David H. McKinnon

Prevalence of communication disorders compared with other learning needs in 14 500 primary and secondary school students

BACKGROUND Prevalence data are of interest to health professionals and educators to assist in the planning of service delivery, allow for the calculation of the level of impact of intervention, and allow for the consideration of the boundaries between typical development and impairment. AIMS To determine the prevalence of children with communication disorders and other learning needs as identified by their teachers within all primary and secondary schools in an Australian school district over a 3-year period. METHODS & PROCEDURES Children with learning needs were identified from 14,514 students in the first year (wave 1) and the 14,533 students 2 years later (wave 2). Children were identified via a four-phased data-collection process designed to reduce selection and misclassification bias. Identification included teacher training, teacher referral, confirmation by documentation from relevant professionals including speech and language therapists, audiologists, psychologists and doctors, and verification by the school district learning needs advisors. OUTCOMES & RESULTS Overall 5309 students were identified as having some area of learning need in the first year and 4845 students were identified 2 years later. In order of prevalence, the areas of learning need were: specific learning difficulty (17.93% in wave 1; 19.10% in wave 2), communication disorder (13.04%; 12.40%), English as a second or other language (9.16%; 5.80%), behavioural/emotional difficulty (8.16%; 6.10%), early achiever/advanced learner (7.30%; 5.50%), physical/medical disability (1.52%; 1.40%), intellectual disability (1.38%; 1.20%), hearing impairment (0.96%; 0.80%), and visual impairment (0.16%; 0.30%). The male:female ratio for all children was 1.57:1 (wave 1) and 1.66:1 (wave 2) and was the highest for the categories of behavioural/emotional difficulty, communication disorders. There were significant differences between learning need and socio-economic status quantile for all areas except early achievers/advanced learners and physical/medical disability. There was a higher prevalence of behavioural/emotional difficulty, and intellectual disability, in the lower socio-economic status quantiles and a higher prevalence of communication disorders in the mid-to-high socio-economic status quantiles. More children were identified as having an additional learning need in grades 1-3 (5-9 years of age). The children who were perceived as requiring the highest level of teacher support were those with an intellectual disability. CONCLUSIONS This study provides comparative prevalence data for children with additional learning needs. There was a high prevalence of children typically seen in the caseloads of speech and language therapists, and teachers identified that many of these children required high levels of support within the classroom.

Space to Grow: LCOGT.net and Improving Science Engagement in Schools

Space to Grow is an Australian Research Council Grant that engages high school students in real science and supports their teachers in implementing inquiry-based approaches using astronomy as the focus. Currently, Grade 9–12 students and their science teachers from three educational jurisdictions in one Australian state are acquiring, and making scientific use of, observational data from the 2-m Faulkes Telescopes owned by Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network. Data are being collected to investigate the impact of the project on students and teachers. Some investigations have led students to work with astronomers to publish their results in the astronomical literature.

A Longitudinal Study of Student Attitudes toward Computers: Resolving an Attitude Decay Paradox

Abstract An integrated curriculum project in New Zealand generated educationally interesting but paradoxical results regarding student motivation and attitudes toward computer use. Students mastered and used a range of computer applications, becoming enthusiastic users to the point of regarding the computer as indispensable as pens and pocket calculators. Performance of three cohorts of students in the nationwide school certificate examination showed that project students performed significantly better than peers in the parallel traditional school program. Yet student attitudes toward computers became significantly less positive during their junior high school careers. This article illuminates and explains the paradox through comparative analysis of the relevant findings. It examines implications for the design and implementation of curriculum programs that will involve student use of and control over many and diverse forms of compelling computer applications, from CD-ROMs to the Internet.

Common alternative astronomical conceptions encountered in junior secondary science classes: Why is this so?

This article investigates students’ conceptions of certain astronomical phenomena. The 1,920 participants were drawn from junior secondary science classes in four Australian educational jurisdictions. Participants completed a modified version of the Astronomy Diagnostic Test to elicit information about their knowledge and understanding of certain astronomical phenomena and to identify any alternative conceptions that they held. Results showed that students exhibited many alternative conceptions about concepts that they should have covered in elementary school or in the first year of high school. Discussion centers on the extent to which school science takes account of the important construct of pedagogical content knowledge.

A review of high school level astronomy student research projects over the last two decades.

Since the early 1990s with the arrival of a variety of new technologies, the capacity for authentic astronomical research at the high school level has skyrocketed. This potential, however, has not realized the bright-eyed hopes and dreams of the early pioneers who expected to revolutionise science education through the use of telescopes and other astronomical instrumentation in the classroom. In this paper, a general history and analysis of these attempts is presented. We define what we classify as an Astronomy Research in the Classroom (ARiC) project and note the major dimensions on which these projects differ before describing the 22 major student research projects active since the early 1990s. This is followed by a discussion of the major issues identified that affected the success of these projects and provide suggestions for similar attempts in the future.

Communication Intervention for Students with Severe Disability: results of a partner training program

Abstract This paper reports on the evaluation of a professional development program designed for communication partners of students with severe disability. The program aimed to facilitate the translation of reported best practice in the area of communication to classroom practice. A model of case application was used to enhance partner acquisition of targeted skills and knowledge, thereby addressing perceived concerns in this area. Participants including teachers, teacher aides, and speech pathologists completed pre‐ and post‐intervention questionnaires measuring skills, knowledge, and concerns. Data were analysed on the basis of participant role to determine the significance of change between groups. Results suggest that the professional development program was effective. Teachers and teacher aides reported increased skills and knowledge, accompanied by reduced concerns. Speech pathologists indicated minimal change in either area. These findings are explored in the context of the current research literat...

K 1-6: An Asymmetric Planetary Nebula with a Binary Central Star

We present new imaging data and archival multiwavelength observations of the little-studied emission nebula K 1-6 and its central star. Narrow-band images in Hα (+[N II]) and [O III] taken with the Faulkes Telescope North reveal a stratified, asymmetric, elliptical nebula surrounding a central star which has the colours of a late G or early K-type subgiant or giant. GALEX ultraviolet images reveal a very hot subdwarf or white dwarf coincident in position with this star. The cooler, optically dominant star is strongly variable with a period of 21.312 ± 0.008 days, and is possibly a high-amplitude member of the RS CVn class, although an FK Com classification is also possible. Archival ROSAT data provide good evidence that the cool star has an active corona. We conclude that K 1-6 is most likely an old bona fide planetary nebula at a distance of ~1.0 kpc, interacting with the interstellar medium, and containing a binary or ternary central star. The observations and data analyses reported in this paper were conducted in conjunction with Year 11 high school students as part of an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant science education project, denoted Space To Grow, conducted jointly by professional astronomers, educational researchers, teachers, and high-school students.

Support required for primary and secondary students with communication disorders and/or other learning needs:

Prioritization of school students with additional learning needs is a reality due to a finite resource base. Limited evidence exists regarding teachers’ prioritization of primary and secondary school students with additional learning needs. The aim of the present article was to differentiate teachers’ perceptions of the level of support required by and provided to students with respect to nine additional learning needs. Teachers of 14,533 students in an Australian school district (in 37 primary schools and 7 secondary schools) identified students’ required and actual level of support. Teachers identified 4,845 students with additional learning needs: 34.71% of primary students and 30.14% of secondary students. Of the nine areas of additional learning need, presence of a communication disorder was the most important predictive factor of teachers’ recommendation that primary or secondary students required a high level of support at school. Students were more likely to be identified with communication disorder if they were in grades 1, 2, 7, 8 or 10; that is, at the time of transition to different levels of schooling. Students with communication disorder + behavioural/ emotional disorder + intellectual disability were identified by teachers as requiring the highest level of support at school. Overall, students received limited additional support at school; however, those with communication disorder + intellectual disability received the highest level of learning support within the educational setting. In contrast, students who received the greatest curriculum adaptations were those with intellectual disability + physical/medical disability.Those with intellectual disability + communication disorder were most likely to have an individual education plan, and those with communication disorder + intellectual disability + physical/medical disability were most likely to receive long-term support from agencies outside of the school system. Socio-economic status (specifically, being in a middle-class school) was the most predictive demographic variable for higher levels of support for students with communication disorder, followed by being male.

The PULSE@Parkes Project: a New Observing Technique for Long-Term Pulsar Monitoring

The PULSE@Parkes project has been designed to monitor the rotation of radio pulsars over time spans of days to years. The observations are obtained using the Parkes 64-m and 12-m radio telescopes by Australian and international high school students. These students learn the basis of radio astronomy and undertake small projects with their observations. The data are fully calibrated and obtained with the state-of-the-art pulsar hardware available at Parkes. The final data sets are archived and are currently being used to carry out studies of 1) pulsar glitches, 2) timing noise, 3) pulse profile stability over long time scales and 4) the extreme nulling phenomenon. The data are also included in other projects such as gamma-ray observatory support and for the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array project. In this paper we describe the current status of the project and present the first scientific results from the Parkes 12-m radio telescope. We emphasise that this project offers a straightforward means to enthuse high school students and the general public about radio astronomy while obtaining scientifically valuable data sets.

Multilingual children with hearing loss: Factors contributing to language use at home and in early education

Understanding the relationship between children’s cultural and linguistic diversity and child, caregiver, and environmental characteristics is important to ensure appropriate educational expectations and provisions. As part of the Longitudinal Outcomes of Children with Hearing Impairment (LOCHI) study, children’s caregivers and educators completed questionnaires on demographic characteristics, including the communication mode (oral, manual, or mixed) and languages used in home and early educational environments. This article reports an exploratory analysis to examine factors associated with language use and communication mode of children at 3 years of age. A Chi Square Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) analysis was performed on data from 406 children to examine factors influencing communication mode and oral language use. The factor that most influenced children’s communication mode at home was the communication mode used by their female caregiver. Children’s communication mode in their early education environment was most related to the communication mode they used at home, and then related to the presence of additional needs in the children, female caregivers’ level of education and the male caregivers’ use of languages other than English (LOTEs). A second exploratory CHAID analysis of data for children from multilingual families (n = 106) indicated that female caregivers’ use of English at home significantly influenced whether children used a LOTE at home. Finally, the use of a LOTE at home was associated with the use of a LOTE in the early education environment. These findings serve as an initial description of the factors that were associated with the communication mode and language use of children with hearing loss.