SpEdTIPS: special education teams increasing parental satisfaction for IEP meetings

Previous research has shown that parents of children receiving special education services often have negative feelings associated with Individual Education Plan (IEP) meetings, such as feeling confused, overwhelmed, intimidated, powerless, frustrated, and undervalued (Stoner et al., 2005; Ilik and Er, 2019; Mueller and Vick, 2019). Currently there is a culture of placing more weight on professional judgement and assessment data rather than on parental observations and knowledge of their child when making decisions for an IEP (Fish, 2008). Parents are intended, and required by law (IDEA, 2006), to be equal members of the IEP team. The current study developed and piloted an intervention used to increase parent satisfaction in IEP meetings, the SpEdTIPS intervention. This intervention focuses on action steps that can be implemented by case managers before, during, and after the IEP meeting to increase parents' positive experiences within IEP meetings. Results showed that case managers perceived parent satisfaction to increase from pre to post assessment, however, although parent ratings improved slightly, their ratings of satisfaction were not found to be statistically significant. Further investigation is needed on the individual components of the developed intervention and how parent satisfaction in IEP meetings is impacted.Includes bibliographical references

Observed crustal uplift near the Southern Patagonian Icefield constrains improved viscoelastic Earth model

Thirty‒one GPS geodetic measurements of crustal uplift in southernmost South America determined extraordinarily high trend rates (> 35 mm/yr) in the north‒central part of the Southern Patagonian Icefield. These trends have a coherent pattern, motivating a refined viscoelastic glacial isostatic adjustment model to explain the observations. Two end‒member models provide good fits: both require a lithospheric thickness of 36.5 ± 5.3 km. However, one end‒member has a mantle viscosity near η =1.6 ×1018 Pa s and an ice collapse rate from the Little Ice Age (LIA) maximum comparable to a lowest recent estimate of 1995–2012 ice loss at about −11 Gt/yr. In contrast, the other end‒member has much larger viscosity: η = 8.0 ×1018 Pa s, half the post–LIA collapse rate, and a steadily rising loss rate in the twentieth century after AD 1943, reaching −25.9 Gt/yr during 1995–2012.Fil: Lange, H.. Technische Universitaet Dresden; AlemaniaFil: Casassa, G.. Centro de Estudios Cientificos; Chile. Universidad de Magallanes; ChileFil: Ivins, E. R.. Institute of Technology. Jet propulsion Laboratory; Estados UnidosFil: Schroeder, L.. Technische Universitaet Dresden; AlemaniaFil: Fritsche, M.. Technische Universitaet Dresden; AlemaniaFil: Richter, Andreas Jorg. Technische Universitaet Dresden; Alemania. Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas. Departamento de Astrometría; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Groh, A.. Technische Universitaet Dresden; AlemaniaFil: Dietrich, R.. Technische Universitaet Dresden; Alemani

Modified protocol of harvesting, extraction, and normalization approaches for gas chromatography mass spectrometry-based metabolomics analysis of adherent cells grown under high fetal calf serum conditions

A gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) metabolomics protocol was modified for quenching, harvesting, and extraction of metabolites from adherent cells grown under high (20%) fetal calf serum conditions. The reproducibility of using either 50% or 80% methanol for quenching of cells was compared for sample harvest. To investigate the efficiency and reproducibility of intracellular metabolite extraction, different volumes and ratios of chloroform were tested. Additionally, we compared the use of total protein amount versus cell mass as normalization parameters. We demonstrate that the method involving 50% methanol as quenching buffer followed by an extraction step using an equal ratio of methanol:chloroform:water (1:1:1, v/v/v) followed by the collection of 6 mL polar phase for GC-MS measurement was superior to the other methods tested. Especially for large sample sets, its comparative ease of measurement leads us to recommend normalization to protein amount for the investigation of intracellular metabolites of adherent human cells grown under high (or standard) fetal calf serum conditions. To avoid bias, care should be taken beforehand to ensure that the ratio of total protein to cell number are consistent among the groups tested. For this reason, it may not be suitable where culture conditions or cell types have very different protein outputs (e.g., hypoxia vs. normoxia). The full modified protocol is available in the Supplementary Materials