THE EFFECTS OF PICTURE ACTIVITY SCHEDULES ON TRANSITION TIMES IN AN INCLUSIVE PRESCHOOL CLASSROOM

This study determined the effectiveness of using picture activity schedules with preschoolers who exhibited disruptive behaviors in an inclusive setting during transition times in a public preschool. The participants in this study were three male and one female student, ages 3 years to 5 years, who were enrolled in an inclusive public preschool. All children are Caucasian. Three of the children had an individualized education plan including goals for speech and social-emotional concerns. One child was typically developing and did not have an individualized education plan. The study method used a single-subject withdrawal design (ABAB). The results confirmed that the use of picture activity schedules decreased the mean duration of transitions and the duration returned to pre-intervention levels when picture activity schedules were removed for two of the four children

Eighty-three Thousand Youth: Selected Findings of Eight Population-Based Studies

Meta-analysis of quantitative research that explores the particular needs of gay, lesbian, and bisexual high school students and sheds light on the issue of anti-gay harassment in schools. The studies include six statewide surveys, two administered in urban school districts and one conducted in the schools of 55 American Indian tribes. The report looks at the three studies which had been done at the time in which students were asked about experiencing sexual-orientation-based harassment, at the rates as well as the correlates of this type of bullying and violence. It also examines and compares the findings of four studies in which students were asked their sexual orientation and five that asked proximal questions and then used them (alone or in combination with identity) to infer respondents' "actual" sexual orientations. Proximal variables included gender(s) of people with whom the respondent has had sexual experiences, gender(s) of people to whom the respondent feels attraction and/or expects to have sexual experiences, and gender(s) about whom the respondent fantasizes

New Directions for the Portuguese Higher Education: Tendencies, Challenges and Opportunities in the Road of the Quality

Developments achieved by the industry over the last decades, either in evaluation, assurance or even in the improvement of their product’s quality, the so called “Quality Management”, came as an essential reference to the definition of quality procedures to be applied in higher education. With the Bologna process, Portuguese higher education institutions will need to appeal to methods and instruments that allow them to evaluate and guarantee their teaching quality. If a higher education institution intends to implement TQM using the Deming’s guiding principles, will have to move forward to continuous quality improvement. Usually, the quality definition is connected to satisfaction of customer’s expectations. In higher education institutions, this association is not consistent because customer's identification generates a great diversity of opinions, this being one of the first obstacles that appear in TQM implementation. This research was based in an empiric study carried out in two higher education institutions - ISCTE and the University of Évora. The main objective was to find out if the Deming’s fourteen guiding principles and the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) could be applied to Portuguese higher education institutions. The results highlight a group of potential difficulties and benefits which can be the effect of the present organizational culture of these institutions. But the implementation benefits of TQM clearly overcome the difficulties that can appear: the improvement of customer's satisfaction and the image of the organization; the efficient management and use of resources and spaces; the employees involvement in the prosecution of organization targets; the information channels improvement and communication within the organization; the creation of a community spirit, interdependence and share of values; and the increased responsibility towards the community. The study concludes that there is a strong connection between the two models - CAF and Deming’s guiding principles. This association shows that to each criteria of the CAF model there is a connection to more than one of the Deming’s guiding principles. Both models develop actions for the improvement of the organizations quality, the first one in a more general and the second one in a more detailed level

The Paradigm of the Total Quality Management in the Portuguese Higher Education

Total quality management is a process based on a “to do differently” strategy. This strategy implies trying to achieve continuous improvement by sharing responsibilities reducing misused resource and meeting customer’s expectations. Typically, Total Quality Management is implemented in industry and services using a group of principles. The implementation of such principles guides the organizations towards the improvement of quality standards. Deming contributed to the total quality management process by proposing the set of principles and techniques that helps organisations to improve their quality process. We implement the total quality management principles inn two Portuguese high education institutions: ISCTE and University of Évora. We use separate questionnaires in order to verify if the techniques of the Total Quality Management, proposed by Deming, which were applied in Japanese and US companies, could be applied similarly in Portuguese high education institutions. Likewise for industrial companies, application of Total Quality Management techniques may help higher education institutions in their adaptation to the constantly changing education environment. The improving of quality in higher education will result in a general quality improvement of people’s skills which ultimately will improve the level of efficiency contributing to the development of markets and the economy. The results of this study show a set of difficulties as well as benefits from implementation of Total Quality Management, which may be a consequence of the cultural environment of the institutions. This study concludes that the two higher education institutions can still improve the application of the 14 principles proposed by Deming, and that correct application of these principles may permit them to evolve to the excellence level. However, it is important to notice that the principles should be applied in a flexible way and in agreement with the specific needs of each organization

Effects of call patterns on the likelihood of contact and of interview in mobile CATI surveys

Despite the acknowledged influence of call patterns on contact and response rates in telephone surveys, this relationship is scarcely investigated in mobile CATI surveys. This paper evaluates the effect of call patterns on the likelihood of making contact and of obtaining an interview in a mobile CATI survey and thus furthers the understanding of the potential of mobile phones as a survey mode. Findings reveal that the likelihood of making contact and of obtaining an interview is not uniform across days of the week or times of the day – Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the worst days to make contact and obtain cooperation; weekends are good for successful callbacks. Additionally, longer time lags between consecutive calls do not favour the likelihood of contact or of interview and it is very difficult to interview mobile phone numbers with a call history with many “voicemail” and “rings but no answer” outcomes

Verbal fluency tasks: effects of age, gender, and education

Objectives: This study presents data for semantic fluency, phonemic fluency, action fluency, and alternate fluency. The aim is to provide normative data by age, gender, and education for European Portuguese in each fluency category. Methods: Norms for the verbal fluency task were collected from a volunteer population of 444 healthy Portuguese participants. Multiple regression analysis with age, gender, and education as independent variables was performed for the semantic fluency global score, and these variables were considered separately for each phonemic category. Results: Age, education, and gender significantly affected the semantic global score, as well as scores of names, supermarket, kitchen objects, food, and clothes. No gender effect was observed in the categories “p-words,” animals, transports, verbs, and alternating fluency. This last category was only influenced by years of education. Conclusions: Equivalent scores of verbal fluency tasks are useful in clinical practice, allowing the comparison between the normal and the abnormal performance of language disorders.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Padrões iniciais na aquisição do sistema de sons do português: características universais e específicas

Adopting a strictly motor approach to linguistic organization, the theoretical proposal called Molde e Conteúdo (Davies & Macneilage 1995; Macneilage & Davies 1966) argues that the first child production akin to adult speech – canonical babbling – can be seen as a motor correlate of the molde silábico. Moldes constitute a rhythmic basis catalyzing specific syllabic or segmental sequences. The independent motor control of such elements emerges gradually from jaw/tongue synergies with which the child initiates a type of vocal production similar to the adult’s. In the acquisition of speech production skills, then, changes in the quality of sounds in an utterance are initially based in changes in the amplitude of the jaw opening/closing cycle, i.e., they determine intra-syllabic organization. Syllables sequences, in turn, comprise vocalic and consonantal qualities produced in homorganic articulation places (i.e. front consonants with front vowels; back consonants with back vowels), as demonstrated child data derived from six different linguistic communities – English, Swedish, French, Japanese (in the Stanford database), Brazilian Portuguese (Teixeira & Davies 1999) e Equatorial Quichua (Gildersleeve-Neumann, doctoral dissertation in preparation, U. Texas, Austin). In general, the data on Brazilian Portuguese acquisition are comparable to production universal patterns reported for children in different languages, but also show specific characteristics due to the ambient language pressure

A certificação de alimentos orgânicos: influência na decisão de compra do consumidor ecologicamente consciente

O objetivo principal do presente estudo é compreender o processo de decisão de compra de Alimentos Orgânicos do consumidor Ecologicamente Consciente, em particular, o impacto da certificação no referido processo. Pretende-se entender o comportamento do consumidor numa perspetiva de marketing e contribuir para a criação de produtos/serviços sustentáveis, que resultem em fatores críticos de sucesso e em vantagem competitiva para as instituições que os desenvolvam.N/

Economic and Management Higher Education Systems in Portugal: An Exploratory Study about the Challenges Setting by the New Bologna Paradigm

Aiming at the increase of mobility in Europe, the Bologna Process is being implemented so that, until 2010, it will be possible to apply a set of common principles to all higher education institutions of the adherent countries. This ambitious process is trying to answer to a several social questions and economic challenges, promoting at the quality of education, the research capacity and the employment of the graduates. With the main objective of investigating the implications of this new teaching/learning paradigm in the work market with respect to the economic and business courses, an inquiry process was carried out. This paper presents the preliminary results and discusses some of the conclusions extracted from the inquiry process. It is expectable that the results of the inquiry process may contribute to improve the understanding about this new social and organizational reality in Europe by the educational institutions, the employers and the graduates