A pilot study involving 10 participants with mental retardation investigated the effectiveness of Feel Safe, a program designed to increase personal safety skills. Feel Safe participants increased their knowledge of personal safety skills and could apply this knowledge in their day-to-day lives. Participants did not perceive themselves as being…

Discusses how the Montessori classroom environment provides the conditions necessary for young children to fulfill the inborn drive for independence. Describes how children from toddler age through middle school age exhibit their growing independence and their need for autonomy; discusses how the Montessori classroom environment facilitates that…

This article offers a set of principles, procedures, and special considerations for teaching students who are deaf-blind with cognitive disabilities to make their own choices during mealtimes. The article shows how a typical daily activity can be used to teach choice making and how this skill can be increased in complexity as the student…

Four adults with mild mental retardation were taught to sort based on what two pictures had in common and to comply with a series of instructions to sort the pictures selectively. After failing the task, they were taught to act on what they told themselves and self-instructed correctly. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

An experience with a client with cerebral palsy at an adventure education challenge course generated a review among program leaders of communication, consent, and choice issues concerning children with special needs. Lessons learned include: learn the participant's communication cues, explain the activity with the participant, and have the…

Describes the process of coaching individuals in their efforts to change themselves in the context of their family systems. Coaching begins by training clients to become observers of their role in family patterns of behavior. Coaching then moves to bring behavior more in line with their deepest beliefs, even if it means violating family norms. (BF)

In this article, the author explores the role of research in relation to EU policy on lifelong learning as part of the strategies and techniques of contemporary governing, wherein research is positioned as one of the intellectual technologies of governance, both one of those actions at a distance and contributing to such actions. Here the subjects…

The current perspective of autonomous learning defines it as the agentive exhibition of resourcefulness, initiative, and persistence in self-directed learning. As a form of human agency, it has been argued in the literature that this perspective should be consistent with Bandura's (1986) Social Cognitive Theory (SCT). The purpose of this article…

Purpose: This study describes the development and psychometric properties of a 24-item scale to be used in both research and practice settings that assesses the everyday care values and preferences of individuals with cognitive impairment and the perceptions of family caregivers about their relative's values and preferences for care. Design and…

Rich Greenfield examines the basics of today's net neutrality debate that is likely to be an ongoing issue for society. Greenfield states the problems inherent in the definition of "net neutrality" used by Common Cause: "Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be able to access any web content they choose and…

Genealogies, or histories of the present, create critical spaces to remind us of the non-necessity of that which we consider necessary to our lives (Burchell 1993). Further, genealogies of governmentality attempt to create this space with a focus on how conduct is conducted. In this paper I suggest that genealogies of governmentality are one way…

High rates of faculty turnover can be costly to the reputation of an institution and to the quality of instruction. Community colleges may expect high rates of faculty turnover as an aging workforce retires. Other sources of attrition, however, can be attributed to organizational characteristics and the structural properties of faculty work. This…

We examined the reasoning of children and adolescents in the island of Macao regarding the bases of legitimate authority across social contexts. We asked 101 children in 3rd, 5th, and 7th grades to evaluate the authority of persons issuing commands to children in two events. In one, persons with varying combinations of authority attributes issue a…

In this article the theme of individualisation of teaching is described and analysed. In the light of a fairly long tradition of a comprehensive school system embracing the idea of individualisation, we expected this to be an important aspect of ongoing changes in Nordic schools. Individualisation can be seen as continuity in the pedagogical…

Students who do not fit the definition of the traditional student are becoming an increasingly large segment of the college population. In order to effectively promote retention in today's college students, the student development professional must understand these changing demographic and academic characteristics. This study compared student…