April 17, 1981

The Breeze is the student newspaper of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia

Comparing the Minimum Celeration Line and the Beat Your Personal Best Goal-Setting Approaches During the Mathematical Practice of Students Diagnosed with Autism

This study compared two goal-setting approaches found in the Precision Teaching literature, namely the minimum celeration line and the beat your personal best during the mathematical practice of three male students diagnosed with autism, aged 8–9. An adapted alternating treatments design with a control condition was embedded in a concurrent multiple baseline across participants design. Each approach was randomly allocated to either the multiplication/division (×÷) table of 18 or 19, while no approach was allocated to the ×÷14 table that acted as a control. Instruction utilized number families and consisted of (a) untimed practice, (b) frequency-building, (c) performance criteria, (d) graphing, and (e) a token economy. Upon practice completion, an assessment of maintenance, endurance, stability, and application (MESA) was conducted. Participants improved with both conditions and maintained their performance well, while improvements with the control condition were weak. The beat your personal best approach was highlighted as slightly more effective in terms of average performance and more efficient in terms of timings needed to achieve criterion. No differences were identified in terms of learning rate (i.e., celeration) or performance on the MESA. More research is warranted to identify which goal-setting procedure is more appropriate for students in special education

The impact of the SMART program on cognitive and academic skills: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Online interventions promoted to enhance cognitive ability hold great appeal for their potential positive impact in social, employment, and educational domains. Cognitive training programs have, thus far, not been shown to influence performance on tests of general cognitive aptitude. Strengthening Mental Abilities with Relational Training (SMART) is an online program that claims to raise intelligence quotient (IQ). This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluates the effect of SMART on indices of cognitive aptitude and academic performance. The review protocol was registered at PROSPERO (CRD42019132404). A systematic literature search of bibliographic databases (ERIC, PsycINFO, PubMed, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, Scopus, Proquest Psychology) identified five studies (N = 195) that met the criterion for inclusion. The risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias ‘RoB 2’ tool. Overall, there was a moderate impact of SMART on measures of nonverbal IQ (g = 0.57, 95% CI [0.24, 0.89]). There was insufficient evidence to determine the impact of SMART on any other domain. All studies included in the review were judged to be at a high risk of bias for their primary outcome. Despite the methodological limitations of published studies to date, these initial findings suggest that a large-scale study of SMART is warranted

A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Morningside Math Facts Curriculum on Fluency, Stability, Endurance and Application Outcomes

Journal articleA randomized controlled trial was used to evaluate the impact of a frequency-building curriculum to increase the fluency of component mathematics skills in a sample of 28 males aged 9¿11 years. Assessments of mathematical ability were conducted before and after the training period to evaluate the impact of learning component skills fluently on endurance, stability and application of mathematical skills. Statistically significant differences between the experimental training group and treatment-as-usual control group were found on measures of fluency, endurance, stability and one subtest of the Wechsler Individual Achievement test of mathematical ability. Results indicate the efficacy of the frequency-building curriculum in promoting fluency with component skills. Results are discussed in light of research and theory in the area of instructional design and behavioral fluency enhancement

Towards qualification for health and social care professionals in the field of digital technologies : the European project “DDSkills”

The possibilities of digital technologies for people with disabilities or the older population are wide-ranging, but in order for all people to be able to participate in an increasingly “digital world” it is important to quality professionals and organizations so that they are able to support, advise and help with potential risks. The article presents results of a survey among health and social care professionals in seven European countries with regard to qualification in this domain and introduces the European Union funded project DDSkills. The project aims to qualify health and social care professionals in areas such as digital Assistive Technologies, Smart Home, Robotics, Virtual and Augmented Reality and Brain-Computer-Interface, as well as their implementation and application, in order to support people with disabilities or functional decline to increase their independence and social participation