title: Let me be understood: A behavioural investigation of effective functional communication skills within a New Zealand special education high school.

authors: Bourke, Tina

subjects: verbal behaviour

abstract: Effective functional communication skills are socially significant behaviours that afford individuals the ability to self-advocate and realise their full range of human rights. The aim of this study was to describe communication skills observed within a New Zealand special education high school routine with three female students (who had previous experience with Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) systems), and the responses provided by staff, within a verbal behaviour framework. In-person naturalistic observations using event-recording procedures were conducted over 18 total hours and 432 total communicative episodes were documented. Communicative episodes were described congruous with Skinner’s (1957) account of verbal operants and rates were calculated. Data related to antecedent conditions that occasioned episodes and students’ use of communication skills including the function and mode of communication were included. Staff responses to student initiations were assessed as being functionally appropriate matches. Overall, students were involved in approximately 25 communicative episodes per hour that were primarily opportunities to respond, with the exception of one student, and one opportunity to initiate was observed during the entire study. Communicative episodes predominantly occurred with adults, and students used vocals or gestures but rarely AAC systems, during episodes that were most often coded with tact or intraverbal functions. Staff presented additional prompts, mostly using aided AAC systems, during the majority of opportunities to respond they presented. Just over half of staff responses to student initiations were assessed as potentially matching the communicative function. A verbal behaviour discussion of key findings and theoretical and educational implications for practice is provided. Strengths and limitations of this study are identified, and future research is suggested.

text: Let me be understood: A behavioural investigation of effective functional communication skills within a New Zealand special education high school. Effective functional communication skills are socially significant behaviours that afford individuals the ability to self-advocate and realise their full range of human rights. The aim of this study was to describe communication skills observed within a New Zealand special education high school routine with three female students (who had previous experience with Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) systems), and the responses provided by staff, within a verbal behaviour framework. In-person naturalistic observations using event-recording procedures were conducted over 18 total hours and 432 total communicative episodes were documented. Communicative episodes were described congruous with Skinner’s (1957) account of verbal operants and rates were calculated. Data related to antecedent conditions that occasioned episodes and students’ use of communication skills including the function and mode of communication were included. Staff responses to student initiations were assessed as being functionally appropriate matches. Overall, students were involved in approximately 25 communicative episodes per hour that were primarily opportunities to respond, with the exception of one student, and one opportunity to initiate was observed during the entire study. Communicative episodes predominantly occurred with adults, and students used vocals or gestures but rarely AAC systems, during episodes that were most often coded with tact or intraverbal functions. Staff presented additional prompts, mostly using aided AAC systems, during the majority of opportunities to respond they presented. Just over half of staff responses to student initiations were assessed as potentially matching the communicative function. A verbal behaviour discussion of key findings and theoretical and educational implications for practice is provided. Strengths and limitations of this study are identified, and future research is suggested.

year: 2020

title: Creating confident, motivated teachers of physical education in primary schools

authors: Petrie, Kirsten Culhane

subjects: physical education

abstract: This paper analyses the impact of a nationwide one-year physical education (PE) professional development (PD) programme on 25 generalist classroom teachers from 10 primary schools in New Zealand. This research specifically explores how a year-long PD programme, focused predominantly on general pedagogical strategies, supported in-service generalist teachers to use of pedagogies previously reserved to the classroom to enhance their PE practice, reconceptualise the place and purpose of PE, and shifted their perceptions of themselves as teachers of PE. Interviews, questionnaires, lesson observations and document analysis were used to investigate the impact a PD programme had on teachers’ knowledge and practices in PE. This research specifically explores how a year-long PD programme, focused predominantly on general pedagogical strategies, supported in-service generalist teachers to explore how the use of pedagogies previously reserved to the classroom support them to enhance their PE practice; to reconceptualize the place and purpose of PE, and shifted their perceptions of themselves as teachers of PE. It is concluded that generalist teachers benefit from PD opportunities that allow for the transfer of pedagogical strategies and skills from the classroom to the PE context. However, these learning opportunities should be balanced and connected with opportunities to develop content knowledge associated with PE.

text: Creating confident, motivated teachers of physical education in primary schools This paper analyses the impact of a nationwide one-year physical education (PE) professional development (PD) programme on 25 generalist classroom teachers from 10 primary schools in New Zealand. This research specifically explores how a year-long PD programme, focused predominantly on general pedagogical strategies, supported in-service generalist teachers to use of pedagogies previously reserved to the classroom to enhance their PE practice, reconceptualise the place and purpose of PE, and shifted their perceptions of themselves as teachers of PE. Interviews, questionnaires, lesson observations and document analysis were used to investigate the impact a PD programme had on teachers’ knowledge and practices in PE. This research specifically explores how a year-long PD programme, focused predominantly on general pedagogical strategies, supported in-service generalist teachers to explore how the use of pedagogies previously reserved to the classroom support them to enhance their PE practice; to reconceptualize the place and purpose of PE, and shifted their perceptions of themselves as teachers of PE. It is concluded that generalist teachers benefit from PD opportunities that allow for the transfer of pedagogical strategies and skills from the classroom to the PE context. However, these learning opportunities should be balanced and connected with opportunities to develop content knowledge associated with PE.

year: 2010

title: Harnessing Indigenous Tweets: The Reo Maori Twitter corpus

authors: Trye, David

subjects: Science & Technology

abstract: Te reo Māori, the Indigenous language of Aotearoa New Zealand, is a distinctive feature of the nation’s cultural heritage. This paper documents our efforts to build a corpus of 79,000 Māori-language tweets using computational methods. The Reo Māori Twitter (RMT) Corpus was created by targeting Māori-language users identified by the Indigenous Tweets website, pre-processing their data and filtering out non-Māori tweets, together with other sources of noise. Our motivation for creating such a resource is three-fold: (1) it serves as a rich and unique dataset for linguistic analysis of te reo Māori on social media; (2) it can be used as training data to develop and augment Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools with robust, real-world Māori-language applications; and (3) it will potentially promote awareness of, and encourage positive interaction with, the growing community of Māori tweeters, thereby increasing the use and visibility of te reo Māori in an online environment. While the corpus captures data from 2007 to 2020, our analysis shows that the number of tweets in the RMT Corpus peaked in 2014, and the number of active tweeters peaked in 2017, although at least 600 users were still active in 2020. To the best of our knowledge, the RMT Corpus is the largest publicly-available collection of social media data containing (almost) exclusively Māori text, making it a useful resource for language experts, NLP developers and Indigenous researchers alike.

text: Harnessing Indigenous Tweets: The Reo Maori Twitter corpus Te reo Māori, the Indigenous language of Aotearoa New Zealand, is a distinctive feature of the nation’s cultural heritage. This paper documents our efforts to build a corpus of 79,000 Māori-language tweets using computational methods. The Reo Māori Twitter (RMT) Corpus was created by targeting Māori-language users identified by the Indigenous Tweets website, pre-processing their data and filtering out non-Māori tweets, together with other sources of noise. Our motivation for creating such a resource is three-fold: (1) it serves as a rich and unique dataset for linguistic analysis of te reo Māori on social media; (2) it can be used as training data to develop and augment Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools with robust, real-world Māori-language applications; and (3) it will potentially promote awareness of, and encourage positive interaction with, the growing community of Māori tweeters, thereby increasing the use and visibility of te reo Māori in an online environment. While the corpus captures data from 2007 to 2020, our analysis shows that the number of tweets in the RMT Corpus peaked in 2014, and the number of active tweeters peaked in 2017, although at least 600 users were still active in 2020. To the best of our knowledge, the RMT Corpus is the largest publicly-available collection of social media data containing (almost) exclusively Māori text, making it a useful resource for language experts, NLP developers and Indigenous researchers alike.

year: 2022-02-14