A communitarian theory of the education rights of students with disabilities

There is a lack of writing on the issue of the education rights of people with disabilities by authors of any theoretical persuasion. While the deficiency of theory may be explained by a variety of historical, philosophical and practical considerations, it is a deficiency which must be addressed. Otherwise, any statement of rights rings out as hollow rhetoric unsupported by sound reason and moral rectitude. This paper attempts to address this deficiency in education rights theory by postulating a communitarian theory of the education rights of people with disabilities. The theory is developed from communitarian writings on the role of education in democratic society. The communitarian school, like the community within which it nests, is inclusive. Schools both reflect and model the shape of communitarian society and have primary responsibility for teaching the knowledge and virtues which will allow citizens to belong to and function within society. Communitarians emphasise responsibilities, however, as the corollary of rights and require the individual good to yield to community good when the hard cases arise. The article not only explains the basis of the right to an inclusive education, therefore, but also engages with the difficult issue of when such a right may not be enforceable.

Reasonable adjustment and the assessment of students with disabilities: Australian legal issues and trends

Student assessment is particularly important, and particularly controversial, because it is the means by which student achievement is determined. Reasonable adjustment to student assessment is of equal importance as the means of ensuring the mitigation, or even elimination, of disability related barriers to the demonstration of student achievement. The significance of reasonable adjustment is obvious in the later years of secondary school, and in the tertiary sector, because failure to adjust assessment may be asserted as the reason a student did not achieve as well as anticipated or as the reason a student was excluded from a course and, as a result, from future study and employment opportunities. Even in the early years of schooling, however, assessment and its management are a critical issue for staff and students, especially in an education system like Australia’s with an ever increasing emphasis on national benchmarks testing. This paper will explain the legislation which underpins the right to reasonable adjustment in education in Australian schools. It will give examples of the kinds of adjustment which may be made to promote equality of opportunity in the area of assessment. It will also consider some of the controversies which have confronted, or which, it may be speculated, are likely to confront Australian education institutions as they work towards compliance with reasonable adjustment laws.

Your voice counts : Listening to the voice of high school students with autism spectrum disorder

Supporting students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in inclusive settings presents both opportunities and significant challenges to school communities. This study, which explored the lived-experience of nine students with ASD in an inclusive high school in Australia, is based on the belief that by listening to the voices of students, school communities will be in a better position to collaboratively create supportive learning and social environments. The findings of this small-scale study deepen our knowledge from the student perspective of the inclusive educational practices that facilitate and constrain the learning and participation of students with ASD. The students’ perspectives were examined in relation to the characteristics of successful inclusive schools identified by Kluth. Implications for inclusive educational practice that meets the needs of students with ASD are presented.

Multicultural training experiences as predictors of psychology students’ cultural competence

The psychologists in the western world, including Australia, are required to be culturally competent due to the cultural diversity of these societies. Previous studies conducted in North America and Europe have found multicultural teaching, clinical experience with culturally diverse clients, and discussion of multicultural counselling issues in supervision to be related to the practitioner’s cultural competency. The present study examined factors contributing to trainee psychologists’ perceived level of cultural competence. It was hypothesised that multicultural teaching, clinical experience and supervision would be related to students’ level of cultural competence. One hundred and twenty seven postgraduate clinical psychology students completed an online survey battery that included demographic information, a social desirability measure, and the Multicultural Mental Health Awareness Scale (Khawaja, Gomez & Turner, 2009). This hypothesis was partially supported. Clinical experience and supervision focusing on multicultural issues were found to be related to participants’ perceived cultural competence, however, multicultural teaching was not. These results provide insight into how universities around Australia can facilitate future psychologists’ competence in working with clients from different cultural backgrounds.

University students’ depression : a cross-cultural investigation

Australian, Iranian and Portuguese university students (N = 967) completed University Students Depression Inventory (USDI; Khawaja & Bryden, 2006) in English, Persian, and Portuguese languages respectively. A series of MANOVA were used to examine differences in depression symptoms as an effect of the country and demographic variables. Interactions were also examined. The results indicated that country, gender, and year level had some impact on the depressive symptoms of the university students. Australian students were more depressed than the Iranian and Portuguese students, while Iranian students were more depressed than the Portuguese students. Subscales of USDI: Lethargy, Motivation, and Cognitive/Emotional were also used to compare the depressive symptoms of students. The Australian female students reported a significantly higher level of lethargy than their male counterparts. Similarly, the first year male students from Iran were significantly more lethargic than the first year Iranian female students. Iranian and Portuguese male students, compared to the female students of these countries, experienced a lower level of motivation. The Australian and Iranian students, compared to the Portuguese students, reported a significantly higher level of cognitive and affective symptoms. The scores on the Cognitive/Emotional subscale increased with the year level. Differences among students’ depression are described and implications discussed.

The Metapopulation Dynamics of an Infectious Disease: Tuberculosis in Possums

An SEI metapopulation model is developed for the spread of an infectious agent by migration. The model portrays two age classes on a number of patches connected by migration routes which are used as host animals mature. A feature of this model is that the basic reproduction ratio may be computed directly, using a scheme that separates topography, demography, and epidemiology. We also provide formulas for individual patch basic reproduction numbers and discuss their connection with the basic reproduction ratio for the system. The model is applied to the problem of spatial spread of bovine tuberculosis in a possum population. The temporal dynamics of infection are investigated for some generic networks of migration links, and the basic reproduction ratio is computed—its value is not greatly different from that for a homogeneous model. Three scenarios are considered for the control of bovine tuberculosis in possums where the spatial aspect is shown to be crucial for the design of disease management operations

Chronological age and age-related cognitive deficits are associated with an increase in multiple types of driving errors in late life

Objective: Older driver research has mostly focused on identifying that small proportion of older drivers who are unsafe. Little is known about how normal cognitive changes in aging affect driving in the wider population of adults who drive regularly. We evaluated the association of cognitive function and age, with driving errors. Method: A sample of 266 drivers aged 70 to 88 years were assessed on abilities that decline in normal aging (visual attention, processing speed, inhibition, reaction time, task switching) and the UFOV® which is a validated screening instrument for older drivers. Participants completed an on-road driving test. Generalized linear models were used to estimate the associations of cognitive factor with specific driving errors and number of errors in self-directed and instructor navigated conditions. Results: All errors types increased with chronological age. Reaction time was not associated with driving errors in multivariate analyses. A cognitive factor measuring Speeded Selective Attention and Switching was uniquely associated with the most errors types. The UFOV predicted blindspot errors and errors on dual carriageways. After adjusting for age, education and gender the cognitive factors explained 7% of variance in the total number of errors in the instructor navigated condition and 4% of variance in the self-navigated condition. Conclusion: We conclude that among older drivers errors increase with age and are associated with speeded selective attention particularly when that requires attending to the stimuli in the periphery of the visual field, task switching, errors inhibiting responses and visual discrimination. These abilities should be the target of cognitive training.

Peer passenger identity and passenger pressure on young drivers' speeding intentions

Young drivers, aged 17 to 24 years, have the highest fatality rate in Australia. It is believed that part of this risk is due to pressure from peer passengers to engage in speeding; which may be active (i.e., verbal encouragement) or passive (i.e., perceived pressure on the part of the driver). The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) was used to investigate this impact of peer passengers on young drivers, particularly the influence of the type of peer pressure and a driver’s level of identification with their passengers. A scenario-based questionnaire was constructed, informed by focus groups and pilot studies, and distributed to university students (N = 398). The questionnaire measured participants’ intentions and the TPB constructs, including two components of perceived behaviour control, within a baseline scenario as well as an experimental scenario in which the variables of type of pressure and identification were manipulated. Consistent with the hypotheses, the study found that attitudes and self-efficacy significantly predicted intentions over and above the variance explained by the sociodemographic variables of age, gender, self-esteem, sensation seeking, as well as past behaviour and exposure. Across the scenarios, attitudes explained between 4.3% and 14.5%, while self-efficacy to refrain from speeding explained between 4.9% and 17.1%, of the unique variance in intentions to speed. However, contrary to expectations, intentions to speed were found to be higher in the “no passenger” than “passenger present” conditions, although this finding is not completely inconsistent with recent literature. A high level of identification with passengers led to higher intentions to speed than low identification as expected, but, inconsistent with expectations, different types of pressure (i.e., active versus passive) did not influence intentions to speed.

Supporting Students for Flexible Learning

The changing roles for academics relates to a new emphasis on: •developing life-long learners, in addition to teaching 'content'; •ensuring long-term graduate outcomes not just short-term subject objectives are achieved by all students; and •collaborative course and subject design.

Cracking the code : a checklist to complement CRAs for first year Justice students

It is well recognised in the literature on first year higher education that there is a need for Universities to provide further support and development in student learning skills and engagement. Assessment and feedback is an area with differing expectations and understandings among academics and students (e.g. AUSSE, CEQ). Consistency and explicitness in academic feedback is fundamental in assisting students in their transition to university education and learning. This poster captures the progress of an 18 month funded by the Faculty of Law Teaching and Learning Grant scheme (QUT). The project sought to develop and trial an assessment checklist/diagnostic tool to accompany Criteria Referenced Assessment sheets for students within the School of Justice, Law Faculty, Queensland University of Technology (QUT).The checklist was trialled across four units in the School of Justice (Law faculty) amongst an estimated cohort of over 600 students undertaking single and dual degrees.