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School Careers (school + career)
Selected AbstractsPredictors of academic attainments of young people with Down's syndromeJOURNAL OF INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY RESEARCH, Issue 5 2008S. Turner Abstract Background Earlier studies of young people with Down's syndrome have investigated a relatively limited range of variables which may influence their academic attainment. The relative strength of such influences and how they may vary during the school career, has also been under-researched. Aims The aim of the paper is to identify the contemporary and antecedent predictors of the level of academic attainment achieved by a representative sample of young people with Down's syndrome. Sample The paper reports data from three studies of 71 young people with Down's syndrome and their families. Mean IQ at the time of the first study (t1) was 40.4. Mean chronological age was 9 years at t1, 14 at t2, and 21 at t3, when all the young people had left school. Methods The outcome measure was the 58-item Academic Attainments Index (AAI), comprising three sub-scales covering reading, writing and numeracy. Predictors of the outcome were derived from questionnaires and interviews from tutors, mothers and fathers. A path analysis approach was used to investigate the pattern of predictors of the outcome over the three studies. Results Factors predicting greater progress in this measure between t2 and t3 were lower chronological age and attendance at mainstream school. Progress from t1 to t2 was also associated with attendance at mainstream school, as well as with higher t1 mental age, mother's practical coping style and higher child attentiveness. Background factors predicting higher t1 AAI scores were higher mental age, attendance at mainstream school and father's internal locus of control. The path analysis model predicted 48% of the variance in t3 outcome scores. Severity of intellectual impairment was by far the most significant predictor. Conclusion Limitations to the study include evidence of attrition bias towards more able children, and the need to obtain the t3 outcome measure from tutors for some young people and parents for others. Parents may have over-estimated abilities. Results are broadly in agreement with other studies, and confirm the pattern reported earlier with this group. Mainstream school attendance had a modest beneficial effect on AAI scores throughout the school career of the children, independently of level of intellectual disability. Identification of predictors of attainment levels and of improvement over time may help parents, teachers and other professionals involved with families of children and young people with Down's syndrome optimise the attainment of such skills. [source] Low IQ scores in schizophrenia: primary or secondary deficit?ACTA NEUROPSYCHIATRICA, Issue 3 2002M. Van Beilen Background: Schizophrenia is consistently associated with lower IQ compared to the IQ of control groups, or estimated premorbid IQ. It is not likely that the IQ scores deteriorate during the prodromal phase or first psychotic episode; they are already present before the onset of the prodromal phase and have been detected in childhood. Methods: We investigated cognitive functioning and IQ levels in a group of 36 patients with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. Results: The IQ scores in our sample were lower than average. The IQ showed a relation with attention, memory, speed of information processing and some aspects of executive functioning. However, when IQ scores were corrected for processing speed, they were no longer below average. Conclusions:, These findings are important in considering the value of intelligence levels in schizophrenia. IQ scores should be judged in combination with cognitive functioning and school career to assess a patients capabilities in society. Cognitive functions and other variables might have a considerable influence on IQ scores. This rises the question of whether the low IQ scores are a primary or secondary deficit. Schizophrenia patients may have normal IQs, but could be less capable of making an IQ-test. [source] A Life Jacket or an Art of Living: Inequality in Social Competence EducationCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 2 2003Geert T. M. Ten Dam After a period in which the emphasis in education was on "the basics," increasing attention has been paid at the turn of the century to the "moral task of education" in the Netherlands. Schools are not only expected to prepare students for further education and/or the labour market but also for participating in society in the broadest sense, for example, in politics, care, and culture. In this article we will focus on one aspect of students' development as a task of the school, namely, the furthering of students' social competence. Six case studies were conducted in which projects aimed at social competence were analysed in general secondary education and prevocational education. The results show that in the general secondary education projects the emphasis was on the meaning of changes in society for students and the contribution they can make to such changes (social competence in education as an "art of living"). The prevocational education projects focused on improving the chances of students at school and in society by developing aspects of social competence that they have not acquired at home or earlier in their school careers, such as self-confidence and social and communicative skills (social competence as a "life jacket"). We interpret these different focuses in terms of the production and reproduction of social inequality and discuss how such reproduction processes can be countered in the context of educating for social competence. [source] The sources and manifestations of stress amongst school-aged dyslexics, compared with sibling controlsDYSLEXIA, Issue 4 2008Neil Alexander-Passe Abstract All school children experience stress at some point in their school careers. This study investigates whether dyslexic children, by way of their educational and social difficulties, experience higher levels of stress at school. The School Situation Survey was used to investigate both the sources and manifestations of stress amongst dyslexic children and non-dyslexic sibling controls. Samples were broken down by gender, age and the size of families. Results suggest significant differences between the groups, with dyslexics in academic years 3,5 experiencing the highest stress levels, specifically in interactions with teachers, worries over academic examinations (SATs) and performance testing, causing emotional (fear, shyness and loneliness) and physiological (nausea, tremors or rapid heart beat) manifestations. Results also suggest that dyslexics in larger families (3,4 sibling families) experience greater stress in interactions with their peers, than those in smaller families (two sibling families),possibly from unfair sibling comparison. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] What can national data sets tell us about inclusion and pupil achievement?BRITISH JOURNAL OF SPECIAL EDUCATION, Issue 3 2004Lani Florian Recent developments in the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) have produced a national pupil database (NPD) that contains information about the attainments of individual pupils. Every child in the country has been allocated a unique pupil number (UPN), which means that the academic progress of individuals can be tracked over time. It is possible to combine data on attainment with the demographic information which is obtained from the pupil level annual schools census (PLASC). These innovations make it possible to combine ,value added' information about pupil progress from one key stage of education to the next with data from the PLASC, which contains pupil background information, to produce a single matched data set. Thus the NPD and the PLASC are able to provide much of the necessary information to explore issues of individual pupil performance over their school careers. Notably, more specific information about the academic achievement of pupils who are described as having ,special educational needs' is now available. Lani Florian, lecturer in inclusion and special educational needs, Martyn Rouse, senior lecturer in inclusion and special educational needs, Kristine Black-Hawkins, senior research associate, and Stephen Jull, research associate, are all based at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education. In this article, drawing on their work in the ,Inclusion and Achievement Project', they explore the problems and possibilities for researching issues of pupil achievement and inclusion through the use of these new national data sets. [source] | |||||||||||||