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Background Previous research indicates that there is a relationship between the auditory environment and the core affects (or mood) of people with severe or profound intellectual disability. We conducted a systematic study to further explore this relationship.Method Thirteen participants with severe or profound intellectual disability and challenging behaviour were presented with 5 different soundscapes (Beach, Forest, Urban, Music, and Silence) in a dedicated room. Direct support professionals made core affect observations before and after each trial.Results A trend was visible in the core affect observations, with a prominent and consistent increase in the frequency of observations of a Relaxed core affect across conditions. However, a greater increase in the frequency of observations of a Relaxed core affect and a greater decrease in the frequency of observations of an Interested core affect were associated with the natural conditions (Forest and Beach) rather than the non-natural conditions (U...

The High Quality Communication intervention aims to stimulate interpersonal communication between individuals with congenital deaf-blindness (CDB) and their social partners. Found effective in multiple-case experiments, the intervention is based on Trevarthen's theory of inter-subjective development (Bråten & Trevarthen, 2007), which describes children's innate and developing ability to share subjective states in interpersonal communication and social partners' mediating role in this development. One implication of this theory is that social partners can support the emergence of higher-complexity communication behaviors in individuals who are still developing these behaviors. To test this proposition, communication patterns between individuals with CDB and their parents, teachers, and professional caregivers were analyzed. Analysis of two-event sequences of communicative behaviors showed a highly significant correspondence between the behavior of the social partner and the subsequent behavior of the individual with CDB, confirming that social partners can scaffold higher-complexity communication within interpersonal communication.

Item does not contain fulltext Background: Recent studies have shown that it is possible to foster affective involvement between people with congenital deafblindness and their communication partners. Affective involvement is crucial for well-being, and it is important to know whether it can also be fostered with people who have congenital deafblindness and intellectual disabilities. Methods: This study used a multiple-baseline design to examine whether an intervention based on the Intervention Model for Affective Involvement would (i) increase affective involvement between four participants with congenital deafblindness and intellectual disabilities and their 13 communication partners and (ii) increase the participants' positive emotions and decrease their negative emotions. Results: In all cases, dyadic affective involvement increased, the participants' very positive emotions also increased and the participants' negative emotions decreased. Conclusion: The results indicate that communication partners of persons with congenital deafblindness and intellectual disabilities can be successfully trained to foster affective involvement. 13 p.

Background: People with profound intellectual disabilities experience a high prevalence of visual disabilities, making them more dependent on sound. However, research addressing the influence of the auditory environment is scarce. Method: Observations of the auditory environments (soundscapes) and moods of people with profound intellectual and visual disabilities, in terms of core affect, were conducted in residential facilities by direct support personnel. Appraisals of soundscape and core affect dimensions were combined and analysed by means of multi-level linear regression. Results: Findings endorse a positive relationship between the observed pleasantness and eventfulness of soundscapes and core affect of people with profound intellectual and visual disabilities. Conclusion: This study suggests a relationship between soundscapes and moods of people with profound intellectual and visual disabilities, as judged by staff members engaged in their environments. These findings give reason to believe that improved soundscapes could ameliorate the moods of the residents.

Interaction with people with congenital deafblindness (CDB) and an intellectual disability (ID), and recognition of their often unconventional expressions, is complex. In this study, the effects of a two-phase intervention program intended to foster harmonious interaction and the use and recognition of expressions based on a bodily emotional trace (BET) were examined. Five adults with CDB and an ID, and ten of their caregivers participated in the study. A multiple-baseline design was used. Target behaviours were attention by caregiver, attention by participant, confirmation by caregiver, mutual affective involvement, quality of interaction, participant expressions based on a BET, and participant expressions based on a BET recognised by the caregiver. Overall, the results tend to be positive. However, some of the changes were minimal and the results varied considerably among participants. The results of this study suggest that it is possible to foster harmonious interaction and the use and recognition of expressions based on a BET in adults with CDB and an ID. https://doi.org/10.21827/jdbsc.4.31376

This article evaluates the role of soundscapes in the emotional well-being of individuals with severe or profound intellectual disabilities. Given the high prevalence of visual disabilities in this group, they supposedly depend more on sound to understand their surroundings. Nevertheless, there is little attention for (the effects of) sound in long-term healthcare. To address this issue, we conducted a small-scale intervention study among 13 healthcare professionals with Mobile Soundscape Appraisal and Recording Technology (MoSART: a smartphone application). Pre- and post-test measurements were administered of the emotional well-being (measured as moods and challenging behavior) of 15 clients with intellectual disabilities. Results showed that the MoSART intervention was accompanied by an increased experience of vibrant soundscapes and audibility of human sounds as perceived by the professionals, and a significant decrease of negative moods and severity of stereotypical behavior in the clients.

Recently, the authors have developed the Bayley-III-NL Low Verbal for developmental assessment of children with language impairment. The Low Verbal version consists of an accommodated cognition scale, and non-accommodated communication and motor scales. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the validity and added value of the Bayley-III-NL Low Verbal for children with a language impairment, in relation to the standard Bayley-III-NL for children without impairment. We administered the Bayley-III Low Verbal to 69 children with language impairment, and the standard Bayley-III-NL to 1132 children without impairments. We used an evaluation form for test administrators and interviews with developmental psychologists to evaluate the suitability of the Low Verbal version for the target group. We analyzed the test results using nonparametric item response theory (IRT) to investigate whether test results can be reasonably compared across the two groups. The results of the IRT analyses support the validity of the Bayley-III-NL Low Verbal: the test items do not suffer from differential item functioning (DIF) across the two groups, and thus measure the ability levels of interest in the same way. The results of the evaluation form and interviews confirm that the Bayley-III-NL Low Verbal has added value for testing children with a language impairment, especially for children up to 36 months old. It is also suitable for children with general developmental delay. We conclude that the Bayley-III-NL Low Verbal can validly assess the cognitive, language, and motor development of young children with a language impairment and is the preferred instrument for this target group.

This article describes the results of a pilot study into the newly developed dynamic version of the Bayley-III Cognition scale. We explored the responses of children to the dynamic version (n = 57) and the companion task behavior questionnaire (n = 93) using administrations among children with developmental disabilities. Furthermore, we studied the added clinical value compared to the standard Bayley-III using expert interviews with 6 educational psychologists. Results showed that there is clear variability in the responses of children to the help-steps that belong to the dynamic procedure and in the score difference between the pretest and posttest. The educational psychologists indicated that the dynamic procedure clearly has added value for specific groups of children, such as children in the preliminary stage of school placement and children from socially disadvantaged families. The task behavior questionnaire was evaluated positively by most educational psychologists. We conclude that the dynamic procedure provides added value for the developmental assessment of children with developmental disabilities. We finish with suggestions for future research into the dynamic Bayley-III.

Sensory disabilities may limit a person's development of intersubjectivity, that is, the awareness of self and other, which develops in conjunction with interpersonal communication. This study used intersubjectivity theory to test a new intervention called the High Quality Communication (HQC) intervention for its effects on a young adult with congenital deafblindness and a developmental age between 1.5 and 4 years. Three of his social partners were trained to support attunement and meaning making with him through education and video feedback. This study measured seven observation categories at three layers of intersubjective development during a baseline and two intervention phases: dyadic interaction, shared emotion, referential communication, meaning negotiation, shared meaning, declarative communication, and shared past experience. The participant's use of conventional communication was included as an additional category. Effects were observed in all observation categories from the baseline through to the intervention phases. Further study of the effectiveness of the HQC intervention is recommended to test whether effects generalize across people and settings. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

The article presented here introduces the Intervention Model for Affective Involvement (IMAI), which was designed to train staff members (for example, teachers, caregivers, support workers) to foster affective involvement during interaction and communication with persons who have congenital deaf-blindness. The model is theoretically underpinned, and practical implications and preliminary implementation findings are discussed.

Although observation largely takes into account the needs and abilities of individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities, several difficulties are related to this assessment method as well. Our aim in this study was to investigate what possibilities the use of physiological measurements make available to validate alertness observations. Measurements of five physiological parameters were compared with video observations of three individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. Because our first findings are broadly in line with those of studies involving individuals in the general population, we hypothesize that physiological measurements can be used to validate alertness observations in individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. Future studies are needed to compensate for the limitations of this study and to answer ensuing questions.

This article describes the application of the Diagnostic Intervention Model and its effects in two case studies of 3-year-old boys, Rolf and Ruud, using individual interaction coaching with their mothers. Positive effects were found for all the target categories in both cases, although an interaction that used materials appeared to be more complex.

The alertness of individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities is a recurring issue for both researchers and direct support persons. A literature review reveals that alertness is an ambiguous concept, and information about environmental conditions that may have an impact on alertness is lacking. However, joint agreement about the concept is important for researchers and DSPs. To generate an expert discussion we employed the method of Concept Mapping. Two Concept Maps were developed based on the following two questions: How can we describe alertness for individuals in the target group? What are the environmental conditions that can have an impact on alertness? The first map shows that descriptions should include a behavioral and an internal aspect of alertness. According to the second map, environmental conditions can be classified into four clusters: 1) interaction, 2) stimulation and activities, 3) communication, and 4) a cluster that emphasizes the importance of taking individual differences into account.

As a result of a new law passed in The Netherlands, in 2002, an increasing number of children with profound and multiple learning difficulties will attend school. The complexity of the target group requires appropriate assessment that is focused on programme planning. A new instrument, the Checklist of child characteristics, has been developed for this purpose. This paper demonstrates how the scores on the checklist can be transformed into support profiles. It then discusses the results of a validity assessment conducted on support profiles that were compiled for 32 pupils. These results suggest that the instrument is valid.

Affective consequences of two types of mathematics instruction, guiding instruction and directing instruction, were studied for two types of students with special needs: mildly mentally retarded students and students with specific learning disabilities. Seventy students were instructed in small groups in either a guiding or a directing instruction condition. Taking the domain of this research into account—addition and subtraction up to 100—two variants of directing instruction were distinguished: directing-jump instruction and directing-split instruction. Results revealed that the directing-jump instruction and guiding instruction resulted in more constructivist beliefs about learning mathematics than the directing-split instruction. Compared to students with specific learning disabilities, mildly mentally retarded students developed higher levels of ego orientation as well as task orientation.

In een discussie over de relatie tussen diagnostiek en behandeling is het belangrijk om de standpunten niet te baseren op een bepaalde klinische praktijk en die vervolgens als model te gebruiken voor diagnostiek in het algemeen. Betoogd wordt dat diagnostiek altijd volledig dient te zijn, wat niet hetzelfde is als langdurend en onnodig uitgebreid. De uitgebreidheid kan van geval tot geval verschillen en staat niet op voorhand vast. Een goede diagnostische methodologie moet de keuzes hierin rechtvaardigen. Het gevaar van een functionele diagnostiek die niet verder kijkt dan een beperkte probleemclassificatie en het eigen behandelaanbod is dat belangrijke informatie die essentieel is om tot een succesvolle behandeling te kunnen komen buiten beeld blijft.

Item does not contain fulltext This study examined the effects of the first 2 years of the ongoing Project CHANGE, aimed at improving interaction and communication in adults with congenital deafblindness (CDB) and an intellectual disability (ID). Six adults with no history of deafblind education participated in this study. These first 2 years of CHANGE involved an improvement in living conditions, including a transition to a new group home and interactions with specialized caregivers. Video recordings and file information were used to measure interaction and communication during baseline (T0) and two subsequent periods (T1 and T2). The results show an improvement in interaction: attention by the caregiver, confirmation by the caregiver, and affective involvement all improved. An improvement was also shown in the participants’ level of expressive communication and in the variety of their communicative behaviors. The improvements over time emphasize the need for a specific approach for persons with CDB and an ID. 14 p.

Trevarthen’s theory of innate intersubjectivity is relevant to understanding communication problems in children with sensory disabilities. Trevarthen and Aitken used the term “intersubjectivity” to describe “the ability of humans to detect and change each other’s minds and behavior”. When children lack auditory and/or visual means of interaction, they may not be able to fully develop intersubjectivity, which impedes the development of more complex interpersonal communication. This article presents a review of 31 studies about intersubjectivity in children with sensory disabilities. The results indicate that the intersubjective development of children with sensory disabilities is often delayed. The studies also describe similar strategies for mediating intersubjectivity in children with sensory disabilities and in typical children, but say that specific adaptations may be needed. From an intersubjectivity perspective, symbolic communication delays in children with sensory disabilities may be improved through specific, purposeful forms of social interaction.

Twenty-seven Dutch adults (ages 20-39) with dyslexia participated in individual in-depth interviews about the way they coped with their life and their disability. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. Most participants felt a strong impact of the dyslexia on daily life and experienced many educational and career problems. School memories were mostly negative, but family relations were predominantly felt as positive and supportive. Parent-school cooperation was perceived as almost nonexistent. Many respondents reported social and emotional problems, but still perceived themselves as persevering and responsible. Parental support appeared to be a powerful predictor of adult adjustment and well-being. Those with positive elementary school experiences were more accepting of their disability. Some implications for parents and schools are discussed.

Affective involvement, or the mutual sharing of emotions, is vital to regulate emotions and develop secure attachment relationships (for a review, see Diamond & Aspinwall, 2003). Given the importance of affective involvement in human relationships, it is regrettable that it rarely occurs between persons who are congenitally deafblind and their communication partners. This low occurrence is due to communication constraints caused by congenital deafblindness (Rodbroe & Souriau, 1999), but it has been shown that affective involvement can be fostered by training the communication partners (Chen, Klein, & Haney, 2007; Janssen, Riksen-Walraven, & Van Dijk, 2003; Martens, Janssen, Ruijssenaars, Huisman, & Riksen-Walraven, 2014b). In a previous paper we introduced the Intervention Model for Affective Involvement (IMAI) to improve affective involvement during interaction and communication between persons who are congenitally deafblind and their communication partners (Martens, Janssen, Ruijssenaars, Huisman, & Riksen-Walraven, 2014a). An intervention based on this model was evaluated in a single-case study (Martens et al., 2014b). After onset of the intervention, affective involvement between the participant and his communication partners increased, as did the participant's positive emotions, while his negative emotions decreased. The aim of the present study was to apply the IMAI to four participants who are congenitally deafblind (henceforth referred to as "clients") and their 16 communication partners in different settings and interactional situations, and to examine the effectiveness of the intervention. We examined: (1) whether the intervention increased affective involvement and positive emotions and reduced negative emotions across clients, and (2) whether the intervention was effective across communication partners (teachers, teacher assistants, caregivers, caregiver assistants), interactional situations, and settings (schools, group homes, daytime activities centers). Method PARTICIPANTS AND SETTINGS The study followed the tenets of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects and was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Royal Dutch Kentalis. Informed consent was obtained from the clients' parents, legal representatives, and communication partners. Four clients (Clarice, Bryan, Dewy, and Nick, see Table 1; all names are pseudonyms) and 16 female communication partners (see Table 2) participated. The clients were selected for participation based on three criteria: (a) a dual sensory impairment from birth on, (b) showing difficult emotional behaviors, and (c) a request for coaching by the communication partners. The communication partners were selected based on the following criteria: (a) working frequently with the client, and (b) having difficulties in sharing emotions with the client. The communication partners received coaching from three coaches (one for Clarice and Nick, one for Bryan, and one for Dewy). The coaches were familiar with the aim, principles, and protocol of the IMAI, and they were skilled in conducting video analysis and coaching with video feedback. They had extensive work experience and were specialized in interaction and communication with persons who are congenitally deafblind. The study was conducted in structured settings involving a fixed-day program (school: Bryan, and Dewy; daytime activities center: Clarice) and in unstructured settings involving a more flexible day program (group home: Clarice, Dewy, and Nick). All these settings are part of Royal Dutch Kentalis, an organization specializing in auditory and visual disabilities. THE INTERVENTION The IMAI-based intervention aimed to foster affective involvement between the clients and their communication partners during interaction (for phase I of the intervention, see steps 1 through 4 in the Intervention protocol section) and communication (for phase II of the intervention, see steps 5 through 8 in the Intervention protocol section). …

Item does not contain fulltext This study examined the effects of a 20-week intervention to foster affective involvement during interaction and communication between an adult with congenital deafblindness (CDB) and his caregivers in a group home and a daytime activities center. Using a single-subject design, we examined whether the intervention increased affective involvement between the participant and his caregivers, and whether the participant’s positive emotions increased and his negative emotions decreased. In both settings, an increase in affective involvement and very positive emotions coincided with the onset of the intervention, with the clearest effects in the daytime activities center. Negative emotions decreased in the daytime activities center. During follow-up, affective involvement decreased in both settings but remained above baseline. The caregivers indicated that it was easier to share positive emotions than negative emotions. This study demonstrates that it is possible to foster affective involvement with an adult with CDB, both during interaction and communication. 9 p.

Item does not contain fulltext Sustained interaction with other people is of crucial importance for persons with deafblindness and multiple disabilities. This article introduces a relatively time-efficient observational coding system to measure sustained interaction directly from video recordings using only two observation categories: turns and interaction breakdowns. Sustained interaction is defined as a sequence of at least three turns between two interaction partners. An interaction breakdown means that a sequence is not being continued, but is broken off by one of the partners. This article also presents the results of a first study applying the coding system to videos of five adults with deafblindness and multiple disabilities and their caregivers. The system seems well applicable and provides supporting evidence regarding inter-observer reliability. The system can stimulate further research and intervention to increase sustained interaction. 9 p.

PURPOSE: This study assessed the validity and usefulness of the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition (Bayley-III) Low Motor/Vision accommodated version. Accommodations are adaptations to minimize impairment bias, without altering what the test measures. Of the items, 66% have Low Motor accommodations like enlarged materials; 62% have Low Vision accommodations. METHODS: Using a within-subject design, we tested 19 children with the accommodated and standard Bayley-III, in a randomly counterbalanced order. The children had motor and/or visual impairment and a chronological age between 22 and 90 months. The test administrators completed an evaluation form. RESULTS: A subgroup of children benefited from the accommodations; 2 children obtained a large raw score difference. Test administrators considered the accommodations as practical, and advantageous for most children. CONCLUSION: The Low Motor/Vision accommodated version seems to validly assess the development of this population. Future, larger-scale research should study whether the accommodations improve the construct validity of the Bayley-III.

Many people with severe disabilities face difficulties communicating with their communication partners and rely primarily on prelinguistic communication. It is accepted that dynamic assessment can play an important role in improving communication and in measuring a person's ability to learn new communicative skills. Less is known, however, about the application of dynamic assessment in the case of those who communicate at a prelinguistic level. The present article reviewed dynamic assessment procedures that addressed communication abilities in people communicating at a prelinguistic level and young children who communicate using speech, with the aim of identifying key elements of dynamic assessment for persons communicating at a prelinguistic level. The results indicated the need for the identification of contextual variables that support communicative competence, teaching communication partners new skills, and a procedure that is highly individualised. Further research on the validity and reliability of these dynamic assessments is strongly recommended.

The aim of the present study was to examine the validity of the Bayley-III Low Motor/Vision version, and its suitability for children with motor and/or visual impairment(s). This version contains accommodated items, that is, adaptations to minimize impairment bias, without altering what the test measures. We hypothesized that the accommodations would not affect the item scores of children without impairment, and that children with impairment(s) would benefit from the accommodations. We tested 41 children without impairment and 63 children with impairment with both the standard Bayley-III and the Low Motor/Vision versions, in randomly counterbalanced order. The test administrators filled in an evaluation form. Results showed that the accommodations did not affect the test scores of children without impairment and did improve the test scores of children with impairment on the Cognition scale, while no improvement was found for the other scales. The test administrators indicated that the vast majority of the children with impairment had been able to show their abilities on the test and that the accommodations were beneficial in 29 out of these 52 cases. For some children, the accommodated instrument appeared to be unsuitable because the impairment was too severe. The conclusion is that the accommodations improve the validity of the Bayley-III when used with children with mild to moderate motor and/or visual impairment, especially with regard to the Cognition scale. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Developmental disorders present themselves with complex problems that may threaten a child’s development. In every child a disorder shows itself in a unique way, which makes it necessary to individualize. The objective of this preliminary study is to develop an instrument that provides a dimensional diagnosis by mapping the degree of (dis)balance in three domains of child development. The instrument is based on anthroposophic anthropology and typology. The instrument will be usable in all kinds of care for children with developmental disorders.The typology of a child’s constitution was operationalized using concept mapping and consensus building with experts. Preliminary tests of the psychometric properties of the instrument were applied on children with developmental disorders in a pilot study in Dutch healthcare. The Instrument for diagnosis of a Child’s Constitution (ICC) developed in this study consists of two parts. Part I contains 36 polar formulated items in three subscales of 12 items and is to be completed by healthcare professionals. Part II consists of three VAS scales (Visual analogue scales) and is to be completed y a practitioner. The outcome (the scores of Part I and II) forms a profile of the child’s constitution, showing the (dis) balance in three domains of child development. A pilot study with 38 children shows positive face validity, and moderate internal consistency and inter-rater reliability of the ICC. The ICC has been developed as a diagnostic instrument to assess individualized dimensional diagnosis of children with a developmental disorder. Future studies will focus on validation of the instrument.

Little is known about how persons with congenital deaf-blindness use hand movements efficiently for exploring different objects with different textures in different tasks (Miles, 2003). More knowledge in this area would contribute to the adaptations of educational strategies for encouraging touch and tactile exploration. Earlier research (Janssen, Nota, Eling, & Ruijssenaars, 2007) demonstrated that the encoding strategies of Chris, a woman with congenital deaf-blindness, were faster than those of hearing and sighted controls in a perception and a memory task. The purpose for the study presented here was to observe more closely Chris's tactile exploratory procedures when touching objects with microtextures in the different tasks. Lederman and Klatzky (1987, p. 344) defined an exploratory procedure as "a stereotyped pattern of hand movements that maximizes the sensory input corresponding to a certain property of an object and is considered to have certain characteristics that are invariant and others that are highly typical." They discriminated various exploratory procedures, such as lateral motion and pressure. More experienced participants used tactile exploratory procedures that gathered information more quickly and that captured the more relevant properties of an object (Hughes & Jansson, 1994). Russier (1999) found that persons with congenital blindness were more accurate in the bimanual exploration of two-dimensional line shapes than were persons with late blindness or sighted persons. In uni-manual exploration, differences among the groups were found in using the left hand and the right hand. Other researchers focused more on a developmental trend in exploratory procedures during the first years of life, from mouthing to a repertoire of more differentiated hand and finger movements and complementary bimanual activities (Bushnell & Bourdreau, 1991). In a study with blind children (Schellingerhout, Smitsman, & Van Galen, 1998), "posrural constraints" were found to determine the use of more fingering and less mouthing of surfaces because of difficulties stabilizing an object while exploring it and difficulties moving the upper body forward for mouthing a surface. The study presented here investigated the different tactile exploratory procedures used by a woman with congenital deaf-blindness when touching objects with microtextures in three tasks with three types of objects. METHOD Participant and setting The study followed the tenets of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects and was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Royal Kentalis in Sint-Michielsgestel, the Netherlands. Informed consent was obtained from Chris, her parents, and her personal caregiver. Chris is a 40-year-old woman who is deaf-blind as a result of congenital rubella syndrome. She is totally blind (with some light perception) and has a profound hearing impairment. Previous psychological examinations revealed no additional disabilities. The study was conducted in a quiet room, where Chris sat at a table; her intervener (personal caregiver) sat beside her, and the experimenter sat in front of her. Materials The stimuli were obtained from the Tactile Profile (Withagen, Janssen, Vervloed, Ekkens, & Schellingerhout, 2003): rollers (length: 10 centimeters or about 4 inches, diameter: 5 centimeters or about 2 inches) covered with different fabrics of various textures; block houses (5 X 5 X 5 centimeters) with metal caps of different textures; and cards (4 centimeters X 4 centimeters, or about 1.6 inches by 1.6 inches) coated with hard plastic of different textures. The textures of the stimuli were fine. Procedure Instructions were given via Chris's intervener using finger spelling in her hand and "natural gestures" (such as pointing and other commonly used hand gestures). …

Educators and children with congenital deaf-blindness experience major challenges in building interactions that are reciprocated and sustained. Studies have shown that affect attunement and sensitive responsiveness are crucial for a child to feel recognized and for synchronizing early conversations. The authors previously presented the Diagnostic Intervention Model (DIM) as a guide for designing and implementing interventions to foster harmonious interactions and examined the efficacy of the DIM in the Contact effect study. Considerable effects were found on core interaction categories for both the educators and the children. However, the dyadic category of sustained interaction was not evaluated. In this study, the authors demonstrated the effects of the DIM on sustained interaction within a reciprocal three-turn structure (such as the educator-child-educator or the child-educator-child). They reanalyzed observational data from the Contact effect study and looked at the duration of sustained interaction, the duration of the longest interaction sequence, and the mean number of turns in a sequence. The results are evaluated and discussed

This article demonstrates the effectiveness of applying the Diagnostic Intervention Model for fostering harmonious interactions by describing a single-case study. Changes in the caregiver's turn-giving had substantial effects on the child's turn-taking, regulation of intensity, and approving and disapproving answers. The interaction effects were less clear for the child's initiatives.

In an earlier publication, we presented the Diagnostic Intervention Model, which can be used as a guide in the design and conduct of interventions to foster harmonious interactions between children who are deaf-blind and their educators. This article demonstrates the use of the model in everyday practice and the effects of its application in two case studies, using team interaction coaching. Implications for everyday practice are discussed.

Until recently, pupils in The Netherlands with a developmental perspective of up to 24 months and with additional disabilities rarely made use of the educational facilities available. As a result of a new law passed in 2002, an increasing number of pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) will attend school. Given the heterogeneity of this group of pupils, an appropriate method of assessment is needed to chart the abilities that these pupils have and to allow a suitable educational programme to be developed on the basis of the results obtained. As the existing instruments are not generally very satisfactory, a new instrument has been developed. This is a checklist that has been subjected to reliability trials and factor analysis after formulation of suitable items. The results indicate that it is a reliable checklist, with factors that can be interpreted accurately in terms of development perspectives (functions, activities and participation).

ispartof: Journal of visual impairment & blindness vol:93 issue:1 pages:40-45 status: published

In onze samenleving is het belangrijk vlot te kunnen lezen en rekenen. Niet ‘automatisch’ kunnen lezen en rekenen levert aanzienlijke beperkingen op in het maatschappelijk functioneren. De belangstelling voor (ernstige) leerproblemen is dan ook terecht groot, ook vanuit het beleid dat gericht is op het verlagen van kansarmoede, het terugdringen van schooluitval en het verhogen van het uiteindelijke uitstroomniveau in het onderwijs.