The present study examined social information processing in a sample of teenagers with various comorbid neurodevelopmental disabilities and typically developing controls. Crick and Dodge’s (1996) model of social information processing was used as the theoretical framework for the current study. Specifically, emotion recognition of self and others, attribution biases, and outcome expectations were measured in adolescents with and without a neurodevelopmental disability. Performance on these social measures was compared to caregiver ratings of social skills, and was also compared across diagnostic groups. 52 adolescents with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and/or learning disability participated in the current study, as well as 51 typically developing control participants. Analyses showed that individuals with any neurodevelopmental disability were less accurate at recognizing sadness in others and at identifying their own feelings and emotions. An interaction between participant group and sex was found, such that females with a neurodevelopmental disability were most likely to report feeling badly after acting aggressively and reported that acting aggressively would be difficult, but that they believed aggression would result in a successful social outcome. Males with a neurodevelopmental disability believed the opposite, that acting aggressively would be socially unsuccessful, but that they would feel good about themselves and that acting aggressively would be easy. Additionally, caregiver ratings of social skills were positively related to participants’ abilities to identify their own feelings, and negatively related to participants’ ratings of the ease of aggressive social encounters. Interestingly, although diagnostic group differences were predicted on these measures, few were found. This research has implications for clinical and educational work with individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities. First, individuals with any neurodevelopmental disability appeared to have similar social impairments, suggesting that deficits may be related to the presence of any diagnosis, rather than one in particular. Analysis of the steps of social information processing in this population is useful for teachers and clinicians when trying to plan social skills interventions.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:24:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-12-16Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:23:44Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 pinheiro_fh_me_mar.pdf: 1108488 bytes, checksum: 130597f5cd62a61f51f2cd57c86db278 (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / O termo distúrbio de aprendizagem refere-se a um grupo heterogêneo de distúrbios, de origem neurológica, que se manifestam por dificuldades significativas na aquisição e no uso da compreensão oral, de fala, leitura e escrita, raciocínio e habilidades matemáticas. O transtorno do processamento auditivo refere-se especificamente à alteração de um ou mais mecanismos ou processos do sistema auditivo, responsáveis pelos fenômenos comportamentais relacionados à audição. O objetivo geral deste estudo é verificar a eficácia de um programa de treinamento auditivo em escolares com distúrbio de aprendizagem. Os objetivos específicos incluem a comparação do desempenho auditivo e de tarefas de consciência fonológica dos escolares com distúrbio de aprendizagem e transtorno do processamento auditivo com escolares sem dificuldades escolares, comparar os achados das avaliações em pré e pós-testagem em escolares submetidos e não submetidos ao programa de treinamento auditivo e comparar os resultados obtidos pelo programa após a aplicação nos grupos treinados. Participaram deste estudo 40 escolares da 2ª a 4ª série do Ensino Fundamental, sendo o GI dividido em: GIe (10 escolares com distúrbio de aprendizagem e de transtorno do processamento auditivo submetidos ao programa de treinamento auditivo), GIc (10 escolares com distúrbios de aprendizagem e de transtorno do processamento auditivo não submetidos ao programa de treinamento auditivo) e GII, subdividido em: GIIe (10 escolares sem dificuldades submetidos ao programa de treinamento auditivo) e GIIc (10 escolares sem dificuldades não submetidos ao programa de treinamento auditivo). Em situação de pré e pós-testagem, todos os escolares deste estudo foram submetidos à avaliação de testes relacionados ao processamento auditivo (testes fala com ruído, dicótico de dígitos e dicótico de dissílabos alternados) seguido... / The term learning disabilities refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders of neurological origin, manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading and writing, reasoning, math skills. The auditory processing disorder refers specifically to the modification of one or more mechanisms or processes of the auditory system, responsible for behavioral phenomena related to the hearing. The aim of this study is to verify the effectiveness of a program of auditory training in students with learning disabilities. Specific objectives include comparing the performance of auditory and phonological awareness tasks of students with learning disabilities and auditory processing disorder with students without learning difficulties, comparing the results of assessments in pre and posttesting in schools not submitted to the auditory training program and comparing the results obtained by the program after applying the trained groups. The study included 40 students from 2nd to 4th grades of elementary school, and the GI is divided in: GIe (10 students with learning disabilities and auditory processing disturbs who were submitted to the program), GIc (10 students with learning disabilities and auditory processing disturbs not submitted to the auditory training) and GII, subdivided in: GIIe (10 students without difficulties submitted to the auditory training) and GIIc (10 students without difficulties who were not submitted to the auditory training program). In a pre and post-testing, all subjects of this study were submitted to tests related to auditory processing tests (speech-in-noise, dichotic digits, dichotic spondaic) followed by the application of phonological awareness — CONFIAS. The results were statistically analyzed using the Mann-Whitney Test, to detect differences between groups in a pre-testing and post-testing, and the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

abstract: There are many educational issues connected to the exponential growth of the Latina/o population in the U.S. One such issue is Latina/os’ educational outcomes in the area of literacy. Despite the increased attention to subpopulations of students (e.g., English language learners, students with disabilities) there is little attention given to students that do not fit neatly into one subcategory, which positions Latina/o language minorities (LMs) with learning disabilities (LDs) in a liminal space where their educational services are fragmented into either being a student with LD or a LM student. Unfortunately, labels that are meant to afford students resources often result in fragmenting students’ educational experiences. This becomes evident when attempting to locate research on students who have ethnic, linguistic, and ability differences. Rarely are their educational needs as Latina/o LMs with LD met fluidly. Understanding the intersections of ethnicity, language, and ability differences in situated literacy practice is imperative to creating the deep, nuanced understanding of how Latina/o LMs with LD might become proficient in the use of critical twenty-first century tools such as new literacies. In this study I used cultural historical activity theory in combination with New Literacy Studies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009; Gee, 1996) and intersectionality (McCall, 2014) to examine how Latina/o LMs with LD’s participated in literacies across in- and out-of-school contexts with the following research questions: In what ways does participation in literacy change for Latina/o LMs with LD as they move between in- and out-of-school? What situated identities do LMs with LD enact and resist while participating in literacy across in- and out-of-school contexts? / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Special Education 2015

Aims Research suggests that people with a learning disability have difficulty processing and interpreting facial expressions of emotion. Emotion recognition is a fundamental skill and impairment in this area may be related to a number of negative, social and functional outcomes including increased frequency of aggressive behaviour, failure of community-based placements and mental illness. This thesis therefore had three aims: to review systematically the evidence for the presence of emotion recognition impairments in adults with a learning disability compared with the non-learning disabled population; to evaluate the emotion specificity hypothesis (which states that people with a learning disability perform less well on emotion recognition tasks as a result of a specific impairment in emotion recognition competence) and to evaluate the relationship between cognitive processing style and emotion recognition in people with a learning disability. Methods The first paper is a systematic review of studies that compared the performance of adults with a learning disability with that of a non-learning disabled control group on tasks of facial emotion recognition. The second paper reports on an empirical study that compared the performance of adults with a learning disability (n = 23) with adults (n = 23) and children (n = 23) without learning disability on tasks of facial emotion recognition and control tasks. The third paper reports further results from the empirical study which looks at cognitive processing style of adults with a learning disability and non-learning disabled children and adults. Results The systematic review found that all of the included studies reported evidence to support the proposal that adults with a learning disability are relatively impaired in recognising facial expressions of emotion. There are significant limitations associated with the research in this area and further studies are required in order to provide insight into the possible causes of emotion recognition deficits in this group of people. In the empirical study, adults with a learning disability were found to be relatively impaired on both emotion recognition and control tasks compared with both adult and child control groups. The availability of contextual information improved emotion recognition accuracy for adults with learning disability. The demands of the task also had an effect: identifying a target emotion from a choice of two images, rather than a choice of nine or naming the emotion also improved accuracy. Adults with learning disability were more likely to adopt a local processing style. A global processing style was associated with greater accuracy on the emotion recognition tasks. Conclusions Adults with learning disability are relatively impaired in facial emotion recognition when compared with non-learning disabled adults and children. This relative impairment was also evident on control tasks and therefore no evidence for the emotion specificity hypothesis was found. A number of issues in relation to future research are raised, specifically regarding the development of control tasks with comparable levels of difficulty to emotion recognition tasks.

A learning disability (LD) is any disability resulting from a primary impairment in comprehending or expressing language. Many studies have looked at atypical language processes in children - particularly those with Specific Language Impairment and Dyslexia - but few have considered to how language demands, and therefore the impact of LD, change as children or adolescents transition into the postsecondary setting where auditory language abilities are often a necessary component for success. In this study we posited that students with LD would have a more difficult time learning information from a typical lecture format, and that contributors such as extant vocabulary, short-term verbal memory, and attention would all predict outcomes for post-lecture test performance. Participants were 34 individuals with LD and 34 individuals who were typically developing (ND). Each participant watched a 30-minute lecture. Before the lecture, a baseline-test of general topic knowledge was given. Afterwards a post-test was given regarding specific information from the lecture. Additionally, multiple standardized tests and ratings were given to each participant to look at individual differences that contributed to outcomes on the post-test. We found that LD students learned less information from the lecture than did the ND students, as measured in both recall and recognition formats. Post-test performance for all students was predicted based on vocabulary and attention. Verbal memory was an additional predictor for LD participants.

The challenges associated with having a learning disability have been found to persist throughout the life course. A healthy sense of self, as well as family support, are pivotal factors that shape outcomes for youth with learning disabilities. Using data from 8,915 participations in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, the present study identified longitudinal links between adolescent learning disabilities and depressive symptoms during adolescence and young adulthood. Mother-adolescent relationships emerged as an important protective factor. Latent growth models are underway to determine whether adolescent human agency mediates the link between learning disabilities and mental health.

The majority of research on the mathematics teaching and learning of students with mathematics learning dis/abilities is not performed in the field of mathematics education, but in the field of special education. Due to this theoretical divide, students with mathematics learning dis/abilities are far more likely to be in classes that emphasize memorization, direct instruction, and the explicit teaching of rules and procedures. Additionally, students with mathematics learning dis/abilities are often seen as "unable" to succeed in school mathematics and are characterized by their academic difficulties and deficits. The negative assumptions, beliefs, and expectations resulting from ableistic practices in the education system color the interactions educators, parents, and other students have with students with mathematics learning dis/abilities. These interactions in turn influence how students with mathematics learning dis/abilities view and position themselves as learners and doers of mathematics. My study builds on the theoretical framework of positioning theory (Harré, 2012) in order to better understand the mathematical identities of students with mathematics learning dis/abilities. The results of my study show how these students use their prepositions and enduring positions to inform the in-the-moment positions they take on in the mathematics classroom.

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Background: People with intellectual disability are more likely than the general population to be prescribed psychotropic agents. The most common indications include treatment of a psychiatric disorder and management of behaviours that challenge. Aim: The study aimed to assess the prescribing patterns of psychotropic medication to outpatients with intellectual disability at a psychiatric hospital. Setting: Alexandra hospital outpatient clinic, Cape Town. Methods: This was a retrospective folder and prescription chart review. Folders of all new patients (103) seen between January 2018 and August 2019 were examined at two points, the initial appointment and again at six months. The information was examined against the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines for prescribing in people with intellectual disability. Results: psychotropic medication was prescribed to 88% of patients. Antipsychotics accounted for more than 56% of the medication prescribed and was used mainly to manage behaviours that challenge. Clinicians at Alexandra hospital followed prescribing guidelines to some extent; however, more still needs to be done to ensure best practice and care. Conclusion: This review revealed a few shortcomings in meeting prescribing guidelines by clinicians at Alexandra hospital. Measures to address these shortcomings could be the inclusion of medication review schedules and standardised forms for clerking and monitoring of side effects in patient files, the use of behavioural strategies as the primary management of behaviours that challenge, and the performance of regular clinical practice audits.

The purpose of this study was to use qualitative measures to investigate the childhood family factors that influenced the enrollment of college students with learning disabilities. Six participants were interviewed, all of whom were registered through the University Accessibility Center at a four-year university and were served at some point during their school years for a learning disability. Interviews were held in a confidential location and lasted approximately thirty minutes. The interview protocol was constructed in a way that allowed participants to reflect on their experiences and tell their story in their own manner. Planned prompts were included to solicit more information as needed. The interviews were digitally recorded using an Ipod recorder and transcribed using NVivo 8 software. Investigators used thematic analysis to identify themes or patterns in the data, analyzed the themes, and reported the results based on their interpretation of the themes. In this approach, the data drove the interpretation rather than attempting to fit the data into the investigators' existing beliefs or interests. Four major themes emerged from the data analysis. Two themes centered on family factors that influenced college enrollment. These themes included parent support during school years and family involvement with college enrollment. Participants described the supportive relationship they had with their parents and the underlying feelings of support that always existed in their homes. They also reported their family's tradition of college attendance and parent expectations to attend college as significant factors in their own college enrollment. The other two themes relate to participants' feelings and beliefs about their disabilities. These themes include the impact of the disability on the individuals' sense of self-worth and personal strengths that contributed to success. Participants reported experiencing a lack of understanding about their disability. They recalled comparing themselves to their peers and not knowing how to explain their learning challenges to others. Despite their frustrations, participants made personal contributions to their own success. These contributions included the use of coping strategies and a determination to succeed. The individuals' use of coping strategies created an opportunity to experience success in the school setting, thereby increasing their motivation to continue their education after high school.