The purpose of this study is to analyze the communication of six different non-governmentalorganizations present in the refugee camps in the Aegean Sea, to understand which problemsthey identify as critical and how the communication may be interpreted in the light of theneeds of the organizations. The second purpose is to review the discrepancy between thehumanitarian perspective and the justification perspective, by applying the theoreticalframework consisting of framing theory and two discourse-theoretical theories on the resultsof the content analysis. According to the non-governmental organizations, the camps do not meet seven of the ninebasic needs identified by Sphere and UNHCR. The material does not provide enoughinformation regarding the last two needs, the right to non-refoulement and accessibility forpeople with disabilities. While the organizations might have an interest in existing, theanalysis shows that the most evident receivers of the reports are political stakeholders and thegeneral public, and the most evident intent is to conduct advocacy and raise awareness. The theoretical analysis shows that the camps cannot be considered justified as theprerequisites for a fair and functioning decision-making process where every individualsubject to the decision is recognized are not fulfilled. Hence, there is a discrepancy betweenthe humanitarian perspective and the justificatory perspective, in which the justificatoryperspective sets higher requirements focusing on equal humanitarian preconditions andpolitical rights, while the humanitarian perspective solely focuses on basic needs fulfillment.

The purpose of this study was to determine if students with special needs participating in an inclusive classroom can learn the skills related to a STEM career as compared to the general student population. The study involved seventh grade students from two rural middle schools in north central Texas and was framed through a constructivist lens using a quasi-experimental design with a convenience sample. The Solenoid Invention Kit Assessment and the STEM Semantics Survey used in this study were used from a previously large existing dataset from a grant funded by the National Science Foundation for Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers. Findings suggested that there were no significant differences between the general student population and students with special needs. However, STEM coursework in an inclusive classroom may impact students' decision to pursue STEM careers.

The aim of this study is to examine the work carried out at Swedish upper-secondary special schools for pupils with learning disabilities in the subject area of language and communication, with particular focus on augmentative and alternative communication and multilingualism. The learning process is approached from a sociocultural perspective in this study, which entails that learning is taken to occur in social contexts in which interaction, communication, and co-operation play key roles. The method takes the form of semi-structured qualitative interviews inspired by a phenomenographical approach in the hope of highlighting five areas communication, possibilities, obstacles, AAC and competence development, that special education teachers and special educators are faced with in their work with students with language and communication impairments. The results show that special education teachers and special educators demonstrate a high capacity to see both possibilities and obstacles in the teaching process, together with an understanding for the students’ differing functional impairments and needs. The challenges facing special education teachers and special educators when dealing with multilingual student groups give an indication of the difficulties attached to determining remedies capable of leading to students’ increased participation and comprehension of the subject area. The two alternatives offered by Swedish special schools are individual native language instruction (in which the student is separated from the class) and support within the classroom in the form of a personal assistant with knowledge of the native language. The study demonstrates that the latter is preferable as means for a student to progress in their learning. The result also indicates that special education teachers and special educators have great understanding for the importance of using AAC in instructing materials but at the same time there are many things to be done about translating AAC material in order to increase educational participation for multilingual students. Results also indicates that peer learning within the profession is desirable. / Denna studie har till sitt syfte att belysa arbetet på gymnasiesärskolans individuella program inom ämnesområdet språk och kommunikation, och med fokus på AKK och flerspråkighet. Studien lyfter fram lärandet ur ett sociokulturellt perspektiv där lärande ses som handlingar i ett socialt sammanhang, och där interaktion, kommunikation och samarbete är viktiga för att nå ett lärande. Studien är en semistrukturerad kvalitativ intervjustudie och har inspirerats av en fenomenografisk ansats där jag försökt få kunskap och information kring hur verksamma speciallärare och specialpedagoger upplever arbetet med elever i kommunikativa svårigheter med behov av AKK- stöd och som har en flerspråkighet. Jag valde att redovisa resultatet utifrån fem olika teman kommunikation, möjligheter, hinder, AKK och kompetensutveckling. Resultatet visar att det finns en hög kompetens i att se både möjligheter och hinder i undervisningen, samt en förståelse för elevers olika funktionsvariationer och behov samt att öka delaktigheten för flerspråkiga elever. Möjligheterna och hindren i att möta och bemöta flerspråkigheten hos elevgruppen visar på svårigheterna i att bedöma vilka insatser som leder till både ökad delaktighet men också ökad förståelse och kunskap inom ämnesområden. Modersmålsundervisning och studiehandledning är de två alternativen som erbjuds inom den specifika gymnasiesärskolan. Studiens resultat visar att studiehandledning är att föredra för att öka flerspråkiga elevers delaktighet. Studien visar även på speciallärares och specialpedagogers kunskap kring att använda olika AKK-metoder för att skapa en större delaktighet hos elever med kommunikativa svårigheter och flerspråkighet men även på bristande översatta material att använda i undervisningssyfte för att öka delaktigheten för flerspråkiga elever. I resultatet kring kompetensutveckling ses kollegialt lärande som en möjlig kompetenshöjande funktion men respondenterna anser att det rent organisationsmässigt inte skapas utrymme för det kollegiala lärandet.

Syftet för denna studie är att undersöka problemrepresentationer kring arbetet med barn i behov avsärskilt stöd och inkludering samt att se till vilka tänkbara effekter dessa representationer kan få förindivider i behov av särskilt stöd och ett inkluderande arbetssätt. Denna kvalitativa studie bygger på 8semistrukturerade intervjuer av fritidshemspersonal. Uppsatsen grundar sig i en diskursanalytiskansats med Carol Bacchi’s WPR metod ur ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv. Tidigare forskningpå elever i behov av särskilt stöd och inkludering visar hur ett relationellt perspektiv är att föredra iarbetet med inkludering, annan forskning visar hur det är i sociala relationer som exkluderandetillfällen uppstår mellan elever, där fritidshemmets uppdrag kan ha en central roll. I denna studieanalyseras informationen i relation till olika perspektiv på inkludering. Individ- och relationellaperspektivet samt Nilholms fyra definitioner på inkludering. Resultaten visar att synsätten påinkludering skiljer sig åt mellan informanterna. Det finns tendenser som visar på att ettindividperspektiv kan tänkas ge effekter i form av exkluderande tillfällen för elever i behov.Personalen har uttryckt hur skolans traditionella undervisningsform samt stora elevantal kan försvåraett inkluderande arbetssätt där allas behov tillgodoses. Studien fann även skillnader kring genus ibeskrivningar kring diagnos och behov, där alla exempel om ett barn som uppvisat mer utåtagerandebeteenden handlade om pojkar, även fiktiva fall.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to collaborate with a community partner to administer a current needs assessment of persons with epilepsy (PWE) and determine the types of resources that PWE would like to access through the community partner. Methods: A self-report needs assessment survey was administered to caregivers and PWE across the state of South Carolina during a community partner educational workshop (n= 20) and via secure software distributed through an email link (n= 54). Key findings: The most frequently reported challenges (>. 50%) were concerns about finding time to participate in epilepsy community activities, the personal safety of the PWE, finding social connections or social support, finding mental or behavioral health services, and work concerns. However, top ranked concerns centered on personal safety (27.8%), lack of insurance/not enough money to pay for epilepsy treatment (15.3%), and difficulty with daily management of epilepsy (13.9%). Participants reported likely engagement with the epilepsy community partner via in-person meetings, over the phone, and through social media contacts; however, there were differences between PWE and caregivers regarding preferences for communication. Almost 60% endorsed that they would likely participate in a brief program to learn skills to manage their epilepsy daily. Significance: Persons with epilepsy in South Carolina continue to have many unmet needs and would access resources, if available, from a state-wide epilepsy community partner via various modes of communication.

Recently, the skill to play games has led to the professionalization of the activity in the form of “eSports” (electronic sports). Despite the popularity of eSports, little is known about its professional players from a psychological perspective. Given the importance of the coach-created environment in the athletes’ motivational processes, this study aimed to investigate the key psychological dimensions of the coach-created climate in 75 Brazilian professional players of League of Legends (LoL) considering the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Achievement Goal Theory (AGT). Fourteen hypotheses were tested, of which seven were confirmed. The empowering climate was a predictor of basic psychological-needs satisfaction and indirectly influenced autonomous motivation. The need satisfaction had a significant impact on both autonomous motivation and on lack of motivation, which, in turn, explained 56% of the variance in well-being and the intention to keep playing eSports. The disempowering climate was a predictor of psychological-needs thwarting but had no significant impact on autonomous motivation or lack of motivation. The results obtained support SDT and AGT in the context of eSports and were similar to those conducted with athletes from traditional sports, indicating that the empower-ing-and-disempowering-coaching-climates conceptualization applies not only to traditional sports athletes but also to professional eSports players. / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior

Governments and municipalities need to understand their citizens’ psychological needs in critical times and dangerous situations. COVID-19 brings lots of challenges to deal with. We propose NeedFull, an interactive and scalable tweet analysis platform, to help governments and municipalities to understand residents’ real psychological needs during those periods. The platform mainly consists of four parts: data collection module, data storage module, data analysis module and data visualization module. The whole process of how data flows in the system is illustrated as follows: Our crawlers in the data collection module gather raw data from a popular social network website Twitter. Then the data is fed into our human need detection model in the data analysis module before stored into the database. When a user enters a query through the user interface, they will get all the related items in the database by the index system of the data storage module and a comprehensive human needs analysis of these items is then presented and depicted in the data visualization module. We employed the proposed platform to investigate the reaction of people in four big regions including New York, Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal to the ongoing worldwide COVID-19 pandemic by collecting tweets posted during this period. The results show that the most pronounced human need in these tweets is relatedness with 51.32%, followed by autonomy with 22.56% and competence with 18.82%. And the percentages of tweets expressing frustration are larger than those of tweets expressing satisfaction for each psychological need in general.

It is surmised that the Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act 27 of 1990 can be classified as a very profound, yet acceptable limitation on a married person’s right to freedom of testation. This research provides an exposition as to the background of the Act, the promulgation thereof, as well an exposition of provisions of the said Act and a critical analysis of these provisions. At common law, before the promulgation of the Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act, a surviving spouse had no right to claim maintenance from the estate of the first dying spouse. This research shows that the main proponents for the disallowance of a claim for maintenance by the surviving spouse, can be attributed to two prominent features, namely, a person’s right to freedom of testation and due to the fact that there was no duty of support on the first dying spouse’s estate. The aim of this dissertation is to give an analysis as to the accessibility to a claim for maintenance in terms of the Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act, as well as to outline certain issues that have been experienced thus far. As a point of departure, an exposition is given as to the reasoning and the purpose for the promulgation of the Act. An examination is further made as to what denotes a “spouse” in order to be eligible to qualify for a claim, as the Act has failed in giving a concise definition in this regard. This aspect is investigated from a traditional standpoint, as well from the standpoint based on constitutional principles. The research furthermore focuses on the determination of the claim itself, the factors that must be taken into consideration to ascertain if a claim is allowable against the estate of the first dying spouse and how the executor is to deal with the said claim. In conclusion, this research provides certain recommendations that could assist in striking a balance between the allowance of a claim against the estate of the first dying spouse, as well as the ultimate beneficiaries who would have benefitted in terms of the will, or in terms of the law of intestate succession. / Mini Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Private Law / LLM / Unrestricted

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Education in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Education (Educational Psychology) in the Department of Educational Psychology & Special Needs Education at the University of Zululand, 2015 / Parents play a crucial role in the support of learning. The study focused on the parental involvement in the education of teenagers with special needs in a High School in Pinetown district. The aim as to understand the role of parents in the education of their special need teenagers, thus, an in-depth literature study on different ways of parental involvement was undertaken. The comparison was made between how developed countries and developing countries perceive and engage parents in the education process. The laws and legislations that promote parental involvement were also looked at. Epstein (1995) theory of overlapping spheres of influence was discussed. It is emphasised that learners should be the focal point of all programmes to foster parental involvement and that learners succeed at a higher level when internal and external models of influence intersect and work together to promote learning. Furthermore, Epstein (2001) typology of parental involvement was discussed. Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecosystemic theory showed that a strong family and school linkage for the academic and socio-emotional development of a teenager with special needs is important and should be sustained. Qualitative research methodology was applied to gather data. Purposive sampling was used to select the participants which the researcher thought would provide with rich descriptions of their beliefs. Ten parents were interviewed, using the language they best understood. To better understand how they viewed parental involvement and what were the techniques they would like the school to employ to improve parental involvement. Tesch’s (1990) method of data analysis was used to assist the researcher in reducing the massive data into relevant themes and sub-themes. The results revealed that the beliefs that parents hold about the school, level of education, unwelcoming atmosphere in the school, limited time availability of parents, lack of support to equip parents with necessary skills to be effectively involved in the education of their teenager learners were identified as some of the barrier to parental involvement. The results also indicated that parents, school and community needed to be involved in teenagers’ education and development. For collaboration and partnership to take place there should be clear lines of communication and professional relationship guided by trust and respect. The study concluded with recommendations to develop strategies that could be used for effective parental involvement. The results may assist the school to fulfil its role as a community institution, assist parents to realise their role in the development of their teenagers, promote awareness of the factors that might influence the formulation of policies. However, further research on the topic was suggested.

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers in the United States and confronting its challenges has remained a problem to the United States health sector, especially among outpatient clinics. Guided by health belief model, the purpose of this needs assessment was to identify patients age 50 and older in outpatient clinic located in a large metropolitan city in Texas who should receive information on the need for colorectal cancer screening based on their risk for developing colorectal cancer as outlined by American Cancer Society. A sample of 70 charts of patients age 50-75 years was randomly selected and audited using descriptive statistics. Among the patients aged 50-75 years attending the outpatient clinic, 25.7% were African Americans, 71.4% were Hispanic, and 2.9% were Caucasians; 42.9% were male and 57.1% were female. The rate of colorectal cancer screening was 12.9%, a rate that is lower than the rate for all Texans, which was 54.1% - 59.2%. CRC screening was ordered for 62.9% of all patients; 24.2% of clinic patients were identified as being at high risk for colorectal cancer. The low rate of screening may hamper early detection of colorectal cancer in outpatient clinics setting. It is recommended that the outpatient clinic develop intensive campaign to increase patient awareness about the need for and benefits of colorectal cancer screening, especially for those at high risk for developing colorectal cancer. The findings of this study may raise awareness on the chasm in quality of health care availability and provide insight on colorectal cancer and its prevention.