Empirical Frame Research Articles

The cost of fad treatments in autism.

When considering interventions for autism, there is agreement on the importance of proof that a treatment is actually effective; that is, it actually produces positive gains in skills of the person with autism. Most behavior analysts and treatment providers adhere to a standard of that incorporates objective measurement using an experimental design that is implemented with adequate control over validity threats and other potential confounding variables. Thus, consumers should expect that treatment providers have some objective evidence to support claims of treatment effectiveness. This empirical frame of reference for judging effectiveness is supported by many committed to autism treatment. For example, the Organization for Autism Research (2008) advocates dissemination of the current state of the Science in autism research. The Autism Society of America (2008) lists several guidelines, one of which is, the treatment been validated scientifically? Even the federal education law requires that teachers use scientifically-based when working with children, both typical and those with special needs. Specifically, what are criteria for valid evidence of effectiveness? An important publication addressing these criteria was the New York State Department of Health (DOH) Clinical Practice Guidelines (1999). The DOH formed a panel of professionals and parents that developed criteria for what constituted quality research evidence for treatment effectiveness. Included in these criteria were: (a) use of experimental design, (b) controls for bias, and (c) multiple studies done by multiple investigators. The guidelines exerted a major influence on the shaping of evidenced-based practice in the early intervention of autism. In addition, Newsom and Hovanitz (2005) presented a compelling list of characteristics that would be part of any criteria. They argued that any test of treatment effectiveness must meet several standards of quality, including that: (a) terms must be operationally defined, (b) reliability of measurement must be assured, and (c) the treatment in question must be tested using experimental procedures (e.g., identification of independent and dependent variables, controlling for internal validity threats, etc.). Similar criteria were identified by Chambless, Baker, Baucom, Beutler, Calhoun, Crits-Christoph, et al. (1998) who proposed criteria that must be met by treatments used by clinical psychologist for those treatments to be considered effective. These criteria included: (a) a number of within-subject design experiments with more than nine subjects, (b) treatment manuals must exist specifying the details of the treatment methodology, (c) same effects demonstrated by at least two different researchers, and (d) subject characteristics must be detailed. Therefore, there is substantial body of criteria for research that can be considered well controlled and whose results then can be judged to be most believable (e.g., Kasari, 2002; Green, 1996). The importance of using effective treatment is underscored when considering the cost of caring for individuals with autism. It is likely that children who do not receive effective early intervention services will require long-term special and custodial care throughout their lives, which for 1996 was estimated to cost over $13 billion a year (FEAT, 1996). More recent studies suggest that the US spends $90 billion per year (Autism Society of America, 2008) to care for the 1.5 million children and adults with autism. This cost could skyrocket to between $200 billion and $400 billion by 2013 (The Autistic Society, 2008). Given the enormous cost of caring for these individuals over their lifetime, efforts are being focused on effective early intervention strategies in the hopes of offsetting some of the long-term costs. Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) has been shown to produce substantial benefits for many children with autism (Anderson, Avery, DiPietro, Edwards, & Christian, 1987; Birnbrauer & Leach, 1993; Fenske, Zalenski, Krantz, M Lovaas, 1987; McEachin, Smith, & Lovaas, 1993). …

The Impact of Maritime Tourism on the Greek Economy via the Tourism Satellite Account

Maritime tourism is a special interest tourism, showing significant demand increase worldwide. The activities of cruising, yachting and coastal tourism shipping constitute the Greek market of maritime tourism. The aim of this paper is to estimate the economic impact of the maritime tourism industry on the major macroeconomic factors of the Greek economy. The Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) has been applied by several countries to estimate the economic impacts of the traditionally designated tourism related industries, as well as all industries participating in the tourist economy (Strathclyde University,2004), but not for the economic effects of special interest tourism, as maritime tourism. Up until today there has not been any application of the method in Greece neither for the total tourism industry, nor for a specific tourism “sector”. The investigation of the theoretical and empirical frames of maritime tourism in Greece as well as the adaptation of Tourism Satellite Account tables, are a preconditioned fulfilment of the research. Since the TSA tables require information with economic value, which is not found in the recorded data by many public services, primary research has been conducted in order to collect necessary data. The data obstacle became higher since maritime tourism is not an immiscible activity but a combination of other sectors that's why the overall estimation and evaluation of the sector demands data from different but related sources. The paper concludes by presenting the final results of the economic impacts of maritime tourism on the major macroeconomic values of the Greek economy.

The World's Youth: Adolescence in Eight Regions of the Globe

332 Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 17 No. 1 (2007) ISSN: 1546-2250 The World’s Youth: Adolescence in Eight Regions of the Globe Brown, Bradford B. and Larson, R.W. and Saraswathi, T.S. (2002). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 369 pages. ISBN 0521006058. The World’s Youth is one of three volumes of edited papers published in 2002 that reflect on current conditions and future possibilities for adolescents in the world. The series of commissioned papers in The World’s Youth focuses on eight particular nations and regions. The other two volumes focus on external institutions and societal changes, respectively. It is often difficult to assess edited collections because the quality of contributions lacks consistency. To the editors’ credit, however, this is a tightly structured collection. The chapters are very cohesive in the themes they cover, each tackling issues that relate to family and peer relations, schooling, preparation for work, and physical and mental health, among others. To a large degree and as data allow, the authors provide empirically-based discussion in wellwritten and succinct chapters. The surprisingly large degree of consistency in the book is good for its overall comparative structure, but inevitably leads to a somewhat pedestrian rendering of a topic that is important as much for its critical and emotive nuances as for its solid empirical framing. Authors who deviate even a little from the book’s overall structure provide interesting and creative insights to an otherwise tightly circumscribed composition. For example, Bame Nsamenang questions the implications of Anglo-American paradigms for understanding youth in Sub-Saharan Africa and provides, in their place, a theoretically complex relational Afrocentric perspective. Similarly, Marilyn Booth argues for the primacy of family and Islam for Arab adolescents and lets the predominance of those two institutions guide her chapter. This is different from Verma and Saraswathi’s chapter on India that rigidly follows the prescribed 333 structure and for the most part eschews caste differences “… as a politically sensitive topic” (p. 106). Too bad! Contradictions between chapters are also illuminating. Stevenson and Zuma begin with the important point that in China and Japan, the terms “adolescent” and “teenager” are not as readily understood as they are in the Englishspeaking world. Alternatively, and somewhat surprisingly, Maria suggests that Southeast Asian countries for the most part accept the United Nations definition of “youth.” The book begins with a metaphor of diversity and ends with policy implications. Chapter 1 suggests that adolescence may be viewed through a metaphor of the kaleidoscope, as a “varied and colorful set of moving pictures” (p. 2). This metaphor accurately represents the structure of the book: the authors skillfully twist and turn the structures they present so that we see the complexity of the large, inter-related and convoluted contexts of young people the world over. To this end, the book is a huge success structurally. However, it fails to appreciate the fluid, mobile, transnational, experiential and relational aspects of living as a young person in the world today. Chapter 2 is a sensitive account of larger global demographic trends that highlights some gross inequalities perpetuated by the excesses of contemporary Western neo-liberal agendas. There follows accounts from eight regions and nations: Sub-Saharan Africa, India, China and Japan, Southeast Asia, Arab nations, Russia, Latin America and, lastly, Western countries. This kind of cross-regional and cross-cultural comparison is difficult to achieve, and alone makes this volume a tour de force. The book ends with a somewhat inevitable chapter on policy implications. Here, two of the editors reflect on larger institutional and global concerns. They then provide a framework for social policy in a series of bullet points that align with current concerns of the United Nations, the International Labor Organization (ILO), the World Health Organization and the World Bank, among others. The editors summarize the volume with the UN’s 1996 goals for youth policy and then add four bullets covering the need to reconsider family values, new media options, relevant school curricula and intervention programs. 334 Of course, the work reported in this volume is now seven years old (three years in the making and then published in 2002). Since then, there have been...

The Practice of Educational Leadership in African American Communities of Learning: Context, Scope, and Meaning

This article provides a synthesis that delineates the scope and context that give meaning, purpose, and setting to the exercise of effective educational leadership and to the attainment of meaningful student achievement within schools that serve large numbers of African American students. Historical, theoretical, and empirical frames of inquiry provide the background for understanding good leadership and leadership practices that address the learning needs of African American students. Understanding the interconnectedness of good leadership and cultural practices that support and sustain African American student achievement are to be found through an awareness of the unique framework of cultural uplift and interpersonal and institutional caring, hallmarks that have characterized effective school leadership and student achievement in African American learning communities.

What Can We Learn from International Student Performance Studies? Some Methodological Remarks

The determinants which are decisive for a successful accumulation of human capital and the transfer of these skills into the labor market are a contentious issue in the literature on the economics of education. Different studies on, for instance, the impact of school resources typically reach different conclusions even if they utilize the same dataset. The reason behind this is that each and every study decisively depends on a set of identification assumptions which are anything but innocuous for the results obtained. This paper aims at clarifying this point by embedding the discussion on the determinants of test success in international performance studies like PISA into a theoretical model of cognitive achievement and an empirical frame of reference.

Making Believe: Institutional and Discursive Barriers to Sustainable Transport in Two Australian Cities

The main focus of this paper is the complex of 'storylines' justifying transport infrastructure policy. We use the term 'discourse network' to describe the specific set of storylines and arguments that coordinate action in a particular policy domain. The 'knots' in the network are the related discursive threads of argument, the 'nodes' are institutional structures binding people together, sometimes in particular places, for close communication. Our empirical frame compares the transport policy domains of Australia's two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, in the past four decades. We find that transport storylines in both cities--whilst hardly conducive to sustainability--have by no means constituted a unified ideology. The evidence is that discourse networks in both contexts have been loosely woven nets comprised of strands of part truth, part fiction and quasi-arguments generated from different professional sources with different and in some ways conflicting ideologies. There are significant variations in the knots of storylines found in Sydney and Melbourne, particularly as they confront the opposing discourse of sustainability.

`Doin' the Hustle'

My own recently completed ethnographic study of a poor public housing development in Chicago provides the empirical frame for an examination of the social production of the ethnographer from the informants' point of view. I argue that reconstructing the informants' point of view - in this case their perceptions of the fieldworker as, variously, academic hustler, `nigger just like us' and `Arab' - can aid the researcher in determining patterns of structure and meaning among the individual, group, and/or community under study. This article reflects on informants' construction of my subsumption within a field of social relations in which the `hustle' was a dominant organizing principle.

Vocationalism and relevance in higher education: issues concerning the delivery of contextual material to first-year students on business and public sector courses

Tutors responsible for the delivery of material relating to the context, as opposed to the content, of employment on vocationally oriented higher education programmes, including those in business and public sector studies, face a variety of issues in demonstrating its vocational relevance. These are explored using a course that introduces first year students to aspects of the social and demographic environment of private enterprise and public service provision as an empirical frame of reference. Particular attention is given to the meaning of vocationalism and relevance in higher education and the presentation of a pluralist model of vocational education; the design of a learning and teaching strategy for contextual material that is both vocational and relevant; and future developments, including the impact of widening participation and the contribution of educational technology.

Management competence development for professional service SMEs: the case of community pharmacy

Over the last two decades there has been a substantial increase in the number and range of service sector SMEs. The management competence of the owner‐manager and/or senior staff is crucial to their success. Developing appropriate competencies presents a particular challenge for professional service SMEs, since the key players are more likely to be motivated by the perceived attractions of professional practice than the commercial and managerial aspects of the enterprise. Drawing upon the experiences of community pharmacists in the UK as an empirical frame of reference, consideration is given to the key management competencies, both operational and strategic, which are required to operate a professional service enterprise successfully. Issues concerning the provision of management training for community pharmacists are also highlighted.

The adolescence of a thirteenth-century visionary nun.

Among the most notable features of the religious revival in western Europe in the early thirteenth century was the development of mysticism among the nuns and religious women of the lowlands. As scholarly attention becomes increasingly focused on this group of remarkable women, the question arises whether a psychiatric viewpoint has something of value to offer to the understanding of such individuals and the culture in which they struggled. The methodological and intellectual problems inherent in examining the life of a thirteenth-century mystic with a twentieth-century empirical frame of reference are illustrated in this study of the adolescence of Beatrice of Nazareth. Beatrice's stormy asceticism, ecstatic states and mood swings lend themselves to potentially competing hypotheses regarding the spiritual and psychopathological significance of her adolescent development and eventual life-course. Common grounds for reconciling these alternative models are discussed.