Education Commons^™

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Inclusive Classrooms, Tamara Ann Lipson

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined teachers’ perceptions of inclusive classrooms. The specific areas of focus were analyzed by comparing demographic characteristics of the responding teachers to survey questions from the adapted Teachers Attitude towards Inclusive Education (TAIS) in order to determine how teachers perceive inclusive classrooms, how prepared they feel to teach in inclusive classrooms, and if there is any correlation between the workload of the teachers and their perception of inclusive classrooms. Data was collected through a survey completed by 480 teachers from a large, diverse, public school district in Northeast Florida. The findings of this study indicate that these teachers …

Examining The Shared Perceptions Surrounding The Most Important Elements To Include In The Design Of A Classroom-Based Therapeutic Visual Arts Program Serving Students With Autism, Laurie E. Hoppock

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Visual art is an enriching part of educational curriculum and an individual's development (Malley & Silverstein, 2014), but public school curriculum is increasingly focusing on standardization, core subject curriculum, testing, and accountability measures leaving creative fields behind as merely an additive part of education or a resource (Hourigan, 2014). Arts education within a system focusing on these areas creates a one-size-fits-all curriculum (Wexler, 2014) for students rather than accounting for individual student learning needs. A differentiated system is needed to respond to varying learning styles and stages of development. With the rising number of students being diagnosed with autism (Zablotsky, …

The Benefits Of Music Therapy And The Integration Of Music Therapy Into A Standard Curriculum For Special Needs Students, Meaghan Bielski

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Music therapy and its benefits to students with exceptionalities in special education programs have been proven through many social-scientific studies discussed in the literature review. Music therapy is the use of music as a therapeutic intervention for those with mental health, emotional/behavioral, and learning exceptionalities. Definitions of music therapy depend on many variables such as the philosophy, techniques, aims, and objectives of the therapists (Toolan & Coleman, 1994). Students with challenging behaviors, such as aggression and self-injurious behavior (SIB), benefit greatly from interventions in music therapy (Savarimuthu & Bunnell, 2002). The specific goal of this project is to create greater …

Towards An Understanding Of The Use Of Digital Media To Facilitate The Inclusion Of Children With Learning Disabilities In Mainstream Primary School Classrooms, Róisín Garvey

Masters

Inclusion, or the integration into mainstream classrooms of students with learning difficulties, should strive to make the students’ education sufficiently challenging while also making considerations for their particular capabilities and needs. A key aspect of inclusion is the requirement for appropriate support services and additional aids for both students and teachers. Digital media can be effective in helping to facilitate learning and can provide opportunities for engagement, peer learning, curriculum support and assessment. It can also promote collaborative and cooperative learning when the educational content is tailored to the capabilities of individual students. Finding teaching strategies that are suitable for …

Students With Disabilities: Fundamentals To Determine The Best Academic Environment, Marlys Hickox

Master of Education Program Theses

Since the inception of Public Law 94-142 (the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975), students with disabilities have gained access to regular education classrooms. Educating students with disabilities has changed significantly. Much discussion continues to find the basic fundamentals necessary to determine the best learning environment for students with disabilities. This descriptive paper identifies and examines the four fundamentals within the academic community that are responsible for determining and maintaining the best educational environments for students with disabilities: the parental role, the administrators’ support, the teachers’ attitude and aptitude, and the students’ evaluations. Past research studies are synthesized …

Is It Simply A New Language Or Is It A Learning Problem?, Lynda M. Warner

Master of Education Program Theses

English Language Learners (ELLs) have been over-identified for placement into special education classes for more than 20 years. Causes include a lack of precisely defined constructs for disabilities, funding methods used by states, failure to follow federal legislation, weak prereferral systems to special education in schools, a huge influx of non-English speaking students to the classroom, and a lack of training amongst teachers. Correctly identifying ELLs who also need special education is difficult, but teachers can safeguard against improper identification by taking into account the social, educational, cultural, and language aspects of students' special circumstances, i.e., the needs of the …

The Availability Of Inferences In Children And Young Adults, Gerilyn A. Katz

Student Work

Much of the research on age-related differences in the ability to inhibit irrelevant information in a given task has been on the study of younger and older adults. Only a minimal amount of research has focused on the developmental differences in children and young adults. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to examine whether age-related differences exist between children and young adults in processes consistent with inhibition.

Third-, sixth-grade children, and college undergraduates listened to twenty-four garden path passages containing either expected or unexpected, but acceptable, conclusions. The twenty-four passages were divided into four subsets, with each subset containing …

An Investigation Of Source Memory In Learning Disabled Children, Roseanne Hatt Ewing

Student Work

Recognition memory and memory for source information were examined in learning disabled (LD) and nondisabled (NLD) children in two experimental conditions. In the listen-listen condition (external source monitoring), subjects watched a videotape in which two girls completed sentences that were constructed so as to highly constrain a terminal noun. In the think-listen condition (reality monitoring), subjects were asked to imagine themselves completing some sentences and to listen as a girl on the videotape completed other sentences. In each of the two experimental conditions, half of the stimuli were presented once, and half were presented twice. Recognition memory and source memory …

Direct And Indirect Testing Of Memory In Children With Learning Disabilities, Janette L. Sodoro

Student Work

This study examined the relation between performance on direct and indirect measures of memory for pictures and words in children with learning disabilities. Recognition memory provided the direct measure and the magnitude of naming facilitation provided the indirect measure. Fourth grade learning disabled and nonlearning disabled children were asked to study a mixed list of pictures and words. A naming/recognition task was administered immediately following the study phase, as well as the following day. In addition, source memory was measured immediately following each recognition decision. For each item recognized as "old", subjects were required to render a decision about the …

The Use Of Goal Setting By A Mentally Retarded Woman To Increase Productivity And Reduce Errors In A Competitive Job Training Site, Rita J. Yasson

Student Work

What students who have mental retardation do upon graduation has become a major concern of the 80?s. Over fifteen years ago parents of moderately retarded adults expressed concerns about the quality of life their children experienced after graduation (Stanfield, 1973). Data from 120 parent interviews showed that 40% of their children worked in a sheltered work setting, 2% worked for a family business, 11% attended an activity center and a large portion of them, 44% were not employed or were in a habitation program. Over ten years later, another follow-up study indicated unemployment at a rate of 67% in the …

Amounts Of Nonverbal Behavior In Students Labeled Behaviorally Impaired And Comparison Students, Christine Rudolph

Student Work

The child’s behavioral and communicative skills are comprised of verbal and nonverbal components. The importance of a nonverbal context for smooth communication and interaction is often only evident when it is absent or defective, such as in children with severe behavioral disorders (autistic, schizophrenic). Actions and the way of saying things, rather than words, are essentially important since they are used deliberately or inadvertently to convey feelings or attitudes and determine the effectiveness of social and working relationships.

An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Processing Rate And Memory Span In Learning Disabled Children, Jeffrey Wayne Gray

Student Work

Slow rate of information processing has been offered as an explanation for the short-term memory problems of learning and/or reading disabled children (e.g., Spring & Capps, 1974). The present investigation used an item identification task and a memory span task to determine whether, when learning and/or reading disabled and non-disabled children are equated with regard to the speed with which they process information, their measured memory spans are also equal. It was hypothesized that the observed memory span differences would be eliminated by equating the two groups on a measure of processing rate.

The Relation Of Visual Fixation And Pursuit To Posture In Four Month Infants, Nancy M. Fieber

Student Work

The frozen posture of a young child as he visually attends to something of interest, or the very young infantTs wide open eyes and mouth as he fixes on a stimulus, illustrate dramatically the close relationship between the visual system and the total action system. The two appear to be inseparable and interdependent.

When vision is impaired, control of posture may be impaired as evidenced by the typical delay in head righting in prone and all-fours postures of the blind infant. (Gesell and Amatruda, 1941; Gesell et al, 1949) In other children with severe visual impairment a peculiar head posture …