Handicapped Youngsters Research Articles

THE IMPACT OF PEDIATRIC GASTROINTESTINAL AND LIVER DISEASE ON PATIENTS' QUALITY OF LIFE: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Aim: Identifies and evaluates all studies and instruments devised to measure quality of life (QOL) in children with gastrointestinal or hepatic diseases.
 Methods: Using MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO, pertinent articles published by the end of 2005 were identified through a search of the literature. These were examined by the two authors, and data were extracted using a standardized form. Articles were excluded if no attempt was made to measure QOL, if they did not pertain to minors 17 years of age, if they did not pertain to gastrointestinal or liver diseases, or if they were reviews. Identified quality of life instruments were evaluated based on proposed criteria.
 Results: Following the first search, a total of 2379 publications were located; however, following the exclusion of 2309, only 70 research were considered for inclusion. These were classified as having one of the following conditions: inflammatory liver disease, numbering seven. These studies discuss the effects that bowel disease, with a sample size of n = 17, cystic fibrosis, with a sample size of n = 20, and surgery, with a sample size of n = 15, have on the quality of life of children who are afflicted with these conditions. Only five of these condition-specific quality of life instruments and one general instrument with a chronic disease module were found to meet the specified quality standards; hence, only five of these instruments may be recommended for use in the future.
 Conclusion: Chronic gastrointestinal and liver illnesses can severely impact QOL for patients and their families. Several disease-specific paediatric QOL tools have been validated. Clinical practice and treatment evaluation should include quality of life. Research should focus on improving QOL in seriously handicapped youngsters.

Overcoming Resistance to Prereferral Classroom Interventions

Although research supports the benefits of in-class remedial efforts for mildly handicapped youngsters, teachers often resist such practices. This article presents guideliens for educational consultants to use to overcome teacher resistance to prereferral intervention. Suggestions also are offered for engagin in constructive confrontation as well as for soliciting administrative intervention to help teachers adapt regular classroom instructional techniques for students at-risk.

Preparing Secondary Special Education Teachers To Be Collaborative Decision Makers and Reflective Practitioners

This study describes a practicum model for preparing secondary special education teachers consonant with the initiative to merge general and special education. The goal is to prepare teachers who are collaborative decision makers and reflective practitioners. In a 4-week intensive summer practicum, special education graduate students and middle school mathematics teachers designed and implemented two units of instruction in mathematics for at-risk and mildly handicapped youngsters. The experience was structured to engage graduate students in thinking seriously about the process of teaching and to examine the effects of their pedagogical decisions on learners. Data analyses revealed factors essential to the success of such practicum endeavors and captured changes in graduate students' reflective orientations.

The Battelle Developmental Inventory: Teacher Perceptions and Implementation Data

This article reports results from a statewide implementation study of the Battelle Developmental Inventory. A total of 76 teachers participated by assessing 247 handicapped preschoolers. Data are presented with regard to perceived usefulness of the BDI, administration and scoring time, scoring accuracy, usefulness of adaptations, and calculation of extreme scores. Teachers were moderately positive about the various possible uses of the measure, although ratings for use with severely handicapped children were much lower than those for mild and moderately handicapped youngsters. Teachers made a large number of errors in administering and scoring the instrument. Approximately half of the adaptations for handicapped children were rated as appropriate. Implications of these and other findings for use of the BDI in early intervention programs are discussed.

Information processing and educational microcomputer technology: where do we go from here?

Microcomputer technology has enormous potential for altering the educational experiences and outcomes of learning handicapped youngsters. This article explores two particular areas of the learning process that appear to be fertile ground for implementing effective microcomputer technology. The first area is that of extended practice and its role in the development of increased automaticity of basic information processing skills. Several examples are presented of empirical research employing extended, microcomputer-based, daily practice on basic mathematics and reading tasks with learning disabled students. The second area discussed involves problem solving and metacognitive activities. The teacher, microcomputer, and learner are envisaged as three integrally related aspects of the microeducational environment. Microcomputer technology stimulates and enables innovative role definition for each. Finally, several potentially problematic issues related to tool use and to information processing characteristics of learning handicapped populations are discussed.

Validity of Academic Achievement Measures With Emotionally Handicapped Children

Assessment of academic achievement is a very frequent component of evaluation and treatment planning for emotionally handicapped youngsters. However, there is very little information available on the validity of the most commonly used achievement tests with this population. In our study, with a sample of emotionally handicapped children receiving day treatment services, multiple validity indexes were derived for the Wide Range Achievement Test and the Peabody Individual Achievement Test. These included measures of concurrent and construct validity. Results were discussed in terms of the convergent and discriminant validity of subtests, and the accuracy of the estimation of grade level.

Juvenile and family mental health law in sociohistorical context

The mental health care of children and youth cannot be considered in historical context without looking more broadly at the treatment of delinquent, neglected, abused, dependent, and mentally and emotionally handicapped youngsters. Recognizing that there has always been overlap among these categories, policies toward such youngsters were and are intimately connected to the nature of the welfare system, the prevailing views of the rights of parents vis-a-vis the state, and society’s willingness to commit public resources to the care and treatment of “problem” children and youth. We began with an undifferentiated view of the problems of youth and the means useful in dealing with those problems. Increasing specialization of services has reflected not only scientific advances in our understanding of the problems of youth but also changes in social conditions. The spirit of a particular time has brought certain problems to our attention and supported action in relation to those socially defined problems. With these themes in mind, this Article provides a brief overview of the historical development of juvenile and family mental health law and policy in the United States. While the emphasis is on the development of mental health law and policy in the American sociohistorical context, the roots of such law and policy clearly predate even the establishment of the first American colonies.

Variations in attention as a function of classroom task demands in learning handicapped and CA-matched nonhandicapped children.

This study was conducted to examine behaviors reflecting attention among learning handicapped and normal youngsters while they worked on tasks that varied in cognitive demand. Children were individually observed while they worked in their classroom. Results indicated that normal youngsters spent about 80% of observed time on-task regardless of task demands. Learning handicapped youngsters varied in their on-task behavior as a function of task demand: They spent least time on-task when cognitive demands were greatest and most time on-task when few cognitive demands were made. Implications of these findings were discussed.

Consultation with Parents of Handicapped Children

Abstract One of the most important responsibilities facing professionals in the educational setting is consultation with parents; few areas are as sensitive as consultation with parents of handicapped children. Various stages of adjustment tend to be experienced by these parents, and these need to be taken into consideration when consulting with them. Professionals should become more cognizant of the emotional factors which may be present in the lives of parents of handicapped youngsters.

Display vs. memory search for digits and faces among mentally handicapped and MA‐matched non‐handicapped youngsters

This experiment was designed to explore possible explanations for handicapped individuals' characteristically poor performance on memory scanning tasks. Independent variables included group (mentally handicapped vs. non‐handicapped), type of search (display vs. memory), type of stimuli (digits vs. pictures of unfamiliar boys' faces), and load (2, 3, or 4 items to be searched). Results indicated that handicapped and non‐handicapped groups did not differ when searching displays but did when searching memory, which suggested that the handicapped group's most significant impairment was specific to some aspect of memory search. Handicapped youngsters were also hindered by increasing loads more than control youngsters were. This result as well as impairment in memory search may have been due to handicapped youngsters' relatively short visual spans. The groups did not differ in their response to the two types of stimuli, faces and digits. Facial search was a considerably more demanding task than digit search for handicapped and normal children.

Toward a functional assessment of severely handicapped learners

The traditional approach to evaluating severely handicapped youngsters (i.e., standardized testing) has proven to be of limited utility in assessing these children's current performance levels. Often, attempts to assess the capabilities of severely handicapped learners result in frustration and futility for examiners; an expression of this futility is the label “untestable”; and service delivery decisions that suffer from the lack of accurate assessment data. In order to fill this assessment void, the authors first discuss specific limitations to traditional assessment procedures with severely handicapped youngsters, then describe a functional approach to assessment, and finally review logistical concerns in implementing such a model.

Educating the Handicapped— The Need for Close Cooperation Between Parents, Administrators

Parents of handicapped youngsters can run into a variety of diffi culties with schools that are implementing P.L. 94-142. This article focuses on ways that schools and parents can work together to avoid those difficulties.

Matching Changes in Preschool Environments to Desired Changes in Child Behavior

Preschool environments differentially affect the behavior and development of handicapped youngsters. A specific quality or aspect of the environment can in part determine how children behave in that setting. It is therefore important that early childhood special educators tailor environmental provisions to match desired autcomes. This article describes five dimensions of children's behavior likely to be affected by environments: engagement, independence, aggression, social interaction, and happiness. Research and theory documenting the relationship between environments and behavior are reviewed and guidelines for matching changes in preschool environments to changes in child behavior are provided.

A Comparison of Teacher Approval and Disapproval Statements across Categories of Exceptionality

Researchers have long sought to identify teaching acts that have a predictable effect on learner performance. The contingent use of teacher praise is well documented for its positive influence on the social behavior of handicapped youngsters. However, results of the present study indicate that teachers of the mentally retarded, multihandicapped and learning disabled and/or behavior disordered make limited use of praise over criticism in managing classroom behavior. Even though the technology exists for training selected teacher competencies, e.g., use of contingent praise, it would appear that problems remain in connection with maintaining these skills in applied settings.

Facilitating Reading Development with Speech- and Language-Impaired Children

Because reading is a language-based skill and many communicatively handicapped youngsters experience difficulties with it, speech-language pathologists have important roles in assisting with reading development for these children. Our knowledge about language and requisite skills for reading may benefit these children in developing reading skills. Speech-language pathologists' roles may be direct or indirect, and may be with preschool or school-aged children. Suggestions are offered for use in speech-language sessions and with teachers or parents.

Policy Data as a Social Process: A Qualitative Approach to Quantitative Data

E VALUATION AND SOCIAL POLICY research have existed for a long time but have proliferated in the last two decades.' Increasingly, social scientists are involved in assessing the impact of social welfare programs such as income maintenance, manpower development, deinstitutionalization, preschool intervention, and mainstreaming handicapped youngsters, as well as studying the effects of particular treatment modes (behavior modification, halfway houses, methadone maintenance, parole). In addition, they are involved in assessing the extent and nature of such public concerns as child abuse, violence in schools, handicapped people, and substance abuse, as well as the services available to combat them. The major thrust of such research is based on positivist assumptions and quantitative a n a l y s i ~ . ~ For program evaluation, this means developing operational definitions or program goals (increased I.Q., abstention from drugs, employment), and measuring success against the yardstick of these desired outcomes. In policy research where investigators are assessing the extent and nature of a particular social problem, there is reliance on compilations from official statistics, but data are also generated from random samples of the population or the choice of particular geographic areas to survey, and/or consultation of professionals for estimates of the extent of the problem and the number of people being served. From time to time, social scientists are reminded of the meager reliability of data produced by official agencies (Merton 1957; Seidman and Couzens 1974; Kitsuse and Circourel 1963). For the most part, these critiques have been understood by those who use and create the data as a call to be more methodical, as if the problem were inaccurate counting. In the

Psychosocial assessment of the handicapped.

Assessment of the child with a handicap is in a state of flux due to new constraints regarding the use of tests which label and shunt children into restrictive environments. The process of identifying and assessing youngsters is a time-consuming and costly process, particulary when what we call "standard practices" are employed. The present flux may, in fact, permit a careful re-evaluation of the role of individualized assessment resulting in positive changes. The trend of the future suggests a shift to a more comprehensive framework for assessment, one that takes into account the behavior of the environment and its influences upon the individual. Assessors will have to be trained to understand and use these methods, particularly as they contribute to the development of educationally relevant data and more appropriate educational programs for handicapped youngsters. Health workers have an important role to play in this shift, for many of them will recognize that, because of economic and practical constraints, a public health orientation may be important and necessary as we seek to provide a free, publicly supported education to all handicapped children and youth.

PL 94-142 and the Least Restrictive Alternative: An Interim Progress Report for Educators

The concept of the least restrictive environment (or alternative) was reviewed as it evolved in law and in special education practice. A distinction was drawn between the concepts of mainstreaming and the least restrictive environment. Mainstreaming refers to placing handicapped youngsters as much as possible in educational situations with nonhandicapped youngsters. The least restrictive environment is a legal abstraction which refers to placing handicapped children in an educational environment that is most suitable for their programmatic needs. Concern was voiced about the multiple bases for implementation of the least restrictive environment notion. These bases necessarily include simultaneous references to the philosophy of normalization, to PL 94-142, and to modes of instruction that optimize learning in all the social-ecological environments that handicapped children inhabit.

Blending Research and Practice

In this particular article I intend to make an argument for the merger of teachers and researchers, particularly in respect to the education of mildly handicapped youngsters. The first part of the paper is a commentary on the current relationships between educational researchers and teachers. The second part is an outline of a new model for conducting and disseminating educational research.

Integrated settings at the early childhood level: the role of nonretarded peers.

Recent trends toward early intervention and mainstreaming have resulted in a growing number of preschool programs that integrate retarded and nonretarded children. These programs are generally based on the assumption that nonhandicapped peers function as behavioral models and/or reinforcing agents for handicapped youngsters within the context of positive social interaction. However, a review of relevant empirical literature indicates that such benefits do not necessarily result from integrated programing. This article discusses the implications of recent studies that have investigated procedures for structuring peer imitation and peer reinforcement at the preschool age level. Specific suggestions are offered for maximizing the potential benefits of integrated early childhood programs. Additionally, recommendations are made concerning research needs in this area.