|Abstracts ppt 1/2016:
Lone Svinth, lecturer, DPU, Department of Educational Psychology, Aarhus University: Increasing pedagogical attentiveness towards children’s perspectives and participation in nursery child-care Pædagogisk Psykologisk Tidsskrift, 2016, Vol 53, 1, 3-19. The Nordic research on toddlers has a strong tradition for microanalyses of adult-child relations in early child-care research. Within this tradition, it is well established that adults’ attentiveness towards children’s perspectives and what children experience here and now is a prerequisite for their wellbeing and learning. Inspired by this work, the author and 85 toddler pedagogue and family child-care providers (practitioners) in a participatory action research project called ‘With The Child in the Centre’, investigated how increased attentiveness toward children’s perspectives can change children’s participation in pedagogical practice. The practitioners were instructed for one week to pay special attention to and engage more actively with a specific child who was currently found to be in a troubling position. Their reflections were reported in written narratives, which form the empirical grounding for this study. We found that the practitioners’ efforts to increase attentiveness towards children’s perspectives provided more varied and engaged relations with the 0-3-year-old children in nursery child-care. The study shows how a more open and curious approach enables a new understanding of children’s relational being, their intentions and meaning making. By changing their attentiveness and co-action with these children, the practitioners made new opportunities for participation available for the children in nursery child-care. The study also found that a pedagogical sense of presence is a prerequisite for the development of the practitioners’ attentiveness and inquisitive approach towards children and co-action.
Hanne Bendix Madsen (Teacher at SCR. Fjordskolen, Hedevang, PLAY –project Home consultant) Play intervention can develop and improve the social skills for children with problems relative to ASD and to ADHD. Pædagogisk Psykologisk Tidsskrift, 2016, Vol 53, 1, 20-26. Play intervention helps children with ASD and ADHD to have a better and more plentiful social life. With the right interventions and conditions present, the potential to develop social competences will unfold. A Danish School in Roskilde for children with special needs offers play intervention to the youngest pupils. The children get half an hour play intervention every week in the school with an adult. The parents play with them at home and are introduced to P.L.A.Y.-project methods. A mother of a boy with ASD shares her experiences of play intervention. The results are encouraging.
Pia Pipenbring Hedegaard, mag.art.psych., aut.psych, academic supervisor, Youth Education Programmes Psychological Centre North-West Sealand (UPCN) Does anyone who has attention deficit, have AD/HD? Pædagogisk Psykologisk Tidsskrift, 2016, Vol 53, 1, 27-38. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) is one of the most prevalent childhood psychiatric disorders of our time. However, it is uncertain to what extent there was actually an increase in the prevalence or whether the increasing prevalence was due to changes in diagnostic practice, administrative matters of an organizational nature, such as changes in municipal circumstances concerning the conditions for granting social benefits and/or increased capacity in child psychiatry. Or could it be that the criteria for categorisation have changed (diagnosis) and the way they are interpreted on the individual psychiatrist/ psychologist who will determine whether you are diagnosed or not? This greatly enhanced the diagnosis of AD/HD and is a subject of debate among professionals, where there is still disagreement about the diagnosis. Research has revealed that both attention deficit and executive difficulties are seen in most psychiatric disorders. Both attention deficit and executive difficulties are central symptoms of AD/ HD,if not the most. However, if attention deficit and executive difficulties are seen in most psychiatric disorders, how can we differentiate attention deficit and executive difficulties in, for example, bipolar affective disorder from AD/HD? May be in the future we mainly look at other symptoms of AD/HD other than attention deficit and executive difficulties to make sure that we do not mistake AD/HD for other psychiatric disorders or develop methods to distinguish attention deficit in AD/HD from attention deficit in bipolar affective disorder.
Vibeke Dal, health visitor, Gentofte Municipality and Ellen Krabbe, Psychologist at the family centre, Gentofte Municipality. Group method – a tool for the treatment of postnatal reactions. Pædagogisk Psykologisk Tidsskrift, 2016, Vol 53, 1, 39-52. Based on experiences from working with a group service for mothers with postnatal reactions and their children, we will describe some of the special strengths such a group approach can have. It is our experience that, with relatively limited resources (approximately 5 hours per week per group leader), it is possible to run such a group, which has significant preventive effects for the mothers. There are many issues and aspects of such a group process that are important to relate to and work with professionally. Partly there are the more content-related/subjectspecific aspects of the issues the group has: the importance and development of the parent/child relationship, the development of postnatal reactions among parents, new family formation, etc., and partly the more methodical aspects in relation to the working method you choose to work with the issues. In this article we have chosen to focus particularly on the methodological aspects of the work with the group: Partly experience of working with the group process, what the method involves, what it requires and how it can help to give the participants some special experiences, and partly as we want to show what, in our experience, it means to have children included in the group process - why we think it’s important, and how we have approached it.
Karen Ida Dannesboe, ph.d., researcher, SFI and Bjørg Kjær, associate professor, ph.d., Danish School of Education (DPU), AU: PPR’s consultative function: Sensitive relationships and professional identities at stake Pædagogisk Psykologisk Tidsskrift, 2016, Vol 53, 1, 53-74. The consultative function of PPR (which stands for “educational and psychological consulting” in Danish) was introduced in connection with the discourse about the inclusive Danish Folkeskole (Tanggaard 2006a). During the past decade this consultative work has been discussed in PPR circles as a new and significant task for staff involved in this field (Tanggaard & Elmholdt 2006; Dahl & Tanggaard 2013; Elmholdt 2006b). Arguments in favour of (and the theoretical informing of) consultative work, the encounter between PPR staff and school staff, and the role of the consultant have been described and discussed in the Danish journal Pædagogisk Psykologisk Tidsskrift (cf. special issues on the consultative function of PPR in 2002; 2006). As a result, the consultative function and the change in role with which it is associated have been interpreted and conceptualised in the efforts of PPR staff to incorporate new ideas and connect them with the existing expertise, functions and professional identities. Currently, the de-segregation approach is being intensified owing for a new Act on the Danish primary and lower-secondary school, grades 0-9 (Folkeskole), new definitions of special needs teaching, and political objectives involving taking pupils from segregated special-needs teaching and returning them to standard teaching environments. The discourse on inclusion is now being supported by organisational, legal, financial and other structures; whereas in the past the ideal was in opposition to these structures. This raises the issue of how consultative work is being understood and practised at the moment – not just by PPR staff, but also by the school staff with whom they collaborate. In this article we focus on the way PPR staff and school staff interpret the consultative function of PPR and the dilemmas in which it results in the light of the current inclusion agenda. We examine the roles allocated to PPR staff and teachers/social educators respectively, and the ways in which professionals understand themselves and each other in this changed collaborative landscape. We regard this as being connected to the way in which professional identities are created and negotiated in and around consultative practices. In other words, we take our point of departure in the fact that negotiations about collaborative relationships and interpretations of practice and each other are fundamentally embedded in ongoing identity constructions. We base our research on a culture-analytical approach, and in such an approach the questions about consultative work are empirically investigative and exploratory. Thus, we do not have our own opinions about what consultative work is (or should be). In contrast, we are interested in the way social participants understand,
negotiate and practise consultative work. So our job is to find out how consultative work is practised and discussed at present, and to understand how this plays out and what meanings are attributed to it. The article is based on an ethnographically informed, pilot-style research project carried out for the Danish Ministry of Education in the autumn of 2014 in collaboration with two municipalities (two schools and their PPR partners in each municipality, a total of four schools). In interaction with the people involved, we have used workshops, interviews and observations of consultative meetings between PPR staff and school staff to produce a body of empirical material which not only illustrates the understandings, intentions and interpretations of the participants, but also provides insight into what goes on in specific consultative encounters.
Alenkær, Rasmus. Inclusion: Administration, tradition or quality? Pædagogisk Psykologisk Tidsskrift, 2016, Vol 53, 1, 75 87. The so called “field of inclusion” is currently more about politics than it is about educational psychology. This has two reasons: Firstly, “inclusion” has never primarily been about educational psychology, but primarily about politics. Secondly, the language used in the field
of “inclusion” enables decision makers to camouflage the political agenda, so it appears
to be something that has primarily to do with educational psychology. This
article argues that the various definitions, and especially the dominant definitions,
of the word “inclusion” must be challenged and debated. To this end this article
uses three fundamental definitions, which are illustrated as “theoretical projects” each with their own actions and goals. The big question is: what do we actually mean, when we use the word “inclusion”? The article is purposely written with a hard edge and aims to create debate on both a policy level and in local practice.