of-Intellect - Learning Abilities Test may have utility as an instrument for gaining information about a student's disability on an individual basis, and may be best in the hands of the School Counsellor.

Šio darbo tikslas yra atskleisti gamtos mokslų mokytojų mokėjimo mokytis kompetenciją. Kad pasiekti šių tikslų buvo iškelti šie uždaviniai: 1) susipažinti su psichologine ir pedagogine literatūra, susijusia su nagrinėjama tema, bei su naujausiais švietimo dokumentais Lietuvoje ir pasaulyje, 2) naudojantis gautais gamtos mokslų mokytojų anketinė apklausos duomenimis, atlikti išsamią duomenų analizę, apibendrinti rezultatus ir padaryti išvadas. Tam, kad įgyvendinti šiuos uždavinius, buvo taikomi šie metodai: 1) teoriniai: psichologinės, pedagoginės literatūros, Europos švietimo dokumentų studijavimas, leidžiantis teoriškai pagrįsti tiriamą problemą, 2) empiriniai: tikslingai sudarytų ir mokytojų atsakytų anketų analizė. Tyrimo metu naudojamasi 2007 metų nacionalinių mokinių pasiekimų tyrimų gamtos mokslų mokytojų anketomis ir duomenų baze. Siekiant ištirti kokios žinios, gebėjimai bei nuostatos atsiskleidžia gamtos mokslų mokytojų mokėjimo mokytis kompetencijos srityje, buvo detaliau analizuota tik šios srities mokytojų anketų atsakymai. Viso gamtos mokslų mokytojo anketą pildė 410 pedagogų. Remiantis mokėjimo mokytis kompetencijos apibūdinimu galima teigti, jog, tyrinėjant 2007 metų nacionalinių mokinių pasiekimų tyrimų metu naudotomis mokytojų anketomis ir juose pateiktais atsakymais, iš dalies pavyko atskleisti gamtos mokslų mokytojų mokėjimo mokytis kompetenciją. Nors gamtos mokslų pamokos neturi būti atsiejamos nuo praktikos, nemažai mokytojų naudojasi tradiciniais... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The purpose of this work is to demonstrate the competence of learning abilities of teachers of natural sciences. In order to achieve these goals, the following tasks were raised: 1) to analyze the psychological and pedagogical literature related to the investigated topic and to the latest educational documents in Lithuania and in the world, 2) to carry out a detailed data analysis by using the questionnaire of teachers of natural sciences, to summarize results and to make conclusions. In order to implement these tasks, the following methods were applied: 1) theoretical: analysis of psychological, pedagogical literature, European educational documents enabling the theoretical substantiation of the analyzed problem, 2) empiric: analysis of purposefully prepared questionnaires answered by teachers. During the research, the questionnaires about the research of national achievements of students given for teachers of natural sciences in 2007, and the database were used during the analysis. In order to analyze what knowledge, abilities and attitudes demonstrate the competence of learning abilities of teachers of natural sciences, only the answers of teachers of this field were analyzed in detail. In total, the questionnaires for teachers of natural sciences were completed by 410 pedagogues. Following the definition of competence of learning abilities one can state that as a result of the questionnaires for teachers distributed during the national research of student's achievements... [to full text]

In many early intensive behavioural intervention (EIBI) programs, such as the St.Amant Autism Programs in Manitoba, the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills-Revised (ABLLS-R) is used as an assessment guide, a curriculum guide, and a skills tracking system. The ABLLS-R lists a total of 544 potential training tasks. In the St.Amant Autism Programs, the Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities-Revised (ABLA-R) is also used to assess a child’s ability to learn to perform 6 tasks, called levels, which are hierarchical in difficulty. Research has demonstrated that training tasks comparable to failed ABLA-R levels are very difficult to teach using standard prompting and reinforcement procedures, and training tasks that are mismatched to a client’s highest-passed ABLA-R level result in more aberrant behaviours than matched tasks. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the difficulty of the training tasks taught to children enrolled in the St.Amant Autism Early Learning Program matched the learning abilities of the children. In order to do so, five questions were examined based on the ABLLS-R, the ABLA-R, and archival data from the St.Amant Autism Programs. The results reveal several potentially important findings. First, observers who were knowledgeable about the ABLA-R reliably categorized 99 of the 544 ABLLS-R tasks into individual ABLA-R levels. Second, for a random sample of those 99 ABLLS-R tasks, Autism Consultants from the St.Amant Autism Programs averaged 90.5% agreement that those tasks were taught at the categorized ABLA-R levels. Third, across a sample of 14 children, 81% of their training tasks were mismatched to each child’s highest-passed ABLA-R level. Fourth, for that sample of 14 children and across their 31 maladaptive behaviour assessments, 61% of the assessments had a score representative of maladaptive behaviours. Fifth, for that same sample of children, their rates of acquisition of new training tasks were lower for mismatched tasks than for matched tasks. These findings have important implications for potentially improving the services that children with ASD are receiving from the St.Amant Autism Programs and other EIBI programs. / February 2016

The first objective of this research was to investigate the predictive validity of the learning potential as measured by Ability, Processing of Information and Learning Potential Short Version (APIL SV) in predicting work performance. The second objective was to investigate the predictive validity of personality as measured by the Occupational Personality Questionnaire Ipsative (OPQ32i) in predicting work performance. The sample consisted of 104 employees of a public sector department. Learning potential and personality were the predictor/independent variables; work performance as measured by supervisory rating was the only criterion/dependent variable of the study. The results revealed that both the APIL SV and the OPQ 32i dimensions did not correlate significantly with work performance as measured by supervisor rating. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

Šiandienos pedagogui keliamas labai svarbus uždavinys - sukurti tokį mokymosi procesą, kuris skatintų moksleivių mokymąsi. Europos Sąjungos dokumentuose akcentuojamos perėjimo į mokymąsi visą gyvenimą galimybes laiduojančios kompetencijos, svarbiausia pripažįstama - mokėjimo mokytis kompetencija. Pastarųjų metų tyrimai rodo, jog besimokantieji mokymosi mokytis kompetencijos stokoja. Darbo tikslas: Ištirti Utenos vyresniojo mokyklinio amžiaus mokinių mokėjimo mokytis kompetencijos tobulinimo veiksnius. Darbo uždaviniai: 1. Apibrėžti mokėjimo mokytis kompetencijos vietą profesinių kompetencijų struktūroje. 2. Atskleisti pagrindinius subjektyvius mokėjimo mokytis kompetencijos kaitos veiksnius. 3. Ištirti objektyvius mokėjimo mokytis kompetencijos veiksnius ugdymo sistemoje. 4. Ištirti mokinių požiūrį į mokėjimo mokytis kompetencijos veiksnius. 5. Atskleisti mokytojų požiūrį į mokėjimo mokytis kompetencijos veiksnius. Darbe naudoti šie tyrimo metodai: Mokslinės literatūros ir norminių aktų apžvalgos analizė; Anketinė vyresniųjų klasių mokinių ir pedagogų apklausa; Statistinė empirinių duomenų analizė. Tyrimo imtis. 204 respondentai: 54 pedagogai ir 150 vyresniųjų ( X – XII ) klasių mokinių iš trijų Utenos miesto gimnazijų. Pagrindinės išvados ir tyrimo rezultatai: 1. Profesinė kompetencija – mokėjimas mokytis priklauso kognityvinių kompetencijų grupei, kurios pagrindiniai aspektai yra savo paties mokymosi proceso organizavimas ir jo valdymas, grindžiamas žiniomis, įgūdžiais... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Nowadays a teacher faces an extremely important task to develop such learning process which should encourage the students to learn. The EU education documents emphasizes competences ensuring the possibilities for life long learning, the ability to learn is admitted to be the most important one. Recent researches show learners’ lack of competence to learn, therefore, the work analyses basic factors improving students’ competence of learning abilities to learn. The Aim: To investigate factors improving senior students’ competence of learning abilities to learn in Utena town. Objectives: 1. To define the place of competence of students’ learning abilities to learn in the structure of professional competences. 2. To reveal basic subjective factors influencing the changes in the competence of learning abilities to learn. 3. To investigate objective factors influencing the competence of learning abilities to learn in the education system. 4. To investigate students’ attitude towards the factors of competence of learning abilities to learn. Methods used: The analysis of science literature and the survey of standard acts; questionnairing teachers and senior students; statistics analysis of empiric data. Sampling. 204 respondents (54 teachers and 150 (X – XII forms) students) from three gymnasium schools in Utena town. Main results and conclusions: 1. Professional competence, the ability to learn, belongs to the group of cognitive competences whose main aspects are organization and... [to full text]