The purpose of this research study was to examine the impact of the consulting teacher model on referral and verification rates to special education. A population of schools which implemented the model (N = 17) was compared with a randomly selected comparison group of schools which did not (N = 30). All schools were from the Portland, Oregon, Public School District. The research was designed to cover a three school year period of time (1987 to 1990). Three different types of data were collected: the number of children who were discussed at regular education pre-referral meetings, the number of children who were referred for special education assessment and the number of children who verified as eligible for special education services. Three primary research questions addressed (a) the impact of the consulting teacher model on the number of children in the process, (b) the longitudinal impact of the model on referral rate accuracy and (c) referral rate accuracy differences between the consulting teacher and comparison group schools. Results from the first question indicated a difference in the numbers of children discussed at the initial regular education pre-referral step; 17 more children were discussed in the consulting teacher schools. Differences were also found between the 1987-88 school year and every other year; seven more children were in the process in the first year of the study than in the later years. Results from the second question found that length of time on the model does have a significant effect on referral rate accuracy in the consulting teacher schools. Two differences were found in this question: an increase in referral rate accuracy between years three and four and a decrease in referral rate accuracy between years four and five. Results from the third question indicated no differences between the type of school and school year. Referral rate accuracy remained the same in both the consulting teacher and comparison group schools throughout all three years of this study. / Graduation date: 1992

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of the school board/superintendent relationship on academic achievement in one Texas school district that serves high-poverty, majority-minority students. Previous studies identified successful school systems with school boards and superintendents who functioned as a true leadership team. However, previous research focused on school board/superintendent relationship and politics, not student achievement. This case study examined the dynamics of the school board/superintendent relationship and how the dynamics of that relationship influenced the academic achievement of its high-poverty students who were also the majority-minority. The methodology was an intrinsic and qualitative case study which used the constructive perspective and the researcher as the primary instrument for gathering data (Stake, 1988; Patton, 2002). Qualitative data was collected using a loosely structured focus group, individual interviews, and an examination of district documents and records. The research suggests that the dynamics of the school board/superintendent relationship tend to be centered on politics and political power. Politics and political power are impacted by the changing majority/minority composition of the school board, which may lead to instability in the superintendent’s relationship with the board. The research also corroborates previous studies in which effective communication, trust, collaboration, support, and a constant focus on student achievement are the essential building blocks of an effective school board/superintendent relationship. Further, the research supports many other studies which found that the campus principal’s focus on was the catalyst for improved student achievement. Even though educators believe and support the notion that collaborative leadership between the school board and the superintendent is key to the attainment of high academic achievement, this study found there was no apparent effect of the school board/superintendent relationship on the academic achievement of its students. This research has practical implications which may be useful to superintendents and school boards as they face the daily challenges and responsibilities of managing and improving academic achievement. / text

This study identified factors related to solving mathematical word problems and then examined the differences in characteristics between students with low achievement in mathematics who were likely to have a learning disability and students with low achievement in mathematics who were unlikely to have a learning disability. Factoral analysis identified two significant factors: abstract thinking and long term retrieval from memory. Results indicated qualitative differences between sixth grade students with achievement in mathematics at or below the 25th percentile with indications of learning disabilities (MLD) and students with achievement in mathematics at or below the 25th percentile without an indication of a learning disability (Low Math/NLD). The Learning Disabilities Diagnostic Inventory, which measures intrinsic processing disorders indicative of learning disabilities, was used to differentiate between students with MLD (n = 13) and students with Low Math/NLD (n = 16). The Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement, Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fourth Edition, and the Informal Mathematics Assessment (IFA) were used to compare the two groups. In contrast to students with MLD, students with Low Math/NLD had a higher mathematical performance and had more difficulties with math fluency. When solving mathematics word problems on the IFA, a test composed of word problems, student interview, and error analysis, students with Low Math/NLD had more correct answers, more computational errors, and fewer translation errors than students with MLD did. Students with MLD had conceptual difficulties in the areas of analyzing, reasoning, and abstract thinking.

This thesis address the question of agency that children with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) have in educational contexts. Teachers and educators do not usually regard children with PMLD in terms of their agency, because of their profound and multiple impairments. Discourses on children and adults with PMLD are linear, systematic, defining and closed to contingency. The discourses normally applied with regard to children with PMLD attending school are mapped out in the beginning of the thesis. The thesis provides an account of my becoming-teacher and my becoming-researcher It is my journey with students whom I worked with directly as their teacher in a segregated specialised school for children with PMLD, and also as a participant observer in two mainstream primary classrooms. The works of Jacques Derrida, Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze were crucial in reading the lives of these children together with mine. Nine stories with comments are the central focus of this thesis, where through the writing of these stories my own becoming-teacher is mapped out. The thesis shows how students with PMLD are able to provide teachers with spaces of possibilities in the linear and closed discourses mentioned above. Students themselves are able to introduce in the life of teachers, their classroom and at times even at school level, the ‘non-sense’ that help teachers ‘think again’ the discourses that they are working with. They are able to help teachers open up discourses, and see that they are ‘assemblages’, characterised by contingency, contradictions and aporias. Students with PMLD provide possibilities (potentials) for engagement in these assemblages. The identity of a teacher is shaken when she experiences her identity as an assemblage, but even more so when such an identity is seen as a process of becoming by engaging with the possibilities. Here the end is not important and is unknown; what is important is the process. What is argued is that the teacher’s identity is seen as becoming-teacher through becoming-PMLD. This thesis concludes that there needs to be a desire to engage with students with PMLD to continue the process of becoming-teacher.

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Through employing a two-faceted approach to the sociological study of Attention Deficit- Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), this thesis seeks to further the study of this mental illness and also to elucidate new methodological directions for the sociology of similar phenomena. Past approaches in the sociology of mental disorder have considerable merit, but may also be limited in the type of analyses they offer. One particular limitation concerns sociological accounts of mental illness that portray the meaning of such illnesses as unified and that this unification results from the collusion of special interests. Sociologists who address mental illnesses as social problems, for example, appear wont to portray such illnesses as social constructions which arise from specific agents of labeling. With regard to ADHD, previous sociological accounts often make a case for the rhetorical and political power of government agencies, medical practitioners, and pharmaceutical companies. Though such agents are certainly influential in shaping public conceptions of ADHD, this thesis demonstrates that ADHD is interpreted in various ways. These assertions are supported through the analysis of two different data sources: 1) textual data; and 2) interview data. The textual data for the first part of the thesis comprises the subject matter for a genealogy of ADHD. Through examining past and contemporary texts that frame this disorder, including medical journal articles, medical manuals, popular writings, and parental guidebooks, the author argues that the historical and current discussions of ADHD are replete with differing interpretations of the causes and treatments for ADHD. These ADHD discourses, as they are seen through written accounts, offer a variety of perspectives towards the disorder, drawing from many opposing schools of thought. Most notable in this regard are psychodynamic and neurological approaches to ADHD. I argue that even though the neurological perspective towards ADHD appears to be the most dominant in diagnosing and treating the disorder, it is far from monolithic. ' The second part of the thesis draws upon interview data from sixty-two respondents associated with cases of ADHD: twenty clinicians, twenty parents, and twenty-two teachers. Each of these groups of respondents were asked questions designed to solicit their subjective experiences with the disorder, including how they perceived ADHD children and their sources of ADHD knowledge. The analysis of such data is placed against the backdrop of the genealogical part of the thesis. Responses from participants are examined as reflecting ADHD discourses. Some respondents, for example, demonstrate a commitment to neurological perspectives towards ADHD, while others gravitate towards psychodynamic or combined understandings of the disorder. Through combining these two data sources, this thesis analyzes ADHD discourses that give rise to conceptions of the disorder and shows how these discourses influence attitudes and actions towards ADHD. By giving less salience to the collusive relationships between government agencies, medical practitioners, and pharmaceutical companies, and by putting more focus on the relationship between the three major groupings directly involved in the ADHD experience—clinicians, teachers, and parents—this thesis furthers the sociological study of ADHD.

The VSB/UBC Transition Program is a Ministry of Education Provincial Resource Program for highly academically gifted young adolescents. Unique to British Columbia and Canada since its inception in 1993, the two-year program is currently housed on the UBC campus and affiliated with University Hill Secondary School. Despite an extraordinary range of hurdles - which are fully discussed and analyzed in this study - the eventual establishment of an early entrance to university program is seen as a remarkable accomplishment of educational leadership and organizational learning involving institutional partnerships, flexible governance and a shared commitment to academically gifted young people. The study examined the complexities of implementing a unique educational innovation for academically highly gifted young students in a university setting and in a provincial context which has not traditionally favored support for the highly gifted. The study had two phases. An historical narrative traced the development of this innovation and described how the current program model evolved in response to student needs. Documentary evidence based on original documents and interviews with program developers, implementers, and participants provided a multi-faceted perspective of the program's complex history and highlighted factors contributing to program success for students, as well as problems encountered along the way. Building upon this narrative, the second phase surveyed and then analyzed the views and expectations of students, parents, and staff as well as program planners at different stages of the program. These various perspectives were used to advance an understanding of how and why this unique program developed as it did, and how its participants variously responded to a wide range of expectations and needs to arrive at the current delivery model. The study concludes with a discussion of critical issues and documents the strengths and unmet needs of academically gifted students that have emerged over the course of the program's development. It culminates by providing an understanding of key elements related to program success for gifted youth together with recommendations for future program development and a broader array of programs and services for academically gifted students in secondary schools and post-secondary institutions in BC. The study ends by encouraging more support for educational innovations that respond to the developmentally unique needs of all students, and a commitment to on-going short term as well as longitudinal research on the Transition Program and its graduates.

Deafness is one on the most common types of disability in South Africa with 90% of deaf children being born to hearing parents, many of whom are unprepared for the consequences of deafness. Since deafness is an invisible disability, the severity of its impact upon both the child and the family is often underestimated. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of hearing parents raising deaf children. Thus, the primary research questions were: What are the experiences of hearing parents raising deaf children in South Africa, and how do various ecosystemic variables affect the way they manage their parenting role? This study was informed by the ecological systems theory which is the theoretical framework that underpins this study. The research paradigm shaping this study was pragmatism, while the strategy used was phenomenology. The mixed methods approach was employed, using both qualitative and quantitative approaches concurrently in a triangulation design. The findings emanating from the quantitative data served to complement the findings from the qualitative data. These findings were corroborated in the interpretation stage. The findings, representing the lived experiences of hearing parents raising deaf children, show that although the parenting experiences differ according to the unique circumstances in the family, school and community, there are several commonalities. These include issues associated with the diagnosis and parenting of deaf children. Some of these issues included the challenge of communicating with the deaf child, the financial burden, stigmatization from the general public, strained interpersonal relationships, concern about the child’s future, as well as lack of opportunities for the Deaf to study at tertiary institutions and limited employment opportunities for deaf persons. The findings from both sets of data reveal that, despite the resilience of participants, there is a need for formal support for parents from professionals in the community, as well as informal parental support from the family, friends, and community members, including other hearing parents raising deaf children, and the need for a central location to access information on deafness and related matters. Recommendations were made to address these issues, with a view to facilitating the emotional well-being of hearing parents raising deaf children, and consequently improving the quality of life of the deaf child and the family. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

All Deaf people in South Africa belong to the Deaf Community of South Africa. Within this Deaf Community there is a separate, minority language and cultural group which accepts Sign language, as its first and natural language. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa calls for the acknowledgement of and respect for all minority cultural groups, and recognises the language of the Deaf, that is, Sign language as an official language. This research has attempted to investigate the views of this cultural group and how they want to be perceived by the hearing people, how they want to conduct their lives within the realm of an overarching hearing society and more importantly, the implications of this acquired identity for the education of Deaf learners in South Africa. To document the data on Deaf Culture and the implications for education, the researcher engaged in qualitative research using the questionnaire approach. This instrument was administered to 18 profoundly Deaf adults from various provinces throughout South Africa and representative of the demographic population profile of the Deaf Community of South Africa. The study confirmed an emerging Deaf Culture and concluded that there needs to be redress and change with regard to the curriculum, the educators, the issue of mainstreaming, the status of Sign language and the provision of tertiary education in order for Deaf learners to be educated in the most enabling environment. / Thesis (M.Ed) - University of Natal, Durban, 1998.

In South Africa, education for learners with special needs has historically been provided for within a separate system of specialized education. Over the past few years, following international trends, there have been a few informal initiatives towards integration of learners with special needs into regular schools. This study examines the placement of a hearing impaired pupil at regular primary school in Durban, Kwazulu-Natal. The subject of the study is a hearing impaired child with a severe to profound hearing loss, who was placed by parent choice into a mainstream school in the neighbourhood, from preschool level. The eleven year old subject is a standard three pupil at Bonela Primary School. A case study approach was followed. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with the subject, parents, peers and staff at the school. Document analysis was undertaken on school reports, psychological reports, test records and pupil's books. In addition, the researcher used observation in order to capture details concerning the subject's social and academic ability in a natural environment. The results of this study reveal that the hearing impaired pupil made good progress in this regular school setting, despite the fact that there were minimal curriculum adjustments made. The placement experience was inclusive in practice, and proved to be successful in terms of the overall development of the hearing impaired child in this case. Positive attitudes of school personnel and peers, support from teachers, early identification, early intervention, consistent speech therapy, strong parent support, the child's language ability and the subject's personality were key factors contributing to the success of this placement. Findings suggest it is possible to include a child with severe to profound hearing loss in a regular classroom, with minimal support services. The study has implications for current debates in South Africa on the education of Deaf children. The issue of the right of choice of the parent and the Deaf learner is a critical one, and needs to be taken into account by policy makers. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Natal, Durban, 1996.