How Does Inclusion With Co-Teaching Affect Student Performance on Summative Assessments?

Schools have been pushed toward inclusive practices with an emphasis on co-teaching models (Yeung, 2012), yet reservations exist and little is known about the effects of inclusive practices. The questions this study aims to answer are: 1. Does inclusion with an emphasis on co-teaching affect performance of newly transitioning students with disabilities on district and teacher made summative assessments?, and 2. Does inclusion with co-teaching have a carry-over effect on typically-developing students’ assessment scores? This study aims to investigate the effect of inclusive practices on student summative assessment scores. Results from the district preassessment were gathered for all students in both the comparison and intervention group. Using statistical analyses (SPSS), students with disabilities in the inclusion with co-teaching group were found to not test statistically significantly higher compared to students with disabilities in the control group except for one chapter test. When compared to typically developing peers, students with disabilities did not score statistically significantly lower on summative assessments and there did not appear to be a positive or negative carry over effect on typically-developing peer assessment scores

Olanzapine Attenuates Cue-elicited Craving for Tobacco

Rationale: Recent biological conceptualizations of craving and addiction have implicated mesolimbic dopamine activity as a central feature of the process of addiction. Imaging, and pharmacological studies have supported a role for dopaminergic structures in cue-elicited craving for tobacco. Objective: If mesolimbic dopamine activity is associated with cue-elicited craving for tobacco, a dopamine antagonist should attenuate cueelicited craving for tobacco. Thus, the aim of the present study was to determine whether an atypical antipsychotic (olanzapine, 5 mg) decreased cue-elicited craving for tobacco. Method: Participants were randomly assigned to 5 days of pretreatment with olanzapine (5 mg; n=31) or were randomly assigned to 5 days of a matching placebo (n=28). Approximately 8 h after the last dose, participants were exposed to a control cue (pencil) followed by exposure to smoking cues. Participants subsequently smoked either nicotine cigarettes or de-nicotinized cigarettes. Results: Olanzapine attenuated cue-elicited craving for tobacco but did not moderate the subjective effects of smoking. Discussion: This study represents one of the first investigations of the effect of atypical antipsychotics on cue-elicited craving for tobacco. The results suggest that medications with similar profiles may reduce cue-elicited craving, which in turn, may partially explain recent observations that atypical antipsychotics may reduce substance use

The Effect of Olanzapine on Craving and Alcohol Consumption

Previous studies have indicated that olanzapine decreases craving after a priming dose of alcohol, that craving after a priming dose of alcohol is greater among individuals with the seven-repeat allele of the DRD4 variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) polymorphism, and that the effect of olanzapine (a D2/D4 antagonist) is more pronounced among individuals with this allele. The present study tested the hypothesis that olanzapine may be differentially effective at reducing cue-elicited craving and differentially effective as a treatment for alcohol dependence over the course of a 12-week, randomized, placebo-controlled trial among individuals with and without the seven-repeat allele. Participants who met DSM IV criteria for alcohol dependence were randomly assigned to receive olanzapine (5 mg) or a placebo over the course of the trial. After 2 weeks of treatment, participants completed a cue reactivity assessment. The results suggested that participants who were homozygous or heterozygous for the seven (or longer)-repeat allele of the DRD4 VNTR responded to olanzapine with reductions in cue-elicited craving as well as reductions in alcohol consumption over the course of the 12-week trial, whereas individuals with the shorter alleles did not respond favorably to olanzapine

Coping with stressors in late adolescence/young adulthood : a salutogenic perspective

Literature indicates that globally young people are increasingly experiencing life as hopeless and meaningless. It is thus beneficial to investigate factors facilitating well-being in young people, as they are required to cope with multiple stressors whilst simultaneously negotiating the transition from childhood to adulthood. Health practitioners need to establish ways to enhance adequate coping in young people in order to minimise stress and ward off negative consequences such as addiction, depression and other pathologies that compromise health. This study aimed to ascertain whether discovering meaning in life and developing a strong sense of coherence may predict coping with stressors in a group of male and female South Africans in late adolescence/young adulthood (N=258). Three self-report measures were used: the Purpose in Life Questionnaire to measure the extent to which one has found meaning, the Sense of Coherence Scale to assess the extent to which individuals view life as comprehensible, manageable and meaningful, and the Adolescent Coping Scale to determine ability to cope. Logistic regression analysis results indicate that the extent to which one has discovered meaning in life and developed a sense of coherence predict ability to cope in young people. This suggests that intervention strategies that encourage individuals to search for meaning and strengthen sense of coherence may be effective in facilitating coping and may contribute positively to the overall health of young people

Boston Divided

In 1974 Boston, Massachusetts was forced to confront its civil rights violations. In the case of Morgan v. Hennigan, Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. found the city of Boston guilty of intentionally segregating its public schools and ordered Boston to bus students to achieve integration. When busing commenced in the fall of 1974, Boston was a city divided. The citizens of Boston were divided into two main groups: the opponents and supporters but there was no uniform consensus in either group. This study will argue that the motivations for support or opposition were multi-faceted. Those who supported busing had varied reasons for their support and those who opposed busing had varied reasons for their opposition. Through the examination of local and national newspapers and letters of public opinion this work elucidates how Judge Garrity and the Morgan v. Hennigan decision were represented and perceived throughout the city

Clinical research and leadership training program as a knowledge translation initiative across an Australian health care service

&nbsp;Health professionals need to be integrated more effectively in clinical research initiatives to ensure that research addresses key clinical needs and provides practical, implementable solutions at the coal face of care. Here we describe the informative phase of a broader program to enable and support health professionals at Monash Health who do not have a research background, to engage in and lead research to improve healthcare outcomes. The findings will be used to develop a dedicated clinical research and leadership training program. The training program will support Monash Health staff to up-skill or enhance skills to conduct rigorous research; engage and lead multidisciplinary, collaborative teams; and to use research to guide practice, as well as identify and address gaps in clinical research. &nbsp;</div

Technical rationality and the decentering of patients and care delivery: a critique of "unavoidable" in the context of patient harm

In recent decades, debate on the quality and safety of healthcare has been dominated by a measure and manage administrative rationality. More recently, this rationality has been overlayed by ideas from human factors, ergonomics and systems engineering. Little critical attention has been given in the nursing literature to how risk of harm is understood and actioned, or how patients can be subjectified and marginalised through these discourses. The problem of assuring safety for particular patient groups, and the dominance of technical forms of rationality, has seen the word ‘unavoidable’ used in connection with intractable forms of patient harm. Employing pressure injury policy as an exemplar, and critically reviewing notions of risk and unavoidable harm, we problematise the concept of unavoidable patient harm; highlighting how this dominant safety rationality risks perverse and taken-forgranted assumptions about patients, care processes, and the nature of risk and harm. In this orthodoxy, those who specify or measure risk are positioned as having more insight into the nature of risk, compared to those who simply experience risk. Driven almost exclusively as a technical and administrative pursuit, the patient safety agenda risks decentring the focus from patients and patient care

Harm-free care of harm-free environments: expanding our definitions and understandings of safety in health care

Editoria

Student evaluation of teaching: Reactions of Australian academics to anonymous non-constructive student commentary.

Within Australian higher education, student evaluation of teaching (SET) is regularly conducted and data are utilised for quality control and staff appraisal. Within current methodologies, students can anonymously provide further feedback as written commentary. There is now growing evidence that, once this narrative becomes derogatory or abusive, it may have the potential to create harm. To investigate staff reactions to receiving anonymous non-constructive commentary, a one group point in time design was constructed, and a survey conducted. Participants (N = 741) from a broad cross-section of Australian universities responded to Likert questions asking about their reactions. A significant impact was revealed according to age for mental health, stress and professional confidence, with younger and tenured academics indicating the most vulnerability. There were no differences across gender. Non-health disciplines with teaching loads greater than 50% reported an impact of anonymous SET on mental health and professional confidence. Being casually or seasonally employed or from an ethnic background was shown to have a significant effect on professional confidence. Findings suggest that the potential for higher education academics to be harmed via this process is a continued risk and highlights the need for review and reform of SET systems and protocols