Search results

Repetitive and restrictive behaviors are one of the core components of diagnosing a child with an autism spectrum disorder. These behaviors may take the form of repetitive motor movements or vocalizations, often referred to as stereotypical behaviors. These behaviors can impede the child’s educational and social opportunities, and have thus become a target for intervention. A variety of interventions have been used to reduce stereotypical behaviors with varied success. One of the most oft-used interventions is deep pressure therapy (e.g., weighted vests), a practice that enjoys substantial anecdotal but little empirical support. Conversely, interventions based on functional behavior assessment (FBA) have been shown to reduce these behaviors, but may not be used frequently within schools. Therefore, this chapter will provide a brief overview of stereotypical behaviors and compare these two intervention approaches, with a clear preference for FBA-based interventions due to their stronger empirical support.

Learners with autism require specialized education and supports to ensure acquisition and mastery of various communication skills. This is particularly true for individuals whose disability significantly impacts their language development. Without functional communication, these individuals often engage in severe behavior, have reduced self-determination, and experience diminished quality of life. Accordingly, researchers in special education and related fields have sought ways to improve the communication skills of learners with autism who need specialized language and communication interventions. Although the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) is well-established in the empirical literature and has helped countless individuals learn to communicate, the method known as facilitated communication (FC; which also is being called “supported typing” and “rapid prompting method”) has become increasingly popular in recent years. Few methods in special education have been as thoroughly discredited as FC and perhaps none are as dangerous. This chapter contrasts the thoroughly debunked FC and its pseudoscientific characteristics with those underpinning PECS. A brief historical account of each method is provided along with key scientific and pseudoscientific features that distinguish science from pseudoscience. Ultimately, our intent is to further clarify how FC is not an augmentative or alternative communication method and why PECS is.

The debate over ‘judicial activism’ has flourished in recent decades, but the term was in fact coined 70 years ago, by the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The legal academy has bemoaned the term as perpetually ill-defined, but can this be attributed to its equivocal beginnings on the pages of Fortune magazine? This chapter investigates the circumstances in which the term was produced and the early meanings given to it in scholarly work. It is argued that there was very little effort on the part of legal academics and political scientists to gather a consensus as to definition, or otherwise to treat the terminology with caution, before the term was wrested from the university cloisters and captured by the popular media in the mid-1960s.

This article develops an alternative theoretical approach to the Supreme Court’s controversial electoral redistricting decisions in Shaw v. Reno (1993) and its progeny. Instead of relying on the traditional equal protection interpretation, this paper argues that controversies over electoral redistricting are at base disputes among competing visions of democracy. In the Court’s recent redistricting cases, the majority and the dissent adopted fundamentally different visions of democracy – Individualist Democracy and Democracy as Power. In addition to elaborating these rival understandings of democracy, this article develops the concept of Symbolic Democracy to explain a central paradox in the Court majority’s decision: its simultaneous denial and recognition of the relevance of racial groups in representation.

We live in an age of unparalleled access to personal data. Technological advances that seem second nature today allow for the mass accumulation of personal information by even the smallest of companies. The same technology also can be used directly by the state to accumulate mass information on its citizens. In the hands of government law enforcement officials, these surveillance advances also can be used to greatly enhance the state’s ability to exercise social control – a circumstance that has both positive and negative connotations. This chapter discusses the increasingly important confluence of privacy rights, surveillance, and social control as seen from a constitutional standpoint.

After years of limiting the expectations of privacy that citizens may have in their day-to-day lives, several recent Supreme Court decisions have attempted to take account of the privacy expectations held by individuals in today’s ever-evolving technological world, and in doing so have limited the ability of law enforcement to engage in surveillance without first obtaining a warrant. Yet more needs to be done. Specifically, the author argues that the law of standing must be updated to permit judicial claims by individuals who challenge the legality and constitutionality of comprehensive surveillance programs.

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight issues related to the current policy, practice, and research in the area of functional behavioral assessment (FBA) for students with (or at risk for) emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD). Although a substantial research base exists validating the effectiveness of FBA and function-based interventions for students with developmental disabilities, we believe that these same FBA practices are less valid when employed for students with EBD in classroom settings. Following a review of the current research and a discussion of the practical issues that are encountered when implementing FBA in classroom settings serving students with EB, we outline a more responsive FBA model for students with EBD with an emphasis on future policy, research, and practice applications for the field to consider.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibit schools from discriminating against otherwise qualified individuals with disabilities because of their impairments. The major difference between the two statutes is that the former applies only to recipients of federal funds, whereas the latter extends protections to those in the private sector. Otherwise qualified individuals with disabilities are those who have physical or mental impairments, which substantially limit one or more of their major life activities, a record of such impairments, or are regarded as having such impairments but who are capable of meeting all of a program's requirements in spite of their disabilities. In this chapter, the authors review the statutes' various requirements as they apply to both students and employees in the school setting. Specifically, using numerous court cases as examples, the chapter outlines the reasonable accommodations schools must provide to extend the benefits of their programs to individuals with disabilities in terms of providing services or employment. Furthermore, the chapter discusses the limitations on the types of accommodations schools must provide when doing so would place an excessive financial or administrative burden on the school board.

The robust appraisal of exploration drilling concepts is essential for establishing the economic viability of a prospective recovery field. This study evaluates the different concept selection methods that were considered for drilling operations at the Trym field in Norway. The construction of drilling rigs is a capital-intensive process, and it involves high levels of economic risk. These risks can be broadly categorised as aleatoric (i.e. those related to chance) and epistemic (i.e. those related to knowledge). Evaluating risks in the investment appraisal process tends to be a complicated process. Project risks are evaluated using Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) and are based on the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP). MCS provides a useful means of evaluating variabilities (i.e. aleatoric risks) in oil drilling operations. However, many of the economic risks in oil drilling processes are unanticipated, and, in some cases, are not readily expressible in quantitative values. The fuzzy AHP is therefore used to appraise the qualitatively defined indirect revenues comprising risks that affect future flexibilities, schedule certainty and health and safety performance. Both the Monte Carlo technique and the fuzzy AHP technique found that a cumulative revenue variation of up to 30% is possible in any of the considered drilling options. The fuzzy AHP technique estimates that the chances of profitability being less than NOK 1 billion over a five-year period is 0.5%, while the Monte Carlo technique estimates suggest a more conservative proportion of 10%. Overall, the fuzzy AHP technique is easy to use and flexible, and it demonstrates increased robustness and improved predictability.