ParentYprofessional partnership literature continues to emphasize the importance of including the parent voice. Spanish-speaking families are often excluded from such studies because of the language barrier. This article presents a qualitative interview study of eight Latina mothers of children with severe disabilities. All participants were members of a parent-to-parent support group available through a local community board. Data analysis revealed that the mothers identified three major benefits of the parent-to-parent support group, including (a) feeling like a family, (b) having a source of information, and (c) receiving emotional support. Findings indicated that information and assistance the parents were missing from the school system were offered through their group. Implications for educational providers and future research will be presented and discussed.
This study found that Latino families thought that schools did well in providing information about their children with visual impairments and inviting families to school programs and poorly on encouraging families to volunteer at school, providing assistance to families in helping their children with self-care activities, and making home visits. The families’ ratings varied by the children's ages and reading modes, by the length of time the families had lived in the United States, and the languages the families spoke.
This article reports the findings of a study on the possible differences in the knowledge of basic concepts by young visually impaired students in two groups: 10 who were monolingual in English and 10 who were bilingual in English and Spanish. Although no significant differences were found in the two groups’ knowledge of basic concepts, there was a significant correlation between the students’ levels of vision and their scores on the Tactile Test of Basic Concepts in English. However, the mean scores of the two groups on this test indicated an advantage only for the monolingual group.
March). An evaluation and comparison of the Hand Guide™ by Guideline™ and the Miniguide™ developed by GDP Research electronic travel devices. Closing the Gap, pp. 22-36.
This article presents the results of a survey of 183 Latino family members of students with visual impairments. Although the family members expressed positive attitudes toward schools and teachers and believed that families need to be involved in the education of their children, they were not as positive about their ability to help their children in reading and math. Student variables associated with differences among respondents were age and reading mode, and variables specific to the respondents were language and educational level.A review of the literature on families of students who are visually impaired (blind or have low vision) provides few answers to practitioners for increasing involvement of families in education, particularly the growing number of families from diverse cultural groups. Research has focused on issues such as social and emotional adjustments to children's disabilities (Nixon
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