Journal of Special Education and Rehabilitation

07-23

Authors: Frank CANKAR, Tomi DEUTSCH, Bojana GLOBACNIK, Andreja PINTERIC

Introduction: In the last years, the demand to include children with special needs in the mainstream kindergartens and schools in Slovenia has grown. This brought with it the need for changing the role of the special schools and institutes for children with special needs and for their transformation into resource centres. Methodology: We pilot tested a resource centre for support of blind and visually impaired children. We included 15 educational institutes and one blind or visually impaired pupil from each institute. Data were collected at the beginning of the school year 2010/11, and at the end of the school year 2011/12. In both cases the same instruments were used, which made comparison of the collected data possible. Results: The results have shown progress in the development of competences, attitudes, and rehabilitation competences in the participants of the study. Discussion: The results confirmed the efficiency of the initially designed model. By investing into its staff capacity building, we expect that the centre will gain recognition and increase its quality. In this way, it will be able to realise its developmentally-supportive role for the children with visual disability in Slovenia. Keywords: inclusion, resource centre, blind and visually impaired pupils, competences

43-58

Authors: Ranko KOVACEVIC, Samir SULJAGIC, Dzenita LJUCA, Edin MUFIC

The aim of this paper is to examine recidivists’ and non-recidivists’ differences in characteristics of the psychosocial functioning after a treatment in a Disciplinary Centre for Juveniles in Sarajevo Canton, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The research was conducted on a sample of 131 juvenile delinquents adjudicated with the educational measure of referral to the juvenile disciplinary centre. The statistical analysis was performed in the SPSS 17.0 program package. The differences between recidivists and non-recidivists were measured using Mann-Whitney test on all variables. A group of four variables were compared by: (a) school factors, (b) family factors, (c) spare time activities and peer relationships and (d) personality and behaviour of juveniles. The results have shown that risk factors are more pronounced in recidivists in all four areas of the psychosocial functioning. The largest difference is in the areas related to spare time activities and peer-relationships, as well as family functioning. The results indicate that the intensified treatment should focus on these areas in order to prevent recidivism. Keywords: recidivism, educational measure, responsiveness factors

77-94

Authors: Monica REICHENBERG

The present intervention study reveals that students diagnosed with an intellectual disability (ID) are able to construct meaning from written expository text through guided social interaction. There were 31 students recruited from four special schools participating in this intervention study.The study involves a pre-test phase and a post-test phase. The students were divided into two intervention conditions: (a) reciprocal teaching (RT), which involved practice in four reading strategies—prediction, question generating, clarification, and summarisation—and (b) inference training (IT), which involved practice in answering inference questions, i.e., where you have to read between the lines to find the answer. The training included 16 sessions over 8 weeks. Pre- testing and post-testing included seven tests. Improvement of test results was obtained in both conditions to about the same extent, indicating that both conditions were beneficial. Keywords: structured text talk, reciprocal teaching, inference training, reading comprehension, intellectual disability

111-127

Authors: Ritwika LASKAR

Introduction: Education of children with special needs is an important field of study. Children with special needs deserve to be educated like any other human being. Over the years, several provisions have been made and laws have been passed to ensure education of children with special needs. A visually impaired child’s needs and goals for learning are not different from that of his sighted peers. Only the means of achieving those goals are different. Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the prevalent method of teaching and the system of examination for students with Visual Impairment studying in the special schools for the blind in India and Japan. Methodology: The study was delimited to i) blind students only and ii) the special schools for the blind in Kolkata and Tokyo. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 50 teachers (25 each from the special schools for the blind in Kolkata and Tokyo). The researcher interviewed the teachers. Semi–structured information schedules were used to collect data and the data were analyzed only qualitatively. Findings: The method of teaching the blind students was similar in both Kolkata and Tokyo. Differences were observed mainly in the type of teaching equipments used. Regarding the system of examination, differences were observed within the special schools in Kolkata. In Tokyo, however, all the special schools followed a uniform system. The study revealed that in Kolkata a strict pass/fail criterion existed. In Tokyo, on the other hand, there was no strict pass/fail criterion. Conclusion: This study is important because not many comparative studies have been done between India and Japan. Most of the comparative research work is either between Japan and the U.S.A or between Japan and the U.K. This study was conducted mainly to find out the differences between a Developing and a Developed nation. Being a developed country, it is always assumed that there will be a lot to learn from Japan. Through this research study an attempt has been made to find out whether this assumption is true and if it is true then, to what extent the system can be implemented and practiced in the Indian scenario. Keywords: Method of teaching, system of exa¬mi¬nation, special schools for the blind, Kolkata, Tokyo

130-132

Authors: Irena NOVACHESKA

The International Congress of the students from the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation, named ERFUSS…’14, orga¬nized by the students of Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation, at the University of Zagreb, was held from 11 - 13 April 2014, at University Campus Borongaj. ERFUSS…’14 presents the desire of the students from the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation for unification of the complementary fields, with one goal - team work and inter/trans/multidisciplinary approach, contained in the name of Congress, which is an abbreviation for: “Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation in collaboration with …”. At the Congress, which was sponsored by the President of the Republic of Croatia, Mr. Ivo Josipovic, the City of Zagreb and the Association of graduate students of Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation, at the University of Zagreb, there were 247 students from Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Poland and Finland. The rich and the diverse program of the Congress included 6 plenary lectures, 17 workshops, 42 active students’ pre¬sen¬ta¬tions, as well as cultural and entertainment activities. The congress was opened with a welcome speech by the President of the Republic of Croatia, Mr. Ivo Josipovic, which in his absence was read by a member of the Organizational Committee, followed by the speeches of the Dean of the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation, Prof. Antonija Zhizhak, PhD; the Vice-Rector for Studies and Students at the University of Zagreb, Prof. Blazhenka Divjak, PhD; and the President of the Association of graduate students of Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation, at the University of Zagreb, Prof. Zrinjka Stanchikj, PhD. The program was enriched by the presence of representatives of the City of Zagreb: Lada Zhamarija, an associate at the City Office for social care of persons with disabilities and Vanda Bazmenjak, counselor at the City Office for Education, Culture and Sport. The ceremonial part was completed with a video message from the members of Organizational and Program Committee of Congress, through which they welcomed the present. The students’ presentations were organized in three days, divided into two sessions, morning session and afternoon session, between which interactive workshops were held, which aroused great interest among students. The Institute for Special Education and Rehabilitation, at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje, was represented by 10 undergraduate students, accompanied by Irena Novacheska, MA. Ana Kostadinovska and Lina Miloshevska, under the mentorship of Prof. Daniela Dimitrova-Radojichikj, PhD. They presented the topic: Braille alphabet as a tool of communication of the blind people; Gordana Blagojevska and Lazar Trifunovikj, under the mentorship of Prof. Zora Jachova, PhD, presented the Psychological basis of the signs of filed religion in American Sign Language and Macedonian Sign Language; and under the mentorship of Prof. Vladimir Trajkovski, PhD, 6 students had their presentations: Nermin Rashitovikj and Marija Dimovska on the topic: Early intervention for children with autism; Stefani Nakova and Simona Taneska talked about Nonverbal communication in people with cerebral palsy; and Ema Donevska and Andrijana Kudranovikj presented the topic Inclusion of children with Down syndrome in regular classes. The large number of students’ presentations with different topics, were followed by great interest, numerous questions and productive discussion by the audience, which of course resulted in exchange of theoretical and practical experiences in the field of education and rehabilitation of persons with disabilities, and increasing their professional competencies. The congress was officially closed by the speech of the Vice Dean for Education, Prof. Mirjana Lenchek, PhD, and a representative of the Committee of the Congress, with hope and desire for reunion, collaboration and fellowship. At the end there was a musical program and lunch for all participants.

135-136

Authors: Aleksandra KAROVSKA RISTOVSKA

The Macedonian Sign Language is a natural language, used by the community of Deaf in the Republic of Macedonia. This doctoral paper aimed towards the analyses of the characteristics of the Macedonian Sign Language: its phonology, morphology and syntax as well as towards the comparison of the Macedonian and the American Sign Language. William Stokoe was the first one who in the 1960’s started the research of the American Sign Language. He set the base of the linguistic research in sign languages. The analysis of the signs in the Macedonian Sign Language was made according Stokoe’s parameters: location, hand shape and movement. Lexicostatistics showed that MSL and ASL belong to a different language family. Beside this fact, they share some iconic signs, whose presence can be attributed to the phenomena of lexical borrowings. Phonologically, in ASL and MSL, if we make a change of one of Stokoe’s categories, the meaning of the word changes as well. Non-manual signs which are grammatical markers in sign languages are identical in ASL and MSL. The production of compounds and the production of plural forms are identical in both sign languages. The inflection of verbs is also identical. The research showed that the most common order of words in ASL and MSL is the SVO order (subject-verb-object), while the SOV and OVS order can seldom be met. Questions and negative sentences are produced identically in ASL and MSL. In order to be standardized, the Macedonian Sign Language must pass 4 phases: selection, codification, elaboration and dissemination. It is necessary to promote MSL through mass media; to change the law for use of sign languages; increase the number of licensed sign language interpreters; increase the number of differentiated vocabularies; publication of manuals; implementation of comparative linguistic studies as well as involvement of the deaf persons in the decision making process. Keywords: American Sign Language, Macedonian Sign Language, iconicity, lexicostatistics, SVO-order, standardization