What`s the story? An exploration of narrative language abilities in male juvenile offenders

This paper is concerned with the narrative language (story telling) abilities of a group of juvenile offenders completing community-based court orders in Melbourne, Australia. A convenience sample of 30 male young offenders was compared with 50 male non-offenders attending government high schools in the same region of Melbourne. Participants provided an audiotaped description of a six-frame cartoon (the “Flowerpot Incident”). Samples were transcribed and subjected to story grammar analysis, to examine differences between groups regarding both structural and qualitative adequacy. Young offenders produced narratives which were significantly poorer than those of controls with respect to the presence and adequacy of the seven story grammar elements described by Stein and Glenn (In R. O. Freedle (Ed.), New Directions in Discourse Processing (pp. 53-120) 1979). Findings are discussed in relation to implications for investigative and evidentiary interviewing.

The moral reasoning abilities of Australian and Malaysian accounting students : a comparative analysis

If national culture is a significant determinant of ethical attitudes, it is not unreasonable to expect ethical decision-making to be influenced by one's culture. However, problems arise when the notion of right differs from one culture to another. The question addressed in this paper is whether the moral reasoning abilities of Australian and Malaysian accounting students in their final year of study differ because of their cultural upbringing. This study uses primary data collected from 34 final year accounting students (12 Australian and 22 Malaysian) enrolled in an Australian degree program. The test scores collected at the beginning and end of the academic year indicate that culture and other explanatory variables do not have an affect on students' moral judgment. The findings in this study suggest that culture as an independent variable does not influence the way accounting students analyse and resolve ethical dilemmas.

Spoken language and speech perception abilities in deaf children

Despite early diagnosis, early fitting of more advanced sensory aids, early intervention, and intensive educational management, many children with severe to profound hearing loss are delayed in their acquisition of spoken language compared with their peers with normal hearing. More...Some of the greatest challenges facing educators of deaf children include determining where to focus intervention in order to maximise benefit, and establishing the most effective strategies for the development of age-appropriate language. The experimental research in this book examined the relationship between hearing, speech production, and vocabulary knowledge, and investigated the contributions of these factors to the overall speech perception performance of deaf children. This research also investigated the areas in which intervention would be most beneficial, and examined the effects of different types of intervention on the development of spoken language and speech perception skills in deaf children. The evaluation, analysis and intervention methods reported in this book provide an experimentally validated program for improving speech perception, speech production and spoken language skills of deaf children.

Influencing health equity : role of the effective consumer scale in measuring skills and abilities in a middle income country

The 2008 World Health Report emphasizes the need for patient-centered primary care service delivery models in which patients are equal partners in the planning and management of their health. It is argued that this involvement will lead to improved management of disease, improved health outcomes and patient satisfaction, better informed decision-making, increased compliance with healthcare decisions, and better resource utilization. This article investigates the domains captured by the Effective Consumer Scale (EC-17) in relation to vulnerable population groups that experience health inequity. Particular focus is paid to the domain of health literacy as an area fundamental to patients’ involvement in managing their condition and negotiating the healthcare system. In examining the possible influence of Outcome Measures in Rheumatology Clinical Trials (OMERACT) on health equity, we used the recent translation and validation of the EC-17 scale into Spanish and tested Argentina as an example. Future plans to use the EC-17 with vulnerable groups include formal collaboration and needs assessment with the community to tailor an intervention to meet its needs in a culturally relevant manner. Some systematic reviews have questioned whether interventions to improve effective consumer skills are appropriate in vulnerable populations. We propose that these populations may have the most to gain from such interventions since they might be expected to have relatively lower skills and health literacy than other groups.

Teachers' perceptions of their abilities to be educational leaders in Victorian childcare settings

In the context of new national regulatory requirements for designated educational leaders in early childhood settings, 11 Victorian teachers participated in semi-structured interviews exploring their perceptions of their ability to act as educational leaders in their childcare centres. Analysis of these interviews showed that, while teachers successfully made changes within their rooms, only those with a formal title or authority expressed confidence in their ability to lead change across their centres. Barriers to leadership included lack of time and a perception that their teacher qualifications 'did not buy authority'. A hierarchical model of leadership appeared dominant within the centres. The findings suggest both time allowance and formal role designation as strategies to support the new leadership roles, but also raise questions about the most effective models for supporting teacher leadership in childcare contexts.

A comparison of pragmatic abilities of children who are deaf or hard of hearing and their hearing peers

Pragmatic skills are the key to a satisfying and sustained conversation. Such conversation is critical for the development of meaningful friendships. Previous studies have investigated the conversational skills of deaf children while interacting with adults or when interacting with peers in structured referential tasks. There are few published studies that have compared the pragmatic skills of children who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) in free conversation with their hearing peers. In this study, the conversational skills of 31 children who are D/HH when interacting with a hearing friend were compared with those of 31 pairs of hearing children. Findings suggest that school-aged children (Years 3–6 of study; aged 8–12 years) who are D/HH have a wide range of pragmatic skills that they use effectively when conversing with their hearing peers. Specifically, these children asked more questions, made more personal comments, initiated more topics, and took longer turns in their conversations with a hearing friend. In contrast, the conversations between hearing peers were very balanced with similar topic initiation, length of turn, numbers of questions, personal comments, and minimal answers. These findings will help teachers to provide support for both pragmatic and social skills in children who are D/HH.

Testing the navigational abilities of ocean migrants: displacement experiments on green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas)

Like many animals migrating through the oceans, sea turtles face difficult navigational tasks when they have to reach distant, specific sites. The paradigmatic case of Brazilian green turtles (Chelonia mydas), which nest on the tiny Ascension Island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, has often been the subject of hypotheses concerning their navigational mechanisms. To investigate their nature, we displaced 18 females from Ascension and tracked them by satellite after release from eight different points in the ocean, 60–450 km away from the island. Four turtles moved to Brazil soon after the release, 4 moved in various directions before heading to Brazil, and 10 reached the island. All the successful trips, bar 1, were winding but ended with a final straight segment of variable length, as if the turtles were searching for a sensory contact with the island which they obtained at various distances. The approach to Ascension mostly occurred from the direction opposite to the trade wind, suggesting a navigational role of wind-borne information originating from the island.