Discusses lower rates of success among indigenous Australian students and describes an instrument that investigated how well students cope with life out of school as an alternative indicator of ability. Highlights include the impact of cultural background on intelligence test results and results of trials in primary and high schools. (Author/LRW)

This study of 26 deinstitutionalized and 31 institutionalized developmentally disabled New South Wales adults found that relocated subjects demonstrated a significant increase in adaptive functioning after 1 year of community living. No corresponding change was found for institutionalized subjects. Daily living skills improved the most, followed…

The proceedings of a working group conference on proficiency testing of Japanese as a second language contain a brief background paper distributed to conference invitees, a list of items included in the pre-conference portfolio, an advance organizer of potential discussion topics, a 77-item annotated list of bibliographies on second language…

An imitation training procedure was employed in Australia with an 18-year-old echolalic female in an effort to enhance daily functioning. One hundred sentences in the following curriculum areas were taught: domestic, vocational, community, and leisure. Results are discussed in terms of imitation across curriculum domains and grammatical types. (JW)

Two surveys of 198 Australian high school students gathered information about the students' major life concerns, and a method for classifying adolescent concerns was developed from the results. (MSE)

This paper discusses the incidence of intellectual disability in the prison system of New South Wales, Australia; the management problems created for corrective services staff; prison programs offering work experience, interpersonal skills, and other skills; principles of normalization and the least restrictive alternative; special risks for…

The 4-year followup of 87 deinstitutionalized Australian persons (mean age of 21 years) with severe to profound mental retardation found that subjects showed a gain in 6 of 9 skill domains of at least 1.6 developmental years over that which would have been expected had they remained in the hospital. (DB)

A random population survey administered by mail to examine lay people's views of children's food policies and their associations with demographics, personal values and confidence in authorities was conducted among adults in Victoria, Australia. Three hundred and seventy-seven people responded (response rate 57.6%). The questionnaire contained 35…

In-depth interviews with 20 people with monocular vision identified a number of themes associated with the impairment, including psychological, psychosocial, physical, vocational, and daily living problems. They also revealed that in many cases, these problems had profound implications for people's adjustment to daily living. The implications of…

This article reports on a study that investigated the importance of children possessing personal/social skills when starting kindergarten, from teachers' and parents' perspectives. The study involved a sample of 16 kindergarten teachers and 63 parents of kindergarten children from government schools in one of the six education districts within the…

Internal, external and managerial functions of husband and wife, father and mother, and child sub-systems of the nuclear family are identified and discussed. The process of becoming a family is explored. In characterizing an optimally functioning family, emphasis is placed on the ability of family members to negotiate and resolve their roles,…

The numeracy abilities of adults is now part of the 2002 International Life Skills Survey (ILSS) to be administered to representative samples of adults aged 16-65 in participating countries. The Numeracy Working Group has spent more than two years developing a conceptual framework based on the premise that numeracy is the bridge between…

Examines the educational issues inherent in transferring educational programs developed in a broad context to a more specific situation. Illustrates this with the case of conductive education, an integrated therapy and education program developed for children with physical disabilities and adapted for children with cerebral palsy. (MJP)

Compared competence of children and adolescents from two-parent families (N=201), one-parent families (N=89), and stepfamilies (N=55). Found that children in stepfamilies, compared with other groups, had lower reading ability, impulse control, and self-esteem, while children in two-parent families had lower level of everyday skills performance.…

In April 1999, the Australian Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training, and Youth Affairs established a subgroup to develop a national youth development strategy. Youth development is about helping young people make the transition to happy, productive, and successful adulthood through the guided provision of opportunities to try new…