Discusses the role of school library programs in the education of students with disabilities, especially in teaching them information skills for lifelong support in accessing information important to daily living. Describes examples from an Australian study on school library services for students with disabilities. (Author/LRW)

This study examined the effectiveness of a 10-week life skills program in meeting the needs of its six Australian participants, who were severely intellectually and physically handicapped young adults of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent. Interviews were conducted with teaching and residential program staff at the commencement, the…

Interviews were conducted with staff and family members of 54 Australian individuals with mental retardation and with nine of the individuals, who had been moved from a psychiatric hospital to community residential homes. Overall, all informants regarded the move as positive and reported improvements in daily living skills, social skills, and…

The 12 chapters in this Australian text on early childhood education of children with special needs are organized into two parts, the foundations of early years education and programming for atypical developmental needs. The 12 chapters are: (1) "Fundamentals of Early Education" (Louise Porter); (2) "Collaborating with Parents"…

Life Online is an online program in Victoria, Australia designed for young adults with mild intellectual disabilities. The program appeals to both teachers and students through content that is relevant to the everyday lives of this client group; real life characters to whom students can relate; activities that are achievable but need teaching and…

This paper describes a process of assisting parents of young children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to identify and prioritise their goals for their children's early intervention. A modified version of the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (M-COPM) was used to facilitate this process. Twenty-two child-parent dyads involved in a…

This manual is designed to assist trainers in using the Australian Standards of Work Performance in ongoing functional assessment and databased training of disabled persons for employment. It is divided into three sections. Section 1 begins with an overview of the functional assessment component of a databased training system and details the…

The book presents a training program developed at the Granville Work Preparation Centre in Australia, to teach mildly retarded adolescents basic social skills and competencies. The program is divided into two stages, with a total of 17 different skill areas. Stage 1 covers self-awareness, social/interpersonal skills, relaxation and behavioral self…

The student's textbook contains lessons in intermediate English based on a fictitious community in Australia and its inhabitants. Lessons focus on two types of interaction: those with an interpersonal motivation (e.g., casual conversations), and those with pragmatic motivation (e.g., buying and selling, seeking help). The casual conversations are…

The teacher's guide contains lessons in intermediate English based on a fictitious community in Australia and its inhabitants. Lessons focus on two types of interaction: those with an interpersonal motivation (e.g., casual conversations), and those with pragmatic motivation (e.g., buying and selling, seeking help). The teacher's book provides a…

This workbook is intended for students at beginner and post-beginner levels of numeracy, especially those with limited literacy skills. It takes a thematic approach to numeracy learning with everyday topics like shopping, banking, transport, and sport. Number, space measurement, and graphic texts are covered in context, through sequential…

A project that focused on how the field of adult numeracy education had been shaped in Australia over the last 20 years sought answers to these research questions: (1) What does the past tell about adult literacy and numeracy policy, provision, and research? (2) Are Australians numerate? (3) What sort of numeracy activities do Australians engage…

Generic skills--skills that apply across a variety of jobs and life contexts--are taking on increased importance in Australia and internationally. There is a high demand for generic skills in the workplace because employers seek to ensure business success by recruiting and retaining employees who have a variety of skills and personal attributes as…

Australia's Queensland Education Department and Central Queensland University (CQU) jointly developed a pilot program, called the Tertiary Awareness Programme Pilot (TAPP), to ease the transition of students advancing from Queensland's Glenmore State High School to the university. Unlike most previous transition-type courses, the TAPP relied…

Two Australian agencies planned, developed, piloted, and evaluated an online resource for teaching independent living skills to adult students with a mild intellectual disability using technology and the Internet. The resource, called Life Online, is a package of support resource materials tested in regional classrooms in Victoria, Australia.…