Subjective and objective indicators of recovery in severe mental illness: a cross-sectional study

Background: This study aimed to determine whether subjective dimensions of recovery such as empowerment are associated with self-report of more objective indicators such as level of participation in the community and income from employment. A secondary aim was to investigate the extent to which diagnosis or other consumer characteristics mediated any relationship between these variables. Methods: The Community Integration Measure, the Empowerment Scale, the Recovery Assessment Scale, and the Camberwell Assessment of Needs Short Appraisal Schedule were administered to a convenience sample of 161 consumers with severe mental illness. Results: The majority of participants had a primary diagnosis of schizophreniform, anxiety/depression or bipolar affective disorder. The Empowerment Scale was quite strongly correlated with the Recovery Assessment Scale and the Community Integration Measure. Participants with a diagnosis of bipolar affective disorder had signifi cantly higher recovery and empowerment scores than participants with schizophrenia or depression. Both empowerment and recovery scores were significantly higher for people engaged in paid employment than for those receiving social security benefits. Conclusions: The measurement of subjective dimensions of recovery such as empowerment has validity in evaluation of global recovery for people with severe mental illness. A diagnosis of bipolar disorder is associated with higher scores on subjective and objective indicators of recovery

Number skills and knowledge in children with specific language impairment

The number skills of groups of 7 to 9 year old children with specific language impairment (SLI) attending mainstream or special schools are compared with an age and nonverbal reasoning matched group (AC), and a younger group matched on oral language comprehension. The SLI groups performed below the AC group on every skill. They also showed lower working memory functioning and had received lower levels of instruction. Nonverbal reasoning, working memory functioning, language comprehension, and instruction accounted for individual variation in number skills to differing extents depending on the skill. These factors did not explain the differences between SLI and AC groups on most skills

The role of language in mathematical development: Evidence from children with specific language impairments

A sample (n=48) of eight year olds with Specific Language Impairments is compared with age-matched (n=55) and language matched controls (n=55) on a range of tasks designed to test the interdependence of language and mathematical development. Performance across tasks varies substantially in the SLI group, showing profound deficits in production of the count word sequence and basic calculation and significant deficits in understanding of the place-value principle in Hindu-Arabic notation. Only in understanding of arithmetic principles does SLI performance approximate that of age-matched-controls, indicating that principled understanding can develop even where number sequence production and other aspects of number processing are severely compromised

Living Latin: Exploring a Communicative Approach to Latin Teaching Through a Sociocultural Perspective on Language Learning

This study is motivated by the search for new practices to enhance the teaching of ab initio Latin in UK universities. It arises out of a perception that traditional methods leave some students failing to achieve course aims, their own study goals, and, in the longer term, struggling to read Latin texts with understanding and engagement. At the outset of this research, there was little recent information on Latin pedagogy in UK universities or on student opinions on provision. Some scholarship expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of Latin reading skills attained, but little work had been done on defining the nature of desirable skills or in exploring how they might be attained or investigated. This study instigates progress in all these areas. To advance understanding of how Latin learning takes place and to investigate the potential benefits of existing conceptual and pedagogical frameworks, this study draws on modern language learning theories and teaching practices and explores the application of Vygotskian sociocultural theory to learning events taking place under a communicative teaching approach. Research methods were selected pragmatically, with quantitative methods deployed to obtain a comprehensive snapshot of current practice in UK universities, while the more complex areas of learning events and perceived benefits were investigated through a combination of participant observation, interviews and innovative reading and drawing exercises. The findings confirm that traditional ab initio Latin teaching approaches are not well-aligned with learners’ goals, establish the value of taking a broader approach to pedagogy and provide new ways of defining and investigating Latin reading skills. This research has the potential to enhance Latin pedagogy in UK universities and other institutions. It makes a seminal contribution to applying language learning theories to Latin and suggests innovative methods for aligning students’ needs and expectations with their learning experience

Self-Mutilation in a Community Sample of Adolescents.

The purpose of this study was to examine the provisional prevalence rates and characteristics of self-mutilative behavior in a community sample of adolescents. A total of 368 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19 participated in this investigation. Thirty-nine percent of high school students sampled (n = 143) engaged in self-mutilation within the past year. Commonly endorsed behaviors were biting self, hitting self on purpose, and cutting/carving skin. Self-mutilators were likely to engage in these behaviors to reduce internal tension, as well as to gain attention. Self-mutilators were compared with non-mutilating adolescents (n = 225) on self-report measures of negative self-evaluation, cognitive distortions, social problem-solving capabilities, and suicide ideation. Self-mutilators reported greater negative automatic thoughts and poorer self-worth than non-mutilators. Additionally, self-mutilators were more likely to have made a suicide attempt(s) in the past and reported higher levels of suicide ideation. In multivariate regression analyses, suicide ideation and history of suicide attempt(s) contributed to the prediction of self-mutilative behavior, correctly classifying 71% of the total sample. Clinical implications of the results are discussed in the context of contemporary teenage culture

Power, knowledge, interests : understanding the emerging regime to control small arms and light weapons

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal

Maskosis the healing journey of Little Bear : a narrative analysis of the life of an Aboriginal man with quadriplegia

A narrative analysis was used to explore the question, “What does it mean to be an Aboriginal man with quadriplegia?” Six in-depth semi-structured interviews and follow-up reviews were conducted with Dennis Sapp, a 52-year old Plains Cree man with quadriplegia who requested that his full name be used in the thesis document. The results of the study appear in the form of a life story written in the first person derived through a process of narrative analysis of the interview transcripts. The narrative details Dennis’ early beginnings on the Little Pine Reserve near North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada and his memories of his maternal grandfather, Cree elder and WWII Veteran, Tom Sapp, who raised Dennis in the traditional way until he was forced to go to the St. Anthony’s Residential School at Onion Lake at six years of age. The narrative includes an account of Dennis’ life before being taken to residential school, his experiences at residential school, and his life after leaving the school. In the narrative Dennis recounts the experience of losing his traditional culture and spirituality at residential school and the difficulties he encountered in his life as a result of the trauma of the residential school experience. He gives an account of sustaining a spinal cord injury and his experience post-injury and in rehabilitation. After reconnecting with his grandfather and returning to school to complete his education, Dennis rediscovered his traditional culture and spirituality and gained a renewed sense of meaning and purpose as a counsellor, disabilities advocate, and storyteller. Through regaining his culture and spirituality and sharing his story Dennis found balance and healing

Walking the bridge from single- to multi-species approaches in Southern African fisheries management

Fisheries management worldwide is in flux with calls for an EAF (Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries) needing to be balanced with the ongoing requirements to provide timeous and realistic assessment-based advice for management ( often with major economic and social consequences), that is typically based on single-species stock assessment models. This thesis is an attempt to walk the bridge from single- to multi-species approaches to fisheries management by developing a ''traditional" single-species stock assessment model that is used for management purposes, assessing possibilities for extending the model to incorporate multi-species effects and evaluating the potential of a range of multi-species approaches to contribute to the fumishment of practical management advice. The South African abalone Haliotis midae fishery is an example of a commercially valuable resource that is currently experiencing a downturn due to a complicated mix of biological, social, political, economic and environmental factors. Core problems include illegal fishing and recent ecosystem change in the form of a movement of rock lobsters Jasus lalandii into a major part of the range of the abalone. It seems that the lobsters have dramatically reduced sea urchin Parechinus angulosus populations, thereby indirectly negatively impacting juvenile abalone, which rely on the urchins for shelter. A spatial and age-structured production model (ASPM) developed as part of this study has provided the basis for management advice for this resource over recent years by projecting abundance trends under alternative future catch levels. The focus is on the main abalone fishery Zones A-D. The model estimates the reduction in juvenile abalone survival due to the ecosystem change extent and estimates the illegal take using a novel fisheries index - the confiscations per unit of policing effort (CPUPE). As a consequence of the recent explosion of poaching activities, the combined Zones A-D model-predicted 2003 poaching estimate of 933 MT ( corresponding to the assumption that, on average, 36% of all poached abalone are confiscated) is more than seven times the legal 2003 commercial TAC for these Zones. Given the complexity of ecosystem processes, there is a need to critically evaluate the tools used to steer this thinking. The focus here is on both the most widely-employed multi-species/ecosystem approach (ECOPATH with ECOSIM or EwE) as well as a scenario in which there is an urgent need (from management) for scientific evaluations to quantify indirect interactions between marine mammals and fisheries. A critical review of EwE highlights some weaknesses related to, for example, the handling of some life history responses such as compensatory changes in natural mortality rates of marine mammals, overcompensatory stock-recruit relationships, inadequate representation of uncertainty, possible problems in extrapolating from the micro-scale to the macro-scale as well as some (not too far-reaching) mathematical inconsistencies in the underlying equations. Strengths include the structured parameterisation :framework, the inclusion of a well-balanced level of conceptual realism, a novel representation of predator-prey interaction terms and the inclusion of a Bayes-like approach (ECORANGER) to take account of the uncertainty associated with values for model inputs. The potential of EwE to contribute to five important multi-species management quandaries in the marine environments off southern Africa and Antarctica is assessed, leading to the conclusion that EwE has limited predictive capability in these contexts. 3 Aspects of the potential application of other multi-species/ecosystem modelling approaches to advise the management of South African fisheries are discussed. In general, reliable predictive ability from such models is likely to be achieved sooner for top predators because relatively fewer links need to be modelled. Accordingly discussion concentrates on the problems of modelling marine mammal-fisheries interactions. Competition is a primary concern, but existing evidence is inconclusive because of the difficulties of substantiating claims that predation by marine mammals is adversely affecting a fishery or vice versa. Numerous species have been implicated in such conflicts, and long-term studies are essential to evaluate relationships between rates of predation and types and densities of available prey, i.e., functional responses. More realistic modelling studies are needed to address operational or management issues. Such models should reflect uncertainty in data and model structure, describe the influence of model assumptions, focus on systems where there is the greatest chance of success, incorporate a sufficient array of ecological links, and include appropriate spatial and temporal scaling for data collection and modelling exercises. In general, GADGET (Globally Applicable Area-Disaggregated Generic Ecosystem Evaluation Tool) and Minimum Realistic Models (MRM) are seen to show the most promise for use as tools to assess indirect effects between marine mammals and fisheries. The hake-seal-fishery interactions off the west coast of southern Africa are discussed as an example and the initiatives being pursued to further this modelling work are summarized. An important message derived from this study concerns the need to couple multi-species/ecosystem models with a simulation framework to take explicit account of uncertainty and management issues