Tapping Employment Opportunities for Youth with Disabilities by Engaging Effectively with Employers

Early exposure to the workplace can improve the employment outcomes for persons with disabilities by enabling youth to develop employment skills and identify a career direction. Studies show that work-based learning experience, especially paid work integrated into curriculum, leads to improved postschool employment outcomes for all youth with disabilities, regardless of primary disability label or required level of support (Benz, Yovanoff, & Doren, 1997). Despite the demonstrated value of work-based learning experiences for youth with disabilities, participation in these experiences remains low (Colley & Jamison, 1998). It is clear that attention needs to be focused not only on workplace preparation of youth, but also on the workplaces themselves. Work-based learning experiences are based on available and willing employers. Examining employer perceptions of hiring and accommodating individuals with disabilities is an important consideration in making work-based learning opportunities available to youth with disabilities. This information can be used to improve the processes of establishing work-based experiences, identifying necessary workplaces supports, and eventually securing successful adult employment

Addressing the Transition Needs of Youth with Disabilities through the WIA System

Interagency collaboration has been repeatedly cited as one of the most important strategies in helping youth with disabilities move successfully from school into employment and adult life. However, often the primary focus of the collaboration and planning between school personnel and community service providers has been on disability-specific services and not on other, more generically available programs and services.The passage of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 offers new options and opportunities for youth in transition. WIA has challenged communities to create opportunities for all youth that moved beyond traditional vocational rehabilitation and related services. WIA represents expanded opportunities to prepare youth with disabilities for the transition to employment by assuring both access to and participation in WIA-funded youth and adult services. These services may benefit youth with disabilities as they plan for and make the transition from school to work

Synaptic basis for developmental plasticity in a birdsong nucleus

The development and adult production of birdsong are subserved by specialized brain nuclei, including the robust nucleus of the archistriatum (RA), and its afferents originating in the caudal nucleus of the ventral hyperstriatum (HVc) and the lateral portion of the magnocellular nucleus of the anterior neostriatum (L-MAN). An in vitro brain slice preparation was used to characterize the electrophysiological properties of L-MAN and HVc axonal synapses within RA and to examine how these synaptic connections change during the course of song development. Electrical stimulation of L-MAN and not HVc fibers evoked excitatory synaptic potentials from virtually all RA neurons in brain slices prepared from male and female zebra finches less than 25 d of age. These “L-MAN” EPSPs were blocked substantially by the NMDA receptor antagonist D(-)-2-amino-5-phosphonopentanoic acid (D-APV; 50–100 microM) and by hyperpolarization of the postsynaptic membrane. In contrast, when slices were prepared from male finches greater than 35 d of age, electrical stimulation of the L-MAN and the HVc fiber tracts evoked synaptic responses from over 70% of RA neurons. Although the L-MAN EPSPs resembled those seen in RA before day 25, the “HVc” EPSPs were relatively insensitive to D-APV, but almost completely abolished by 6-cyano-7-nitroquinoxaline-2,3-dione, a non-NMDA glutamate receptor antagonist. These experiments indicate that L-MAN and HVc axons make pharmacologically distinct synapses on the same RA neurons, and that these synapses first form at different stages during development

The Realm of Rights

A Review of The Realm of Rights by Judith Jarvis Thomso

A study and design of a cardiac interbeat interval timer system

This thesis reports the design of a system which can measure and record the cardiac interbeat times of human subjects in a continuous beat to beat manner, using the bioelectrical signal associated with the heart as an input. The design is in response to the needs of clinical researchers. The means of obtaining the bioelectrical signal and previous designs of electrocardiographic equipment, especially electrocardiotachometers, are reviewed. A design is proposed which consists of a preamplifier to amplify the bioelectrical signal, a 60 Hz rejection filter, and a beat detector which uses a differentiation technique to obtain a reliable single output pulse for each cardiac cycle. The detector output pulse is used to control the input of a clock pulse train to a five decade counter. The pulses within the train are repeated at a rate of 104 pulses per second. The output of the counter is stored in memory circuits at the end of each cardiac excitation interval, and the counter is reset for the next interval. The output of the memory circuits is recorded with a digital printer, yielding a printed record of interbeat times --Abstract, page ii

Introduction: Contemporary developments in games teaching

For individuals interested in contemporary physical education and sports coaching practices, the well-known saying, 'may you live in interesting times' (sometimes referred to as the Chinese curse) will hold some resonance. As debate occurs about the very nature of what constitutes physical education and sports coaching, and 'which' knowledge should be privileged through pedagogical encounters, we do live in interesting times characterised by profound social and cultural changes (Wright, Macdonald and Burrows 2004). For some, these changes have produced professional working lives that are extremely fast-paced and time-poor. With many commercial enterprises claiming to offer 'innovative' and 'cutting-edge' practical solutions and 'quick fixes' for highly complex problems, as professionals we are now required to become critical consumer of what others have termed the global information explosion (Wright et. al. 2004). In relation to physical education and coaching we believe that in order to be effective critical consumers, 'context' matters and as such, we need local, nuanced examples of how various teaching coaching approaches are applied to consider their relevance for the issues we face in our own practice