11,479 research outputs found
Views of children and young people in foster care survey: education
No full textThis paper explores the educational experiences of children and young people living in foster care in Queensland. Findings are drawn from the responses of 845 children and 1180 young people to the 2011 Views of Children and Young People in Foster Care survey, which is a rich source of information about children’s and young people’s attitudes towards and perceptions of their own education. Findings relate to educational status, key markers of educational disadvantage including suspensions and exclusions, and specific problems children and young people experience at school, as well as children’s and young people’s enjoyment of school and aspirations for the future. Information about educational support, including Educational Support Plans and support provided by Child Safety Officers and Community Visitors are also presented. Where relevant, comparisons are made between the 2011 survey results and prior surveys conducted in 2006, 2007 and 2009. Relationships between key educational measures as well as relationships to other important measures of health and placement stability are also explored.
The findings suggest that children and young people continue to experience educational disadvantage, including high rates of suspension and exclusion and a range of problems at school including problems with schoolwork, bullying and behaviour and that these difficulties can be exacerbated by the child protection system, for example, through placement instability. However, there are reasons for optimism. Children and young people are overwhelmingly likely to report that they enjoy school, expect to complete Year 12 and that their teachers generally like their schoolwork. Furthermore, over time, the proportions of young people reporting that they have an Educational Support Plan have grown, and, importantly, they are more likely to report that these plans are helpful. Analyses in relation to a number of educational variables reveal that young people with a plan they consider to be helpful fare better. Children and young people were also positive about the important role that CSOs and CVs are able to play in supporting their education.
While educational disadvantage is an enduring problem, the survey findings provide evidence of progress in key areas and suggestions for how continued improvements may be made
Developing young children's understanding of place-value using multiplication and quotitive division
No full textThis paper focuses on selected findings from a study that explored the use of multiplication and division with 34 five- and six-year-old children from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The focus of instructional tasks was on working with groups of ten to support the understanding of place value. Findings from relevant assessment tasks and children’s work highlighted the importance of encouraging young children to move from unitary (counting by ones) to tens-structured thinking
Fair and accurate? Migrant and refugee young people, crime and the media
No full textThe public perception of young people from migrant and refugee backgrounds is often associated with crime or offending behaviour. Unbalanced media stories sometimes reinforce these stereotypes.
Executive summary
This paper aims to gain a more accurate picture of migrant and refugee youth offending, by comparing media portrayals with available police, census and Youth Justice (Department of Human Services) data. To set the context, it briefly explores risk and protective factors, with specific regard to the migrant and refugee experience. It also examines the negative impact that misinformed public perception can have upon the lives of young people from migrant and refugee backgrounds.
While the picture is still incomplete, as the data collected is currently inconsistent, CMY believes that the available data points to migrant and refugee young people being under-represented in the Victoria Police and Youth Justice systems. However, there are particular ethnic groups who appear to be over-represented in relation to their population in Victoria.
There is an urgent need for increased and more accurate data which is essential to develop effective and culturally relevant programs for migrant and refugee youth; decrease the number of migrant and refugee youth entering the Youth Justice system; and to challenge inaccurate stereotypes. This is particularly important in regards to specific groups who seem to be over-represented in crime statistics.
In addition, it is evident that a better response is needed to not only challenges the negative media portrayal of many migrant and refugee young people but also allows these youth to better represent themselves in the media
A lifeline for Europe's young radical innovators
No full textIn this Policy Brief, Reinhilde Veugelers shows that Young Innovative Companies (YICs) in Europe achieve significantly higher innovative sales than other innovation-active firms, representing 36% of sales having market novelties. She also confirms that YICs are more affected by credit constraints than other innovation-active firms. If Europe is to exit the current crisis intact and fulfill its full growth potential in the medium term, the author therefore believes Europe must develop policies and incentives which are tailored to the needs of European young radical innovators.
Hearing Faces and Seeing Voices: The Integration and Interaction of Face and Voice Processing
No full textCognitive understanding of voice recognition has borrowed much from the area of face processing, both in terms of the theoretical framework within which results are interpreted, and the methodology used to assess performance. A considerable body of research now exists to suggest that voice recognition may proceed in parallel with face recognition, and that the two pathways may combine to inform person recognition. However, rather than being independent or equivalent, these parallel pathways appear to interact to reveal interesting interference effects. The present paper reviews a series of studies that focus on a considerable and growing literature. The vulnerability of voice processing will be explored relative to face processing, and the interaction of these two pathways will be examined with reference to broader theoretical frameworks for person recognition
Teaching Paraprofessionals to Implement a Social Communication Intervention for Young Children with ASD
No full textChildren diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) frequently lack social communication skills and researchers have developed evidence-based practices to address these deficits. More recently, researchers are examining paraprofessional use of these interventions when working directly with children with ASD. The author completed a review examining studies in which paraprofessionals were taught to implement a social communication intervention with young children with ASD. Researchers in the review studied paraprofessional use of naturalistic behavioral interventions with studies reporting an increase in paraprofessional treatment fidelity for the chosen intervention, and most reporting corresponding improved child outcomes. From this review, the author designed and completed research examining adult behavioral skills training for paraprofessionals in a manualized, naturalistic behavioral social pragmatic intervention from Project ImPACT (Ingersoll & Dvortcsak, 2010). Three Therapeutic Support Staff (TSS) were taught with online modules, in-vivo training and ongoing feedback to use interactive strategies to a predetermined frequency criterion with young children with ASD in the child’s home setting to improve child spontaneous communication. The TSS increased strategy use to criterion quickly with accuracy and generalized the strategies to snack time or the playground. The TSS also sharply decreased their use of questions and demands during playtime. Strategy use continued after intervention. Child spontaneous communication increased in frequency and moved from mostly eye gaze and gestures to eye gaze, vocalizations and a few words. The results indicate that a package combining online modules, in-vivo training plus ongoing feedback is effective in teaching TSS to use social communication strategies during playtime. This study furthers the concept of a target frequency for each strategy within a play session
The rise and fall of the Labour league of youth
No full textThis thesis charts the rise and fall of the Labour Party’s first and most enduring youth organisation, the Labour League of Youth. The history of the League, from its birth in the early nineteen twenties to its demise in the late nineteen fifties, is placed in the context of the Labour Party’s subsequent fruitless attempts to establish and maintain a vibrant and functional youth organisation. A narrative is incorporated that illuminates the culture, organisation and political activism of the League and establishes it as a predominantly working class radical organisation. The reluctance on the part of the Labour Party to grant autonomy to its youth sections resulted in the history of the League of Youth being one of control, suppression and tension. This state of affairs ensured that subsequent youth groups, the Young Socialists and Young Labour, would be established in an atmosphere of reservation and scepticism.
The thesis places the prime responsibility for the failure of the party’s youth organisations with the party leadership but also considers the contributory factors of changing social and political circumstances. A number of themes are explored which include the impact of structure and agency factors, the power of the Parliamentary Labour Party, the political socialisation of leading figures within the party, the social context in which each of the groups emerged and the extent to which the youth groups were prey to intra-party factionalism.
The thesis redresses the balance of research where most accounts have focussed on the Young Socialists and traces the common characteristics that are prevalent in the way the party leadership has approached its relationship with its youth organisations. Use has been made of previously unpublished primary source material, the major source being the League of Youth members themselves whose recollections have helped to demonstrate the arguments put forward in this thesis
'They make us feel like we're a virus': the multiple impacts of Islamophobic hostility towards veiled Muslim women
No full textWithin the prevailing post-9/11 climate, veiled Muslim women are commonly portrayed as oppressed, ‘culturally dangerous’ and ‘threatening’ to the western way of life and to notions of public safety and security by virtue of being fully covered in the public sphere. It is in such a context that manifestations of Islamophobia often emerge as a means of responding to these ‘threats’. Drawing from qualitative data elicited through a UK-based study, this article reflects upon the lived experiences of veiled Muslim women as actual and potential victims of Islamophobia and examines the impacts of Islamophobic attacks upon victims, their families and wider Muslim communities. Among the central themes we explore are impacts upon their sense of vulnerability, the visibility of their Muslim identity, and the management of their safety in public. The individual and collective harms associated with this form of victimisation are considered through notions of a worldwide, transnational Muslim community, the ummah, which connects Muslims from all over world. We conclude by noting that the effects of this victimisation are not exclusively restricted to the global ummah; rather, the harm extends to society as a whole by exacerbating the polarisation which already exists between ‘us’ and ‘them’
Quantitative 3-D texture analysis of interphase cell nuclei
No full textIn order to investigate the spatio-temporal structure of chromatin in interphase nuclei the authors present two 3-D texture parameters based on the grey-weighted distance transform that quantify the accessibility and the homogeneity of a nucleus. Results of experiments on computer generated textures show that these texture parameters are shape independent
Development of sign language for young children
No full textPlan AThe Child and Family Study Center (CFSC) serves as a laboratory school and observation site for Early Childhood Education Majors and other related majors on campus. The center experience allows University students to link educational theory with practice and therefore must set the example for developmentally appropriate practices by modeling best practices. CFSC programs benefit teachers, parents, university students and children ages 6 months to 35 months. Our nation depends on child care programs to care for their children. Programs vary in their content, but one of the aspects that is common to all is developing language and a form of communication. The problem is the lack of training for teachers and parents to help children communicate. All early childhood teachers have a tremendous responsibility to understand the wants and needs of the children; which will help the children succeed in the program. Using sign language, you can take advantage of children's natural abilities to communicate sooner. The level of frustration that children feel diminishes significantly when a child can tell you what he or she wants. Tantrums are often caused by a toddler's inability to communicate needs or wants. Using sign language, you can communicate with children as early as 6 months and reduce the number of tantrums you encounter. The objective of this project is to provide quality sign language training experiences for teachers and parents. The goal is to better prepare teachers and parents to communicate with their children at a young age. Objective 1: Provide teacher training that focuses on sign language skills and how to effectively teach young children to use sign language. Objective 2: Provide parent seminars that focus on sign language skills and how to use those skills at home with their children. Objective 3: To update and create classroom materials that provides an ideal learning environment for sign language. The project outcomes are to enhance the skills of teachers and parents of the CFSC. Teachers and parents that have sign language training and the tools to use will be able to promote student learning and development. Identifying and implementing best practices for teaching and learning sign language is the strategy that will be used. During the granting year, Lindsay Barnhart, CFSC Instructional Specialist, will coordinate teacher and parent training seminars with a sign language expert, and update curriculum and classroom materials that will foster sign language development for young children. This project represents a cost effective approach, with a budget request of $5,853.08, to prepare current and future teachers and parents of young children. Updated classroom materials will promote sign language in the classrooms. Curriculum enhancements will be adapted to center policies and goals. A study over five years will be done on what teachers, parents and the children have learned. No additional funding will be necessary to complete this project
- …
