The purpose of the study was to provide training and follow-up sessions for Sunday school teachers to increase the use of inclusive teacher behaviors (opportunities to respond, behavior specific praise, and opportunities to participate) for educating a child with moderate to severe disability. A multiple baseline across behaviors design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of training and follow-up sessions for a Sunday school teacher that had a child with moderate to severe disability in her class. The results showed training and follow-up were effective in teaching inclusive teacher behaviors within a church setting.

Education can be viewed as a challenging profession, even more so for educators teaching learners with severe intellectual challenges (SIC). The diagnostic criteria of learners with SIC are a significant sub-average ability in intellectual functioning and concurrent deficiencies in adaptive behaviour such as social and daily living skills. The majority of learners with SIC display disruptive and challenging behaviour such as aggression, hyperactivity, talking inappropriately, and inappropriate sexual behaviour. Educators teaching learners with SIC are confronted, daily, with a wide range of challenges such as an excessive workload, minimal progress, and challenging behaviour displayed by the learners with SIC. The intensity of the physical and emotional challenges experienced by the educators, consequently, results in negative outcomes such as stress, burnout, high staff absences, and premature resignations. Earlier studies conducted in this field of specialisation found that educators, overall, were not very keen to teach learners with SIC. South African research conducted within this field of specialisation determined that, despite similar negative challenges, the educators did not necessarily share the pessimistic view towards this teaching environment as experienced in other countries. Local studies indicated that some educators experienced less stress and better physical health than others. The aim of the research was to gain an understanding of the nature of, and possible contextual influences on, those experiences that contributed to some educators experiencing job satisfaction and working effectively, while others did not, to ultimately present possible guiding principles to develop support systems for educators teaching learners with SIC. This qualitative study was planned from a descriptive and explorative case study design by making use of the phenomenological method of inquiry. Ethical permission to conduct the study was obtained from the North- West University. The research group consisted of six educators who perceived themselves as effective in this strenuous teaching environment, working at two selected schools for learners with SIC in the Tshwane South District, Gauteng. Data were obtained by making use of semi-structured interviews, open-ended sentences, and follow-up interviews. Data analysis and interpretation were guided by Creswell‘s application of Tesch‘s method by an in-depth analysis, identifying possible themes and topics. The various categories were identified and described. A literature control was executed in order to interpret and evaluate the data. The final step involved recounting the findings in the format of a written article. Based on the research findings, it was concluded that the participants, despite the various challenges, experienced high levels of job satisfaction and motivation. However, the study also confirmed that specific challenges such as the behaviour that learners with SIC display and a lack of acknowledgement could have a detrimental effect on motivational levels. The literature indicated that low motivational levels have a negative impact on job satisfaction and effectiveness. The emotional wellbeing of educators was recognized to be an important determining factor towards their effectiveness and ability to cope. The need for the development of appropriate support systems to enhance the educators‘ emotional wellbeing was confirmed. / Thesis (MA (Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

Education can be viewed as a challenging profession, even more so for educators teaching learners with severe intellectual challenges (SIC). The diagnostic criteria of learners with SIC are a significant sub-average ability in intellectual functioning and concurrent deficiencies in adaptive behaviour such as social and daily living skills. The majority of learners with SIC display disruptive and challenging behaviour such as aggression, hyperactivity, talking inappropriately, and inappropriate sexual behaviour. Educators teaching learners with SIC are confronted, daily, with a wide range of challenges such as an excessive workload, minimal progress, and challenging behaviour displayed by the learners with SIC. The intensity of the physical and emotional challenges experienced by the educators, consequently, results in negative outcomes such as stress, burnout, high staff absences, and premature resignations. Earlier studies conducted in this field of specialisation found that educators, overall, were not very keen to teach learners with SIC. South African research conducted within this field of specialisation determined that, despite similar negative challenges, the educators did not necessarily share the pessimistic view towards this teaching environment as experienced in other countries. Local studies indicated that some educators experienced less stress and better physical health than others. The aim of the research was to gain an understanding of the nature of, and possible contextual influences on, those experiences that contributed to some educators experiencing job satisfaction and working effectively, while others did not, to ultimately present possible guiding principles to develop support systems for educators teaching learners with SIC. This qualitative study was planned from a descriptive and explorative case study design by making use of the phenomenological method of inquiry. Ethical permission to conduct the study was obtained from the North- West University. The research group consisted of six educators who perceived themselves as effective in this strenuous teaching environment, working at two selected schools for learners with SIC in the Tshwane South District, Gauteng. Data were obtained by making use of semi-structured interviews, open-ended sentences, and follow-up interviews. Data analysis and interpretation were guided by Creswell‘s application of Tesch‘s method by an in-depth analysis, identifying possible themes and topics. The various categories were identified and described. A literature control was executed in order to interpret and evaluate the data. The final step involved recounting the findings in the format of a written article. Based on the research findings, it was concluded that the participants, despite the various challenges, experienced high levels of job satisfaction and motivation. However, the study also confirmed that specific challenges such as the behaviour that learners with SIC display and a lack of acknowledgement could have a detrimental effect on motivational levels. The literature indicated that low motivational levels have a negative impact on job satisfaction and effectiveness. The emotional wellbeing of educators was recognized to be an important determining factor towards their effectiveness and ability to cope. The need for the development of appropriate support systems to enhance the educators‘ emotional wellbeing was confirmed. / Thesis (MA (Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

This thesis focuses upon the abilities of children with severe learning difficulties to contemplate the psychological states of other people, what is often referred to in the literature as 'mindreading' (Whiten and Perner, 1991). The first section contains a review of the literature on children's developing understanding of the mind and their conceptual representational abilities. This is followed by two studies investigating non-learning disabled children's abilities to attribute first-and second-order false belief. The first of these uses an adaptation of the Sally-Anne test (Baron-Cohen, et al., 1985). The second study uses an original false belief story scenario, which involves children in drama. The researcher uses a technique called 'split-briefing' to provide children with first-hand experience of first-and second-order false belief. Simplified versions of the two false belief story scenarios are then used with children with severe learning difficulties to investigate their abilities to represent first-and second-order false belief. The relationship between children's scores on belief attribution tasks and their scores on tests of non-verbal intellectual reasoning (Ravens Coloured Matrices) and receptive language ability (TROG) is also examined in this study. The third section outlines the findings of a questionnaire-based study examining parental reports of spontaneous internal state use by two groups of children: non-learning disabled children aged 1-5 years and pupils with Down's Syndrome aged 4-19 years with severe learning difficulties. 'Internal state language' is language which refers to intentions, cognitions and feeling states (Bretherton and Beeghly, 1981). This is followed by a further investigation of internal state language among a group of students with severe learning difficulties. This study uses a series of playlets written by the author to provide students with an interactive, participatory medium in which to draw their attention to people's internal states. The thesis concludes with a final statement on research into the social-cognitive development of children with severe learning difficulties, with recommendations for future research and intervention.

Severe manifestations of malaria, including cerebral malaria (CM) and respiratory distress, result in approximately three million deaths annually worldwide. Currently, relatively little is known about severe disease pathogenesis. The development and outcome of severe malaria is determined by host-pathogen interactions, a complex interface of genetics and immune responses. Hypothetically, a spectrum of genetic susceptibility and resistance to severe disease exists within the host population, and malaria infection results in diverse host and parasite responses that impact disease outcome. The aim of this study was to identify differential host and parasite responses in a murine model of severe malaria, Plasmodium berghei ANKA (PbA), in CM-susceptible and CM-resistant mice; and to analyze host genetics in patients with severe disease due to Plasmodium falciparum. In vivo, expression microarray analysis showed that, in malaria target organs, differential responses were related to immune response – primarily interferon and complement pathways – and apoptosis. Histopathological examination of the brain confirmed an increased prevalence of apoptosis in CM-susceptible mice. Further examination of the role of complement in CM-susceptibility determined that early complement 5 (C5) activation conferred susceptibility to CM, and that C5 deficiency conferred resistance, which could be recapitulated by antibody blockade of activated C5 or its receptor in susceptible mice. Additionally, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) studies identified that complement receptor 1 SNPs were associated with disease severity in patients with P. falciparum malaria. PbA parasites displayed a unique transcriptional signature in each tissue examined (brain, liver, spleen and lung), showed differential gene expression between CM-resistant and susceptible hosts, and were most prominent in lung tissue. Closer examination of lung involvement in PbA infection revealed that PbA-infected C57BL/6 mice develop acute lung injury (ALI), defined by disruption of the alveolar-capillary membrane barrier. ALI susceptibility did not correlate with CM susceptibility, but was influenced by peripheral parasite burden and CD36-mediated parasite sequestration in the lung. PbA provides a clinically relevant experimental model for CM and ALI, through which important disease mechanisms can be identified and modulated. Ideally, the use of such models aids in the discovery of disease biomarkers and novel therapeutic strategies, which may be applied to human severe and cerebral malaria.

Severe manifestations of malaria, including cerebral malaria (CM) and respiratory distress, result in approximately three million deaths annually worldwide. Currently, relatively little is known about severe disease pathogenesis. The development and outcome of severe malaria is determined by host-pathogen interactions, a complex interface of genetics and immune responses. Hypothetically, a spectrum of genetic susceptibility and resistance to severe disease exists within the host population, and malaria infection results in diverse host and parasite responses that impact disease outcome. The aim of this study was to identify differential host and parasite responses in a murine model of severe malaria, Plasmodium berghei ANKA (PbA), in CM-susceptible and CM-resistant mice; and to analyze host genetics in patients with severe disease due to Plasmodium falciparum. In vivo, expression microarray analysis showed that, in malaria target organs, differential responses were related to immune response – primarily interferon and complement pathways – and apoptosis. Histopathological examination of the brain confirmed an increased prevalence of apoptosis in CM-susceptible mice. Further examination of the role of complement in CM-susceptibility determined that early complement 5 (C5) activation conferred susceptibility to CM, and that C5 deficiency conferred resistance, which could be recapitulated by antibody blockade of activated C5 or its receptor in susceptible mice. Additionally, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) studies identified that complement receptor 1 SNPs were associated with disease severity in patients with P. falciparum malaria. PbA parasites displayed a unique transcriptional signature in each tissue examined (brain, liver, spleen and lung), showed differential gene expression between CM-resistant and susceptible hosts, and were most prominent in lung tissue. Closer examination of lung involvement in PbA infection revealed that PbA-infected C57BL/6 mice develop acute lung injury (ALI), defined by disruption of the alveolar-capillary membrane barrier. ALI susceptibility did not correlate with CM susceptibility, but was influenced by peripheral parasite burden and CD36-mediated parasite sequestration in the lung. PbA provides a clinically relevant experimental model for CM and ALI, through which important disease mechanisms can be identified and modulated. Ideally, the use of such models aids in the discovery of disease biomarkers and novel therapeutic strategies, which may be applied to human severe and cerebral malaria.

The Allegheny County Department of Human Services implemented the Partnership for Youth Transition Program (PYT) to provide services for transition aged youth in Allegheny County who suffer from Severe Emotional Disturbance. One of the goals of this program was to enhance the perceptions of opportunity of goal attainment held by this population. This research is a program evaluation of the PYT program to find out if the PYT program was successful in enhancing these perceptions. This study uses a Paired-Samples T-Test, a Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient and an Analysis of Variance to see if the perceptions of opportunity changed during PYT program involvement, and to analyze if other variables (risk, service involvement and demographic characteristics) had any influence on these perceptions. The evaluation found that the perceptions of opportunity did improve and that there was a relationship between the factors of risk and service involvement and the perceptions of opportunity of PYT program participants. After discussing the findings of these results, policy recommendations are proposed. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts / Graduate Center for Social and Public Policy / MA / Thesis

This thesis examines the requirements of children and adolescents with severe spinal cord injuries. The requirements are expressed by the parents of the children and by adolescents and are in contrast to official views of their 'needs'. There is no literature on the needs of these children and adolescents. The thesis thus begins with a examination of the literature on the needs of people with disabilities and people with spinal cord injury. Proponents of the social model of disability, which is based on the experiences of people with disabilities, contend that the main requirements of people with disabilities is ending their social marginalisation, and it is hypothesised that the requirements of the children and adolescents will be related to ending social marginalisation. Open-ended unstructured interviews with parents, parents and adolescents and adolescents alone ( a total of 20 interviews) provided data for analysis. Analysis of the data shows that the requirements of the children and adolescents, like adults with spinal cord injuries, differ from those of people with disabilities in that there are important concerns in addition to marginalisation.

Interest in the ability of people to recover from a severe mental illness has a long history. During the 1980s, however, there was a paradigm shift away research driven by clinicians immersed in the quantitative, objective microcosm of anatomy and physiology towards understanding recovery from a consumer perspective. Even so the experiences of consumers has remained relatively unexplored, with the lion's share of research emanating from the United States of America. At the time of writing the proposal for this study in 2000, there was not even one Australian study of a mental health consumer perspective of recovery from severe mental illness reported in the literature. The principal aim of conducting this research was to address this need. The author, therefore, undertook this grounded theory study to: (a) explore what recovery from the effects of a severe mental illness meant to the consumers in Western Australia; (b) identify what consumers of mental health services in Western Australia wanted in their lives; and thus (c) develop a substantive theory of recovery. Fifteen participants diagnosed with either an affective disorder or schizophrenia were each interviewed and the resultant data were analysed using the constant comparative method. Comparative analysis is a long-held method of analysing data in sociology. Analysis is achieved by asking questions such as what, when, where, how, of the data and comparing similarities and differences with the various concepts within and across sets of data. The findings revealed that the basic social psychological problem (BSPP) for participants was LOSS. In order to address this problem, participants engaged in the basic social process (BSP) of OVERCOMING LOSS. The BSP is a title given to the central theme that emerges from the data and illustrates that a social process occurs overtime. The BSP emerged as a process comprising three phases: First Recuperation, second Moving Forward and third Getting Back. The analysis further revealed that the participants viewed recovery as either

Dissertation (Ph.D.) -- University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, 2006. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 132-142.