This study examined the experiences of five Korean American mothers in Oregon and California who have children with disabilities using qualitative research analysis. The mothers' adaptation processes were individually analyzed, and these mothers' overarching experiences were discussed with three major themes: (a) caring for family cohesiveness, (b) needs for social and professional support, and (c) positive transformation of life through religion Adaptation to the children's disabilities was a process for these participants. All mothers had their own demands, resources, and subjective interpretations of their situations. Analysis of the qualitative data disclosed that these five Korean American mothers transformed the negative life events of having children with disabilities into meaningful opportunities to grow personally and spiritually. These immigrant mothers' care-commitment for their families' cohesiveness strengthened their life long coping process. Several married mothers perceived emotional support from their husbands. Most of the mothers expressed the need for social support due to their immigrant status. These five Korean American mothers tried to adapt to their situation of raising a child with a disability within their intact family members. Two mothers from California utilized emotional and informational support from Korean parent support groups, which are more readily available in that state due to the large number of Korean American families with children with disabilities. Despite the lack of social and professional support, many of the mothers perceived their experiences of having children with disabilities positively through their religious beliefs. Raising a child with a disability reportedly strengthened the mothers' religious faith, and their strong religious beliefs gave them courage to successfully adapt to their situations. Several of the mothers stated that their worldviews were also changed. Although this study was limited to five participants, it yielded an enhanced understanding of Korean American mothers who have children with disabilities and provided direction for future research and practice. The findings suggest that special education providers should emphasize and support the strengths of a child's major caregiver. / Graduation date: 2004

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

Past studies have found substantial benefits associated with integrating neurotypically developing students as peer supporters for children with autism (McCurdy & Cole, 2013). The current study asks the question as to whether or not the support of typically developing students benefits the social skills development of twice-exceptional students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The “twice-exceptionality” in this study is specifically related to a heightened interest and proficiency in technology compared to children in their same age group, along with a coexisting diagnosis of autism. iSocial, a virtual learning intervention for children with ASD, is a recently developed program targeted to help children with ASD. To date, no research has examined iSocial’s use with peer supporters. As such, a new intervention that combines the use of iSocial with a peer support component is proposed. Typically developing peer supporters and children with ASD will collaboratively complete an 8-10 week intervention. It is predicted that children with autism in the experimental group will score significantly higher on post-intervention tasks than their baseline tasks. It is also predicted that children who collaborated with peer supporters will achieve greater symptom improvements on the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) and higher scores on the Reading the Mind in Eyes test than the control group. While children in both groups are anticipated to benefit from the iSocial intervention, it is likely that the highest gains will be observed in the peer-supported group. The outcomes of this study may serve as essential and practical ways for developing new methods to test and design interventions for children with ASD.

The evolutionary origins of animal phyla are intimately linked with the Cambrian explosion, a period of radical ecological and evolutionary innovation that begins approximately 540 Mya and continues for some 20 million years, during which most major animal groups appear. Lophotrochozoa, a major group of protostome animals that includes molluscs, annelids and brachiopods, represent a significant component of the oldest known fossil records of biomineralised animals, as disclosed by the enigmatic ‘small shelly fossil’ faunas of the early Cambrian. Determining the affinities of these scleritome taxa is highly informative for examining Cambrian evolutionary patterns, since many are supposed stem-group Lophotrochozoa. The main focus of this thesis pertained to the stem-group of the Brachiopoda, a highly diverse and important clade of suspension feeding animals in the Palaeozoic era, which are still extant but with only with a fraction of past diversity. Major findings include adding support for tommotiid affinity as stem-group lophophorates. Determining morphological character homologies vital to reconstructing the brachiopod stem-group was achieved by comparing Cambrian Lagerstätten with the widespread biomineralised record of Cambrian stem-brachiopods and small shelly fossils. Polarising character changes associated with the putative transition from scleritome organisms to crown-group brachiopods was furthered by the description of an enigmatic agglutinated tubular lophophorate Yuganotheca elegans from the Chengjiang Lagerstätte, China, which possesses an unusual combination of phoronid, brachiopod and tommotiid characters. These efforts were furthered by the use of X-ray tomographic techniques that revealed novel anatomical features, including exceptionally preserved setae in the tommotiid Micrina. The evidence for a common origin of columnar brachiopod shell structures in the tommotiids is suggested and critically examined. Enigmatic and problematic early and middle Cambrian lophotrochozoans are newly described or re-described in light of new evidence, namely: the stem-brachiopod Mickwitzia occidens Walcott from the Indian Springs Lagerstätte, Nevada; a putative stem-group entoproct Cotyledion tylodes Luo and Hu from Chengjiang, China; a new enigmatic family of rhynchonelliform brachiopods exemplified by the newly described Tomteluva perturbata from the Stephen Formation, Canada; and the tommotiid Micrina etheridgei (Tate) from the Flinders Ranges, South Australia. Cladistic analyses of fossil morphological data supports a monophyletic Brachiopoda.

This thesis’s purpose is twofold. The first purpose is to present both information about what twice-exceptionality is and to make recommendations based on the existing research as to how parents or guardians can become more effective advocates and advocate for effective programming and services for their children who are twice-exceptional. While this thesis focuses on a specific subset of twice-exceptional students, those who are both gifted and have autism, a good deal of the material presented will be applicable to children who are gifted with learning disabilities. Effective parent advocacy looks the same across exceptionalities: producing the best educational experience based on the child’s unique needs. Strengths-based programming has been demonstrated to benefit twice-exceptional students no matter the disability, however the areas of deficit will vary depending on the specific disability a child has and his/her unique learning profile. The resources for information on special education law and twice-exceptionality will be useful to parents regardless of the twice-exceptional child’s disability. The second, and I feel most important, purpose of the thesis is to provide those parents/guardians with a “Quick Start Guide to Advocacy” to help them get started on the path to becoming the most effective advocate they can be for their child(ren). While educators and school administrators are expected to have a solid understanding of the rights and responsibilities of all stakeholders, many times parents are thrust into the world of special and gifted education with no preexisting knowledge. The aim of this thesis is to help bridge this gap for parents and guardians of this unique subset of students.

The research reported in this thesis examines the impact that Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) have on the practices of their teacher colleagues. Since SENCOs are central to supporting children’s inclusion and achievement, the research centres around three research questions: whether SENCOs are able to motivate teachers to take the initiative in addressing the needs of children with SEN in their classrooms; whether SENCOs enhance teachers’ abilities to become effective teachers of children with SEN; and how the impact of SENCOs is currently being assessed within primary schools. The project was conducted within an interpretivist framework, and applied a mixed methods approach consisting of two phases: an exploratory questionnaire survey of 223 (responses n=42) primary school SENCOs from the ‘National Award for SEN Coordination’ Course; and semi-structured interviews of 18 SENCOs and 18 teachers, including head teachers. Document scrutiny of school SEN policies and other related documentation was also undertaken. Data triangulation aimed at ensuring the trustworthiness of data was accomplished through a multi-pronged methodological approach. The research was conducted in accordance with an Ethical Code informed by the British Educational Research Association (BERA) and University of Northampton guidelines. Results indicated that SENCOs have a complex role, impacting upon teachers’ practices by utilising a wide range of skills, knowledge and expertise across different contexts. This is influenced by whether or not they are members of their School Leadership Teams. Further, SENCOs’ time management is a constant concern in balancing competing priorities and demands, which include liaising with external agencies and keeping up to date with legislative changes which impact the requirements of the role. There is evidence that the degree to which SENCOs have a positive impact on teachers’ inclusive skills varies, as the SENCO-teacher dynamic is influenced by SENCOs’ training and skills and the dissemination to teachers; SENCOs’ and teachers’ professional identity; SENCO-teacher engagement and perceptions of inclusion; and the interventions and provision made for children with SEN. Implications for further possible research that were identified included the use of contact and non-contact time by SENCOs, the impact of the mandatory SENCO training and also the role of the SEN Governor as a crucial advocate for SEN at management level.

Social support needs have neither been formally addressed nor assessed in prior research with parents of children of special needs. Typically, behavioral management skills, specific knowledge about the disorder/illness/handicap, parents' self-perception, and participants' evaluation of program effectiveness have been measured. Research information collected to date supports the exploration of social support as a treatment intervention. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine perceived social support for parents of children with ADHD who completed a parent training program. The program, entitled "ADHD Parent Training," included information about ADHD, behavior management strategies, child advocacy, and a social support component. Upon completing the ADHD Parent Training program, parents were expected to perceive a significantly greater amount of social support than they did prior to treatment. In addition, the relationship between change in perceived social support and the more traditionally assessed outcomes of parent training was examined (parent's satisfaction with treatment, parent's perception of child's progress, and teacher's perception of child's progress).

This study was designed to ascertain whether group achievement test data can determine special education referral accuracy. One hundred eighty-nine special education referrals from four school districts in Texas were examined. The demographics were limited to group achievement test data: grade equivalents and percentiles in the subject areas of reading, spelling, language arts, and mathematics. Also examined were referral and eligibility outcomes to special education.

This study investigates the inter-rater reliability of appraisers who award exceptional quality points on the Texas Teacher Appraisal Instrument. Inter-rater reliability was measured when appraisers scored exceptional quality points after viewing a videotaped lesson. Comparisons were made between appraisers when grouped according to elementary or secondary certification, sex, years of administrative experience, and type of training. A total of 707 subjects from 56 school districts participated in the study. Five research hypotheses were formulated with the .05 level of significance for acceptance. All hypotheses were tested by correlation of coefficients, multiple response procedures, frequencies, and percentages. The data measuring inter-rater reliability of the appraisers in training imply that there is very little reliability in the awarding of exceptional quality points on the Texas Teacher Appraisal Instrument. The findings of this study are that certification, sex, administrative experience, and type of training made no significant differences when scoring the instrument. Therefore, it is concluded that the scoring of exceptional quality points is a subjective, professional judgment made by each appraiser when observing a teacher. Since no significant reliability was found, the scoring of exceptional quality points cannot be supported as a reliable means of determining the quality of teaching in Texas schools. Generally, elementary certified appraisers awarded fewer exceptional quality points than secondary appraisers, males awarded slightly more points than females, appraisers indicated no noticeable trend because of years of administrative experience, and less experienced appraisers had the tendency to award more points than experienced appraisers. Therefore, inter-rater reliability in awarding exceptional quality points cannot be expected on a consistent basis. Each appraiser, regardless of certification, sex, years of administrative experience or training, will use his or her own professional judgment when scoring the instrument.

No description available.