Daily routines in the home are typically the most common interactions for children with their siblings and parents. When a child exhibits challenging behavior in these routines, it can cause a strain on the family as well as the child's ability to learn a more appropriate behavior. This study examined the feasibility and potential efficacy of an adapted version of the Prevent-Teach- Reinforce (PTR) intervention with three families of young children with developmental disabilities. The school-based PTR manual was adapted for treatment use in a family context. The study assessed the family adherence to the collaboratively developed PTR intervention, family use of the behavior rating scale, social validity, procedural integrity, and child behavior behaviors during the routines. A multiple-baseline design across children was used to examine the impact of the PTR intervention on child behavior within the routine. Results indicated that the PTR interventions were successful in demonstrating an increase in appropriate behaviors and a decrease in challenging behaviors across children. The results also indicated that parents were able to successfully use the behavior rating scale to measure each child's behavior.

This study evaluated the implementation of the school-based Prevent-Teach-Reinforce (PTR) model within multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) for elementary school students engaging in high levels of problem behavior. Three students and their classroom teachers in two public schools participated in the team-based PTR process during which they engaged in teaming and goal setting, functional behavior assessment, intervention, and evaluation. A multiple baseline across participants design was used to evaluate the impact of using the PTR model on student problem and replacement behaviors. Direct and indirect observations of student behaviors were conducted across target and generalization academic time periods. Findings indicate that the PTR intervention effectively reduced problem behavior and increased replacement behavior for all three participating students in both target and generalization academic time periods. Social validity assessments with the participating teachers and students indicated high levels of acceptability of and satisfaction with the PTR intervention goals, procedures, and outcomes. Implications for using the PTR model within MTSS for students who are not responding to Tier 2 interventions are discussed.

Orientador: Iraíde Marques de Freitas Barreiro / Banca: Cleiton de Oliveira / Banca: Hélia Sônia Raphael / Resumo: O presente estudo tem como objetivo principal analisar as dimensões da proposta oficial de reforço escolar e estudos de recuperação de aprendizagem, no município de Araçatuba-SP, envolvendo o processo de formulação e os elementos que compõem a implementação desta proposta em escolas do ensino fundamental. Os estudos de recuperação e reforço foram instituídos pela Lei Federal 5.692/71 e sofrem diversas alterações e adaptações ao longo das décadas de 1980 e 1990. Com o processo de municipalização do ensino, desencadeado a partir da EC nº 14/96 e da LDB 9.394/96, esses estudos são de responsabilidade das respectivas redes municipais. O Projeto de Reforço e Recuperação, o PRR, é uma ação da Secretaria Municipal de Educação, regulamentada, então, por uma resolução própria, voltada para o atendimento de todos os alunos das primeiras séries do ensino fundamental que apresentam defasagens no processo de aprendizagem. Ao optar por uma abordagem qualitativa, investigou-se duas escolas de ensino fundamental desta rede, focalizando o funcionamento do reforço e da recuperação em diferentes realidades. Foi constatado um claro processo de ressignificação e apropriação da proposta oficial, que reelabora o discurso normativo, realizando adaptações em função do contexto particular de cada unidade escolar investigada. Cada escola realiza essa leitura em função de vários aspectos, dentre eles a sua própria organização; a maneira como são encaminhadas as ações pelos seus integrantes, no contexto escolar; e a relação entre a administração central e local. / Abstract: The aim of this essay is to analyze the dimensions of the official proposal of school's reinforcement and learning recuperation studies, in the city of Araçatuba-SP, involving the process of formulation and the elements that constitute an implementation of that proposal in regular schools. The recuperation and reinforcement studies were instituted by Federal Law 5.692/71 and have been changed and adapted through the decades of 1980 and 1990. With the process of municipalization of education, due the LDB 9.394/96, these studies are the municipal educational system total responsibility. The Reinforcement and Recuperation Project, PRR, is an action of the Municipal Educational System, regulated by its own resolution, with the goal of attending all the students of the first years of elementary school that show difficulty in the learning process. Through a qualitative approach, two municipal elementary schools have been investigated, to show how the reinforcement and the recuperation work in different realities. A clear process of significance and appropriation of the official proposal was stated, which rebuilds the normative speech, getting adapted by the private context of each particular unit of the investigated school. Each school understands the process by several features among them, its own organization, how the school members interact within the scholar context and regarding to local and central administration. / Mestre

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:28:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-04-13Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:57:16Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 vasconcelos_acca_me_mar.pdf: 339426 bytes, checksum: de71b89a5cc393fdb9681e4204921bb8 (MD5) / O presente estudo tem como objetivo principal analisar as dimensões da proposta oficial de reforço escolar e estudos de recuperação de aprendizagem, no município de Araçatuba-SP, envolvendo o processo de formulação e os elementos que compõem a implementação desta proposta em escolas do ensino fundamental. Os estudos de recuperação e reforço foram instituídos pela Lei Federal 5.692/71 e sofrem diversas alterações e adaptações ao longo das décadas de 1980 e 1990. Com o processo de municipalização do ensino, desencadeado a partir da EC nº 14/96 e da LDB 9.394/96, esses estudos são de responsabilidade das respectivas redes municipais. O Projeto de Reforço e Recuperação, o PRR, é uma ação da Secretaria Municipal de Educação, regulamentada, então, por uma resolução própria, voltada para o atendimento de todos os alunos das primeiras séries do ensino fundamental que apresentam defasagens no processo de aprendizagem. Ao optar por uma abordagem qualitativa, investigou-se duas escolas de ensino fundamental desta rede, focalizando o funcionamento do reforço e da recuperação em diferentes realidades. Foi constatado um claro processo de ressignificação e apropriação da proposta oficial, que reelabora o discurso normativo, realizando adaptações em função do contexto particular de cada unidade escolar investigada. Cada escola realiza essa leitura em função de vários aspectos, dentre eles a sua própria organização; a maneira como são encaminhadas as ações pelos seus integrantes, no contexto escolar; e a relação entre a administração central e local. / The aim of this essay is to analyze the dimensions of the official proposal of school’s reinforcement and learning recuperation studies, in the city of Araçatuba-SP, involving the process of formulation and the elements that constitute an implementation of that proposal in regular schools. The recuperation and reinforcement studies were instituted by Federal Law 5.692/71 and have been changed and adapted through the decades of 1980 and 1990. With the process of municipalization of education, due the LDB 9.394/96, these studies are the municipal educational system total responsibility. The Reinforcement and Recuperation Project, PRR, is an action of the Municipal Educational System, regulated by its own resolution, with the goal of attending all the students of the first years of elementary school that show difficulty in the learning process. Through a qualitative approach, two municipal elementary schools have been investigated, to show how the reinforcement and the recuperation work in different realities. A clear process of significance and appropriation of the official proposal was stated, which rebuilds the normative speech, getting adapted by the private context of each particular unit of the investigated school. Each school understands the process by several features among them, its own organization, how the school members interact within the scholar context and regarding to local and central administration.

The aim of diploma thesis is a design of project for realization of a building of kindergarden construction. Also there are solved suitable disposition for this purpose and design of a bearing structure with a respect to static and thermal part of documentation. Part of kindergarden is designed as day nursery. That means the building is used for care for children in age of 6 months up to 6 years. The kindergarden has three classes with overall capacity of 60 children. The day nursery part of the building has capacity of 12 kids. The building has two floors without basement, groundplan has irregular arched shape with structurally divided parts. A shape and altitude of the building is adapted to vertical alignment of a ground. The main entrances into the building are situated from two height levels of a slope. A residential rooms are situated from southeast to southwest. Part of the building is protected from north by adjacent soil. The structural system of kindergarden is timber. Structurally divided part of day nursery is a combination of hidden reinforce concrete skeleton and lime-sandstone masonry system. A ceiling structure is made of glue laminated timber system. Roofing of the building is solved as vegetational roof with a smooth connection to slope terrain by arched structure. A facade is made as breathable system of timber plates.

The level of indoor comfort can highly be influenced by window opening and closing behavior of the occupant in an office building. It will not only affect the comfort level but also affects the energy consumption, if not properly managed. This occupant behavior is not easy to predict and control in conventional way. Nowadays, to call a system smart it must learn user behavior, as it gives valuable information to the controlling system. To make an efficient way of controlling a window, we propose RL (Reinforcement Learning) in our thesis which should be able to learn user behavior and maintain optimal indoor climate. This model free nature of RL gives the flexibility in developing an intelligent control system in a simpler way, compared to that of the conventional techniques. Data in our thesis is taken from an office building in Beijing. There has been implementation of Value-based Reinforcement learning before for controlling the window, but here in this thesis we are applying policy-based RL (REINFORCE algorithm) and also compare our results with value-based (Q-learning) and there by getting a better idea, which suits better for the task that we have in our hand and also to explore how they behave. Based on our work it is found that policy based RL provides a great trade-off in maintaining optimal indoor temperature and learning occupant’s behavior, which is important for a system to be called smart.

While previous mathematics education research has shown that norms can change in mathematics classrooms, little research has closely documented the struggles, concessions, and compromises involved in the negotiation process. Negotiating norms is a complex process entailing deliberate teacher moves intended to promote norms, often met with misunderstandings or resistance from students. This thesis documented the negotiation process that occurred when a teacher attempted to require conceptual explanations from students who had not previously been accustomed to doing so. I recorded six days of instruction in a 9th grade algebra unit, transcribed the class discussions, and inferred norms "at play" for each line of speech in the transcripts. Inspection of these norms revealed a hierarchy of norms, with groups of smaller micro norms constituting larger macro norms. The data showed that meeting a macro norm was done by meeting a sufficient number of its micro norms. In addition to describing a hierarchy of norms, I identified 7 norm negotiation moves (NNMs) used by the teacher, one of which was also used by students. I looked beyond individual lines of speech to analyze whole discussions to see how the teacher used NNMs to accomplish goals concerning norms. My analysis revealed that the teacher used a combination of multiple NNMs to achieve the purposes of introducing, refining, and reinforcing norms. These results offer researchers a new theoretical framework for the structure of norms and can give teachers additional insights into the process of norm negotiation, better preparing them to successfully negotiate norms as they create effective and supportive learning environments.

Les enfants ayant un trouble du spectre de l’autisme (TSA) présentent parfois des comportements problématiques, comme des comportements agressifs ou stéréotypés. L’émission de tels comportements peut avoir des conséquences néfastes, tant pour l’enfant que pour son entourage. Ainsi, l’enfant peut être limité dans ses apprentissages et vivre de l’isolement social. Leurs parents peuvent quant à eux vivre un niveau élevé de stress parental. Afin de répondre à ces besoins, cette thèse doctorale vise l’évaluation d’une adaptation parentale du Prevent-Teach-Reinforce (PTR, Dunlap et al., 2010), un programme initialement conçu pour diminuer les comportements problématiques et augmenter les comportements désirables des enfants en milieu scolaire. Basé sur les principes du soutien comportemental positif, ce programme prévoit l’atteinte des objectifs suite à la mise en place d’une intervention comportementale qui tient compte de la fonction du comportement problématique. L’intervention comprend des stratégies d’intervention pour modifier les antécédents, pour enseigner des comportements désirables et pour modifier les conséquences. Une étude randomisée a montré l’efficacité du PTR auprès d’enfants en milieu scolaire et deux études l’ont évalué à l’aide de devis expérimentaux à cas uniques en milieu familial pour des enfants ayant des troubles développementaux. Cette thèse, comprenant trois articles, constitue la première évaluation randomisée du PTR en contexte familial pour diminuer les comportements problématiques d’enfants ayant un TSA. Le premier article décrit les adaptations apportées au programme initial en prévision d’une implantation en contexte d’intervention comportementale précoce et en milieu familial, pour les enfants ayant un TSA. De plus, un parallèle est fait entre le programme et les principes clés de l’intervention psychoéducative. Le deuxième article présente les principaux résultats du projet de thèse, dans lequel 24 familles ont reçu deux interventions distinctes : le PTR durant huit semaines ou une formation théorique d’environ trois heures. Des analyses de variance ont été menées afin de statuer sur l’efficacité du programme. En somme, les comportements problématiques des enfants appartenant aux deux groupes ont diminué et les comportements désirables ont augmenté. Il n’est donc pas possible de statuer sur l’efficacité unique du PTR à diminuer les comportements problématiques. Les parents ont implanté le PTR avec une grande fidélité et ont accordé un score élevé de validité sociale au programme. Le troisième article présente les résultats en lien avec le stress parental. Les scores initiaux de stress parental ont été associés à la sévérité des comportements problématiques, montrant une corrélation modérée entre les deux concepts. Par ailleurs, une analyse de variance a permis de montrer que le stress parental a diminué uniquement chez les parents qui ont implanté de PTR. En conclusion, cette thèse a montré que le PTR semble être efficace pour diminuer les comportements problématiques et augmenter les comportements désirables des enfants ayant un TSA lorsque leurs parents l’implantent, mais davantage d’études sont nécessaires pour confirmer cette hypothèse. Ces études devraient comporter davantage de sujets et comparer le PTR à un groupe ne recevant aucun type d’intervention pour diminuer les comportements problématiques. / Children with an Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis sometimes show challenging behaviors such as aggressive or stereotyped behaviors. The presence of such behavior can have harmful consequences for both the children and the people living with them. For example, the child may be limited in his or her learning and experience social isolation. Parents may experience high levels of parental stress. In order to respond to these problems, this thesis evaluated a parental adaptation of the Prevent-Teach-Reinforce model (PTR; Dunlap et al., 2010), a program designed to reduce children’s challenging behaviors and increase their desirable behaviors in school settings. Based on the principles of positive behavioral support, this program aims to achieve its objectives by implementing a behavioral intervention taking into account the behavioral function of the challenging behavior. The intervention includes intervention strategies to modify the behavior’s antecedents, to teach desirable behaviors and to modify the behavior’s consequences. A randomized controlled study demonstrated the effectiveness of the PTR for school-aged children and two studies evaluated it in home settings for children with developmental disorders, using single case experimental designs. This thesis, comprising three articles, is the first randomized study evaluating the PTR in family settings to reduce challenging behaviors of children with ASD. The first article describes the adaptations made to the initial program in order to implement it with children with an ASD diagnosis receiving early intensive behavioral intervention or in family settings. In addition, a parallel was made between the PTR and the key principles from the psychoeducation field. The second article presents the main results of this thesis, with the 24 families which received two distinct interventions: the PTR for eight weeks or a theoretical training for about three hours. Analyzes of variance were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the PTR. In sum, children of both groups saw a reduction in challenging behaviors and an increase in desirable behaviors. It is therefore not possible to rule on the unique effectiveness of the PTR to reduce challenging behaviors. Parents implemented the PTR with great fidelity and rated the PTR with a very high level of social validity. The third article presents the results on parental stress. Initial parental stress scores were associated with the severity the child’s problem behaviors, showing a moderate correlation between the two concepts. On the other hand, an analysis of variance showed that parental stress only decreased for parents who implemented the PTR. In conclusion, this thesis has shown that PTR may be effective in decreasing problem behaviors and in increasing desirable behaviors of children with ASD. However, more studies are needed to confirm these hypotheses. These studies should include more subjects and compare the PTR to a group of children not receiving any type of intervention to reduce challenging behaviors.

Text in Afrikaans / In this study essential guidelines are given to Foundation Phase educators for the teaching of basic English concepts to English second language learners. Die research design is explained and recommendations are made. The following underlying problems, which were encountered in the research recommendation, are identified and discussed: Learning barriers with specific reference to English as a second language. The causes of learning barriers which include the discussion of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Educator training is lacking and educators do not have the necessary knowledge and skills to teach basic concepts in English to second language learners. The necessity and advantages of timeous identification of barriers to learning to ensure that basic concepts are taught. The study was concluded with practical guidelines to reinforce basic concepts in learners in the Foundation Phase who are taught in English as a second language. Recommendations were made to parents, educators and the Department of Education. / In die studie word riglyne aan Grondslagfase-onderwysers gegee vir die onderrig van basiese konsepte in Engels aan Engels tweedetaalleerders. Hierdie basiese konsepte is noodsaaklik vir vordering in die Grondslagfase. Die navorsingontwerp verduidelik en aanbevelings gemaak. Die volgende sub-probleme wat onderliggend is aan die navorsingsvoorstel is geïdentifiseer en bespreek, naamlik: Struikelblokke tot leer met spesifieke verwysing na Engels as tweedetaal. Die oorsake wat lei tot struikelblokke tot leer waaronder intrinsieke en ekstrinsieke faktore word bespreek. Onderwyseropleiding is onvoldoende en onderwysers beskik nie oor die kennis en vaardighede om basiese konsepte in Engels aan Engels tweedetaalleerders te onderrig nie. Die noodsaaklikheid van vroeë identifisering en die voordele verbonde aan vroegtydige identifisering van struikelblokke tot leer om te verseker dat basiese konsepte voldoende vasgelê word. Die studie is afgesluit met praktiese riglyne vir die vaslegging van basiese konsepte aan leerders in die Grondslagfase wat in Engels as tweede taal onderrig word. Aanbevelings is aan die ouers, onderwysers en die Departement van Onderwys gemaak. / Inclusive Education / M. Ed. (Inklusiewe Onderwys)

Text in Afrikaans / In this study essential guidelines are given to Foundation Phase educators for the teaching of basic English concepts to English second language learners. Die research design is explained and recommendations are made. The following underlying problems, which were encountered in the research recommendation, are identified and discussed: Learning barriers with specific reference to English as a second language. The causes of learning barriers which include the discussion of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Educator training is lacking and educators do not have the necessary knowledge and skills to teach basic concepts in English to second language learners. The necessity and advantages of timeous identification of barriers to learning to ensure that basic concepts are taught. The study was concluded with practical guidelines to reinforce basic concepts in learners in the Foundation Phase who are taught in English as a second language. Recommendations were made to parents, educators and the Department of Education. / In die studie word riglyne aan Grondslagfase-onderwysers gegee vir die onderrig van basiese konsepte in Engels aan Engels tweedetaalleerders. Hierdie basiese konsepte is noodsaaklik vir vordering in die Grondslagfase. Die navorsingontwerp verduidelik en aanbevelings gemaak. Die volgende sub-probleme wat onderliggend is aan die navorsingsvoorstel is geïdentifiseer en bespreek, naamlik: Struikelblokke tot leer met spesifieke verwysing na Engels as tweedetaal. Die oorsake wat lei tot struikelblokke tot leer waaronder intrinsieke en ekstrinsieke faktore word bespreek. Onderwyseropleiding is onvoldoende en onderwysers beskik nie oor die kennis en vaardighede om basiese konsepte in Engels aan Engels tweedetaalleerders te onderrig nie. Die noodsaaklikheid van vroeë identifisering en die voordele verbonde aan vroegtydige identifisering van struikelblokke tot leer om te verseker dat basiese konsepte voldoende vasgelê word. Die studie is afgesluit met praktiese riglyne vir die vaslegging van basiese konsepte aan leerders in die Grondslagfase wat in Engels as tweede taal onderrig word. Aanbevelings is aan die ouers, onderwysers en die Departement van Onderwys gemaak. / Inclusive Education / M. Ed. (Inklusiewe Onderwys)