Empowerment in early childhood intervention : perspectives of parents of children with disabilities

There have been various changes to the manner in which early intervention services for children with disabilities have been provided in recent decades. One of the most significant paradigm shifts that has accoured pertains to a change in the level of family involvement in early intervention, so that families are now required to be equal partners with professionals in the service provision process. It is now policy in Victoria that early intervention services follow a family-centred model of practice. Services adopting this model aim to empower parents, so that they may have impact on their lives, and the lives of their family members, both during and beyond the years of direct service participation. Much of what is known about empowerment to date is based on theory, author opinion, and research that is largely survey-based. There has been little interview-based research, particulary involving parents of children with disabilities, as well as little Australian research conducted regarding empowerment. To the researcher's knowledge, there has been no interview-based research that specifically asked parents of children with disabilities about their perspectives on empowerment and disempowerment. Parents of children with disabilities are not invited to contribute their opinions in services and research. Empowerment is an individual concept and this research provided parents with an opportunity to express their views on this topic. Parent's perspectives on empowerment are vital for service providers who aim to follow the intervention model required by policy. This research, which was guided by the principles of ecological theory and critical theory, involved to individual semi-structured interviews with 37 Victorian families of children with disabilities. Twenty-one of these families had children currently participating in early intervention services, and 16 families had children of mid-primary school age, who had previously participated in early intervention experiences; the factors that they believe influence empowerment and disempowerment; and helpful and unhelpful experiences with early intervention staff and other people in their lives. Data were analysed primarily inductively, in the context of grounded theory. Responses from the two groups of parents were then compared, as were different emergent themes according to helpfulness and empowerment. The nature of enduring empowerment, one of the key objectives of early childhood intervention, was also considered. From the analysis of data, several themes emerged as influential in the empowerment process for both groups of parents including: information, education and knowledge; meeting and talking with other families of children with disabilities; decision-making and choice; having confidence; participation, involvement and input; meeting or addressing families' practical needs; and having a child with a disability. The results of this research provide valuable information for parents, professionals, agencies, organisations, and the wider community, regarding how families can be supported more effectively and how power can be more equitably balanced.

New directions in biodiversity policy and governance? : a critique of Victoria's land and biodiversity white paper

The overall condition of biodiversity in many parts of Australia is poor and declining, despite the establishment of national parks and other reserves, and the adoption of conservation activities on private land. The impacts of climate change add further challenges to sustaining biodiversity. In response to these issues, in December 2009, the State Government of Victoria released a major policy statement that aimed to provide the framework and directions to secure the health of Victoria's biodiversity and associated land and water resources over the next 50 years. Given Victoria's reputation for environmental policy reform and innovation, the question arises as to whether the Victorian approach will provide a model for other Australian jurisdictions to adopt or adapt. Drawing on insights from environmental policy, discourse theory, and ecological theory, this article provides a critique of Victoria's approach, focusing on the way in which biodiversity is conceptualised and governed.

Ratio-dependent response of a temperate Australian estuarine system to sustained nitrogen loading

Classical resource- and the less studied ratio-dependent models of predator–prey relationships provide divergent predictions as to the sustained ecological effects of bottom-up forcing. While resource-dependent models, which consider only instantaneous prey density in modelling predator responses, predict community responses that are dependent on the number of trophic levels in a system, ratio-dependent models, which consider the number of prey per consumer, predict proportional increase in each level irrespective of chain length. The two models are only subtly different for systems with two or three trophic levels but in the case of four trophic levels, predict opposite effects of enrichment on primary producers. Despite the poor discriminatory power of tests of the models in systems with two or three trophic levels, field tests in estuarine and marine systems with four trophic levels have been notably absent. Sampling of phytoplankton, macroinvertebrates, invertebrate-feeding fishes, piscivorous fishes in Kooloonbung Creek, Hastings River estuary, eastern Australia, subject to over 20 years of sewage discharge, revealed increased abundances in all four trophic levels at the disturbed location relative to control sites. Increased abundance of phytoplankton at the disturbed site was counter to the predictions of resource-dependent models, which posit a reduction in the first trophic level in response to enrichment. By contrast, the increase in abundance of this first trophic level and the proportionality of increases in abundances of each of the four trophic groups to nitrogen loading provided strong support for ratio dependency. This first evidence of ratio dependence in an estuarine system with four trophic levels not only demonstrates the applicability of ecological theory which seeks to simplify the complexity of systems, but has implications for management. Although large nutrient inputs frequently induce mortality of invertebrates and fish, we have shown that smaller inputs may in fact enhance biomass of all trophic levels.

Does fire influence the landscape-scale distribution of an invasive mesopredator?

Predation and fire shape the structure and function of ecosystems globally. However, studies exploring interactions between these two processes are rare, especially at large spatial scales. This knowledge gap is significant not only for ecological theory, but also in an applied context, because it limits the ability of landscape managers to predict the outcomes of manipulating fire and predators. We examined the influence of fire on the occurrence of an introduced and widespread mesopredator, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), in semi-arid Australia. We used two extensive and complimentary datasets collected at two spatial scales. At the landscape-scale, we surveyed red foxes using sand-plots within 28 study landscapes - which incorporated variation in the diversity and proportional extent of fire-age classes - located across a 104 000 km2 study area. At the site-scale, we surveyed red foxes using camera traps at 108 sites stratified along a century-long post-fire chronosequence (0-105 years) within a 6630 km2 study area. Red foxes were widespread both at the landscape and site-scale. Fire did not influence fox distribution at either spatial scale, nor did other environmental variables that we measured. Our results show that red foxes exploit a broad range of environmental conditions within semi-arid Australia. The presence of red foxes throughout much of the landscape is likely to have significant implications for native fauna, particularly in recently burnt habitats where reduced cover may increase prey species' predation risk.

Short-term differences in animal assemblages in patches formed by loss and growth of habitat

Ecological theory predicts that habitat growth and loss will have different effects on community structure, even if they produce patches of the same size. Despite this, studies on the effects of patchiness are often performed without prior knowledge of the processes responsible for the patchiness. We manipulated artificial seagrass habitat in temperate Australia to test whether fish and crustacean assemblages differed between habitats that formed via habitat loss and habitat growth. Habitat loss treatments (originally 16 m2) and habitat growth treatments (originally 0 m2) were manipulated over 1 week until each reached a final patch size of 4 m2. At this size, each was compared through time (0-14 days after manipulation) with control patches (4 m2 throughout the experiment). Assemblages differed significantly among treatments at 0 and 1 day after manipulation, with differences between growth and loss treatments contributing to most of the dissimilarity. Immediately after the final manipulation, total abundance in habitat loss treatments was 46% and 62% higher than controls and habitat growth treatments, respectively, which suggests that animals crowded into patches after habitat loss. In contrast to terrestrial systems, crowding effects were brief (≤1 day), signifying high connectivity in marine systems. Growth treatments were no different to controls, despite the lower probability of animals encountering patches during the growth phase. Our study shows that habitat growth and loss can cause short-term differences in animal abundance and assemblage structure, even if they produce patches of the same size.

Evaluation of survey methods for sampling anuran species richness in the neotropics.

Species richness is central to ecological theory, with practical applications in conservation, environmental management and monitoring. Several techniques are available for measuring species richness and composition of amphibians in breeding pools, but the relative efficacy of these methods for sampling high-diversity Neotropical amphibian fauna is poorly understood. I evaluated seven studies from south and south-eastern Brazil to compare the relative and combined effectiveness of two methods for measuring species richness at anuran breeding pools: acoustic surveys with visual encounter of adults and dipnet surveys of larvae. I also compared the relative efficacy of each survey method in detecting species with different reproductive modes. Results showed that both survey methods underestimated the number of species when used separately; however, a close approximation of the actual number of species in each breeding pool was obtained when the methods were combined. There was no difference between survey methods in detecting species with different reproductive modes. These results indicate that researchers should employ multiple survey methods that target both adult and larval life history stages in order to accurately assess anuran species richness at breeding pools in the Neotropics.

Dynamics and coexistence in a system with intraguild mutualism

It is a tenet of ecological theory that two competing consumers cannot stably coexist on a single limiting resource in a homogeneous environment. Many mechanisms and processes have since been evoked and studied, empirically and theoretically, to explain species coexistence and the observed biological diversity. Facilitative interactions clearly have the potential to enhance coexistence. Yet, even though mutual facilitation between species of the same guild is widely documented empirically, the subject has received very little theoretical attention. Here, we study one form of intraguild mutualism in the simplest possibly community module of one resource and two consumers. We incorporate mutualism as enhanced consumption in the presence of the other consumers. We find that intraguild mutualism can (a) significantly enhance coexistence of consumers, (b) induce cyclic dynamics, and (c) give rise to a bi-stability (a 'joint' Allee effect) and potentially catastrophic collapse of both consumer species. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.

A critical analysis of the ubiquity of linear local-regional richness relationships

Synthesis Despite theoretical criticisms, the ubiquity of linear relationships between local and regional species richness has long been used to justify it as a valid framework to conclude that local communities are not saturated with species. However, we reanalyzed published studies with a new unbiased method and found no prevalence of linear relationships and more than 40% of misclassifications, including textbook examples. We thus conclude that the prevailing argument in favor of associating a valid ecological interpretation to local-regional species richness plots, its ubiquity, is not sustained, and that ecologists could use for instance metacommunity theory to make inference on the strength of local and regional processes. Identifying the relative importance of regional and local processes to local species diversity is a central issue to many questions in basic and applied ecology. One widely-used method is to plot local species richness against its regional richness to infer whether regional or local processes determine local diversity. However, this method increases the tendency to find regional prevalence as suggested by a recent simulation. We reanalyzed studies in the literature with an unbiased method and found no prevalence of either regional or local processes. In addition, almost 40% of the studies and 50% of the ecology textbook examples using the traditional method were misclassified. Our findings reinforce the need of alternative, novel tools identified by for instance metacommunity theory to go beyond the studies of local-regional relationships in the ecological literature that focus on the interdependence of regional and local processes.© 2013 The Authors. Oikos © 2013 Nordic Society Oikos.

Introducing the biogeographic species pool

The species pool concept has played a central role in the development of ecological theory for at least 60 yr. Surprisingly, there is little consensus as to how one should define the species pool, and consequently, no systematic approach exists. Because the definition of the species pool is essential to infer the processes that shape ecological communities, there is a strong incentive to develop an ecologically realistic definition of the species pool based on repeatable and transparent analytical approaches. Recently, several methodological tools have become available to summarize repeated patterns in the geographic distribution of species, phylogenetic clades and taxonomically broad lineages. Here, we present three analytical approaches that can be used to define what we term 'the biogeographic species pool': distance-based clustering analysis, network modularity analysis, and assemblage dispersion fields. The biogeographic species pool defines the pool of potential community members in a broad sense and represents a first step towards a standardized definition of the species pool for the purpose of comparative ecological, evolutionary and biogeographic studies. © 2013 The Authors.

Educação inclusiva no Brasil: revisão sistemática e análise bioecológica

Este trabalho enfoca a problemática da inclusão educacional de alunos com deficiência no ensino regular brasileiro. A partir da revisão sistemática da literatura sobre o tema foi possível apresentar dois estudos. O primeiro tem natureza descritiva, objetivou revisar artigos sobre inclusão de alunos com deficiência no ensino regular brasileiro, a fim de investigar o panorama da pesquisa nessa área. Foi utilizada a revisão sistemática na biblioteca virtual da SciELO, na qual foram selecionados 138 artigos para investigação. Os resultados desse primeiro estudo apontaram que as pesquisas sobre inclusão educacional avançaram a partir do ano de 2005, principalmente nas regiões sudeste e sul, com prevalência de pesquisas empíricas em diversas áreas do conhecimento e com destaque para a educação. O segundo estudo analisou artigos científicos, que tratam da inclusão de alunos com deficiência no ensino regular de acordo com a concepção teórico-metodológica da teoria bioecológica do desenvolvimento humano. A partir da revisão sistemática da literatura e a avalição do instrumento CASP se selecionou 16 artigos que foram analisados a partir do modelo bioecológico PPCT. Observou-se que a partir dos dados apresentados o uso da teoria bioecológica foi útil para investigar pesquisas e sistematizar a organização de trabalhos.

The importance of parental involvement in swimming lessons for person with disability

The Ecolological Theory of Human Development proposed by Urie Bronfenbrenner assumes that the activities and people involved in an evironment are essential to stimulate the aquisition of new abilities . Analyze the strategy of parent’s presence with their children in a swimming class for PWD during the teaching process. Also, verify the parent’s views on this experience and the participation of their child during practice. It is a qualitative and action-research. To collect data was utilized observation during to analyse the activities developed in a swimming class for PWD, on the presence of parents with their children. A semi-structured interview was used to analyse the perception parents after the experience of the classroom. Analysis of activities and the interview were based on the assumption of Bronfenbrenner (1996). It was found that 100% of the parents rated the positive experience of being with their children in the pool. We found that only 25% of parents reported that had entered the pool to play with their children. We emphasize that 75% had never entered in the water with their children, whether because of fear, lack of opportunity or not knowing how to swim. The proposal of parents’ participation in the swimming class with the PWD generated a favorable environment for development the activities. Parents identified the improvement, the potential and difficulties of PWD.

Book Review of “Human Behaviour and the Social Environment: Models, Metaphors, and Maps for Applying Theoretical Perspectives to Practice”. 640 pages, Thomson Brooks/Cole, 2007, by James A. Forte

This voluminous book which draws on almost 1000 references provides an important theoretical base for practice. After an informative introduction about models, maps and metaphors, Forte provides an impressive presentation of several perspectives for use in practice; applied ecological theory, applied system theory, applied biology, applied cognitive science, applied psychodynamic theory, applied behaviourism, applied symbolic interactionism, applied social role theory, applied economic theory, and applied critical theory. Finally he completes his book with a chapter on “Multi theory practice and routes to integration.”

An Examination of the Contextual Environment of Families with Sexually Abused Adolescents

This study examined the impact of the contextual environment of the family on post abuse adjustment of sexually abused adolescents. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory was used to investigate how the external influences of the family impact the capacity of families to foster the recovery of sexually abused adolescents. The results from this secondary analysis of data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being Wave I (NSCAW, Dowd et al., 2002) support contextually sensitive treatment planning for sexually abused adolescents and their families.

Long distance root–shoot signalling in plant–insect community interactions

Plants mediate interactions between insects, including leaf- and root-feeders; yet the underlying mechanisms and connection with ecological theory remain unresolved. In this review, based on novel insights into long-distance (i.e., leaf–leaf, root–shoot) defence signalling, we explore the role of phytohormones in driving broad-scale patterns of aboveground–belowground interactions that can be extrapolated to general plant–insect relationships. We propose that the outcome of intra-feeding guild interactions is generally negative due to induction of similar phytohormonal pathways, whereas between-guild interactions are often positive due to negative signal crosstalk. However, not all outcomes could be explained by feeding guild; we argue that future studies should target ecologically representative plant–insect systems, distinguish subguilds, and include plant growth hormones to improve our understanding of plant-mediated interactions.

Can sympatric speciation by disruptive sexual selection explain rapid evolution of cichlid diversity in Lake Victoria?

Rapid speciation can occur on ecological time scales and interfere with ecological processes, resulting in species distribution patterns that are difficult to reconcile with ecological theory. The haplochromine cichlids in East African lakes are an extreme example of rapid speciation. We analyse the causes of their high speciation rates. Various studies have identified disruptive sexual selection acting on colour polymorphisms that might cause sympatric speciation. Using data on geographical distribution, colouration and relatedness from 41 species endemic to Lake Victoria, we test predictions from this hypothesis. Plotting numbers of pairs of closely related species against the amount of distributional overlap between the species reveals a bimodal distribution with modes on allopatric and sympatric. The proportion of sister species pairs that are heteromorphic for the traits under disruptive selection is higher in sympatry than in allopatry. These data support the hypothesis that disruptive sexual selection on colour polymorphisms has caused sympatric speciation and help to explain the rapid radiation of haplochromine species flocks.