Learners with Asperger's Syndrome are educated in inclusive education settings. As a result of the recent trend of `inclusion' all teachers may be required to educate all learners in their regular classrooms. This research attempted to explore the nature of Asperger's Syndrome as well as inclusive education in order to develop practical guidelines for teachers of learners with Asperger's Syndrome in regular schools. The interview responses of eight parents of learners with Asperger's Syndrome as well as the observation of these learners are reported. The results of the interviews and observations, were corroborated with the literature study in order to outline guidelines which would ensure that teachers will cater for the needs of these learners and support their inclusion in the inclusive settings successfully. Results of this study indicated that knowledge of Asperger's Syndrome and guidelines for accommodating the impairments of these learners is the first step towards successful inclusion. / Educational Studies / Thesis (M. Ed.)

Several empirical studies have suggested that self-monitoring is an effective strategy to increase appropriate behavior in children and adults with developmental disabilities. Results of a comprehensive review of self-monitoring research with people who have developmental disabilities revealed that 71% of the participants were trained by researchers. However, researchers are not typical intervention agents. To ensure that people who are typically in the participant’s environment (e.g., teachers, parents, caregivers) can effectively teach people with developmental disabilities to self-monitor and that this in turn will change the participant’s behavior, it is important that research examine the effectiveness of self-monitoring when the training is provided by typical intervention agents. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation study was to investigate the effects of a self-monitoring intervention package on both teacher and student behavior in the classroom. The self-monitoring intervention package consisted of training teachers to use self-monitoring, providing feedback on the self-monitoring intervention developed by the teacher, providing feedback to teachers while training the student to self-monitor, and providing feedback to teachers while they implemented the self-monitoring intervention in the classroom. During intervention, the researchers provided feedback to teachers to ensure that teachers were correctly instructing the students to self-monitor. Teachers then implemented the self-monitoring intervention without researcher feedback (maintenance). Teachers required very little to no feedback after the self-monitoring training, feedback on the self-monitoring intervention they developed, and student self-monitoring training. The researcher provided immediate feedback during the first session when the self-monitoring intervention was implemented in the classroom to ensure the teachers implemented the self-monitoring intervention with fidelity. Rate of inappropriate sitting decreased for all students after the self-monitoring intervention was introduced, and the percentage of non-overlapping data metric values indicated that the self-monitoring interventions were highly effective for three participants and effective for one participant. Some teachers and some students generalized the use of self-monitoring interventions to other activities, students, and target behaviors. Social validity measures indicate that self-monitoring interventions for young children with developmental disabilities are socially important. / text

This study compared perceived levels of parenting stress between mothers and fathers of children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), children with developmental disabilities, and normally developing children. The relationship of certain demographic variables, such as Socio-economic Status (SES), number of children, years married, parent age, and child age, as well as social support with parenting stress was also examined for mothers and fathers of these three groups. Identification of factors related to parenting stress in fathers was of particular importance for this study, as fathers are often an underrepresented group within parenting research. Identifying effective methods for predicting high levels of parenting stress is important, as stress has been linked to psychological well-being, potential for abuse, and a greater likelihood of poor adjustment for both parent and child. Results from the present study comparing reported stress levels between groups of parents were supportive of previous studies indicating that parents of children with ADHD and developmentally disabilities experience significantly greater parenting stress, specifically with respect to child characteristics. Significant gender differences were also found between mothers and fathers in terms of parent characteristics related to stress. Fathers reported greater stress in the areas of attachment, while mothers reported more parent role restrictions. Additionally, significant negative relationships were found between parents' perceived helpfulness of informal social support and parenting stress scores in both mothers and fathers, affirming positive effects of social support on stress. Helpfulness of informal social support was also significantly predictive of parenting stress in both mothers and fathers across both the child and parent domains of the PSI, although, it had more predictive power with regard to parent related contributors to parenting stress. Family demographic factors, including age of the child and SES demonstrated some predictive power of parenting stress in mothers. Mothers with younger children and lower SES were more likely to report greater parenting stress. Implications of these results and future directions for research are also discussed.

This study examined the neurocognitive skills, incidence of mild head injury, incidence of learning disabilities, and study habits among college students with grade point average of 2.00 or below (N = 25) as contrasted with college students with grade point average above 2.00 (N = 70). The intent of this research was to extend the work of Segalowitz and Brown (1991) and Segalowitz and Lawson (1993) who found significant associations between reported history of mild head injury and developmental disabilities among high school and college samples. MANOVAs conducted on measures of academic achievement, global cognitive skills, verbal and nonverbal memory, motor and tactile functioning, and study habits did not discriminate between probationary and non-probationary students. Probationary and non-probationary students also did not differ with regard to incidence of reported head injury, frequency of diagnosed learning disabilities, and study habits. Measures of neurocognitive functioning and study habits did not contribute to the prediction of grade point average over and above that predicted by Scholastic Aptitude Test composite score. Several exploratory analyses were performed examining the relationship between study habits and neurocognitive skills. Gender differences, implications for future research and development of study skills courses, and limitations of this study were discussed.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the possibility that there are sex differences between ADD-H boys and girls. ADD-H boys and girls were compared on the four variables of presenting problem, referral source, intelligence test performance on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) and WISC-R subtest configuration. General demographics of the ADD-H boys and girls families were also examined. The subjects participating in this study were 39 girls and 41 boys from a large child outpatient facility in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex diagnosed as ADD-H between February 1984 and February 1986. No differences were found when comparing ADD-H boys and girls on all four variables. These results may suggest that there are no real differences in regards to presenting problem, referral source, IQ scores and subtest configuration between boys and girls diagnosed ADD-H.

Previous research has demonstrated the effectiveness of programs that include a videotaped self-observation component. The self-observation protocols, however, have not been clearly specified within programs that teach and report parents’ use of general teaching strategies. The current study investigates the effects of a training package with a self-observation component to teach parents to improve teaching interactions with their children at-risk for a developmental delay using an AB design replicated across participants. Data were collected across play interactions to assess the number of parent teaching episodes, child target responses, and various parent and child relationship qualities. Relationship quality measures included parent and child affect and engagement, parent directives, parent confidence and stress, and parent and child interest. The results of this study suggest that the training package was effective in that parents engaged in higher rates of teaching, their children engaged in more desired responding, and certain aspects of the parent-child interaction were enhanced. These results are discussed in terms of the effects on the parent-child teaching interaction and implications for future use of parent self-observation techniques.

University of Macau / Faculty of Education

Previous research has demonstrated that specific instructional contexts, techniques, and service delivery models that provide opportunities for peer interaction and active engagement in instructional activities promote positive social and academic outcomes for students with and without disabilities (Bulgren & Carta, 1993; Fisher et al., 1995; Grenot- Scheyer, 1994; Kamps, Leonard, Dugan, Boland, & Greenwood, 1991; Lee & Odom, 1996; Logan et al., 1998). It has been suggested that Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory provides a framework that includes many of these inclusive pedagogies and techniques (Armstrong, 1994; Hoerr, 1996). The present study was intended to explore the extent to which MI theory and instruction facilitates the inclusion of participants with developmental disabilities. Ten elementary school students (ages 6-12) with developmental disabilities participated in this study. The students were included in two types of general education classrooms: those in which MI pedagogy, instruction, and assessment were implemented, or those in which no specific educational theory or pedagogy was applied. Data were collected using ecobehavioral assessment, which is designed to reveal interrelationships between environmental variables (e.g., instructional activities and groupings) and child behavior (Greenwood, Schulte, Kohler, Dinwiddie, & Carta, 1986). An online version of MS-CISSAR (Greenwood, Carta, Kamps, Terry, & Delquadri, 1994) was used to gather and analyze data regarding students' instructional experiences, engaged behavior, and peer interactions. A matched-subjects design was used to compare the experiences of participants in the two types of classrooms; specifically, the relationships between types of task and instructional groupings and students' social interaction and engaged behaviors were examined. Results suggested that the experiences of the participants in both typical and Mt classrooms were more alike than different. Participants in both types of inclusive classrooms were frequently involved in whole-class or independent seatwork and paper-and-pencil activities. Thus, rates of overall engaged behavior and social interactions were essentially equivalent. However, participants in MI classrooms were more frequently observed to be involved in activities that allowed for multiple methods of responding and in small group structures. In contrast, participants in typical classrooms had high rates of one-to-one, separate activities from those of their typical classmates, as well as relatively high rates of non-instructional time (i.e. "down time" or transition time). Perhaps as a result, participants in MI classes were observed to interact with their typical peers more frequently and to be actively engaged in learning more often, while participants in typical classrooms were observed to interact more with adults and to be more passively engaged. The results are discussed in terms of their educational and research implications, limitations, and suggestions for further research.

Thesis (doctoral)--Göteborgs universitet, 2005.

Learners with Asperger's Syndrome are educated in inclusive education settings. As a result of the recent trend of `inclusion' all teachers may be required to educate all learners in their regular classrooms. This research attempted to explore the nature of Asperger's Syndrome as well as inclusive education in order to develop practical guidelines for teachers of learners with Asperger's Syndrome in regular schools. The interview responses of eight parents of learners with Asperger's Syndrome as well as the observation of these learners are reported. The results of the interviews and observations, were corroborated with the literature study in order to outline guidelines which would ensure that teachers will cater for the needs of these learners and support their inclusion in the inclusive settings successfully. Results of this study indicated that knowledge of Asperger's Syndrome and guidelines for accommodating the impairments of these learners is the first step towards successful inclusion. / Educational Studies / Thesis (M. Ed.)