2.1 Reading techniques: scanning There are three main techniques that you can use in order to read in such a way as to achieve your purpose: scanning, skimming, and focused reading. Let's take each in turn. The technique of scanning is a useful one to use if you want to get an overview of the text you are reading as a whole – its shape, the focus of each section, the topics or key issues that are dealt with, and so on. In order to scan a piece of text you might look for sub-headings or identify key words and p
1.2 How do you read? A good way of getting started on developing your reading and note-taking skills is to think about how you read now. The short extract reproduced below is taken from The Scotsman and is a journalistic piece of wr 5.1 Introduction Modern techniques for revealing where and when different parts of the brain become active have recently provided a window on the processes of attention. For example, one of these brain-scanning techniques, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), has been used to show the behaviour of an area of the brain that responds to speech. It turns out also to become activated in a person viewing lips making speech movements in the absence of sound. For this to happen there must be connecti 2.5 Masking and attention Before I summarise the material in this section, and we move on to consider attentional processes with clearly-seen displays, it would be appropriate to consider the relevance of the masking studies to the issue of attention. We began the whole subject by enquiring about the fate of material which was, in principle, available for processing, but happened not to be at the focus of attention. Somehow we have moved into a different enquiry, concerning the fate of material that a participant was 2.3 Towards a theory of parallel processing When people are asked to guess about masked material, they are commonly able to provide some information, but it often lacks detail. For example, if participants in a Sperling-type experiment have recalled three letters, but are pressed for more, then they can often provide one or two. However, they generally do not know information such as whereabouts in the display the letters occurred, or what colour they were. These, of course, are exactly the kinds of detail that can be used to select it References 3.4 Biological approaches Certain kinds of psychological disturbances may be seen as ‘malfunctions’ of the brain. If a psychological problem has an obvious biological explanation, then it may be possible to direct therapeutic approaches at this level. However, as we have seen, it is difficult to identify precise biological causes for complex psychological phenomena. Even if this were possible, it would not always be practicable to use treatments to change the underlying biological factors. Genetic ‘explanationsâ 2.5.1 Highly unsaturated fatty acids As we saw in Section 1, ‘medical’ approaches to some psychological conditions have focused on biochemistry and the use of corresponding drug treatments. Very little research of this kind has been applied to dyslexia. However, emerging evidence suggests that there may be a biochemical contribution involving abnormal metabolism of highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) – essential substances that play a key role in brain development and the maintenance of normal brain function. In f 2.2.2 ‘Visual deficit’ hypotheses Samuel Orton was one of the earliest and most influential researchers into dyslexia, although he used the term strephosymbolia – literally meaning ‘twisted symbols’. He noticed that children with specific reading difficulties often wrote letters back to front, confused letters such as ‘b’ and ‘d’, and would swap the position of letters within a word during spelling (e.g. ‘was’ might be written ‘saw’). From these and other observations, he suggested that their read 1.5.2 Discrepancy definitions The label is given if there is a discrepancy between perceived potential to learn to read (as indicated by general ability) and actual level of reading achievement. The most common way of diagnosing dyslexia is to look for a discrepancy between someone's general ability as measured by an IQ assessment and his or her performance on standardised measures of reading and spelling. However, there are 1.2.1 Statistical approaches to ‘normality’ What did you base your idea of ‘normal’ height on? It might have been based on your own experience, reflecting the average height of women in your community. Similarly, ‘abnormality’ can be defined in terms of low statistical frequency. If what is most common in the general population is considered ‘normal’, then any behaviour or psychological characteristic that occurs only rarely may be regarded as ‘abnormal’. From this viewpoint, above average individuals are just as Learning outcomes On completion of this unit, you should be able to: identify and discuss the issues that relate to the definition, explanation and remediation of ‘abnormal’ psychological functioning; understand the complexities involved in identifying, explaining and managing dyslexia. Learning outcomes The learning outcomes for this unit are: to explain the composition of governing bodies and to consider the respective roles of the ‘officers’ of the governing body; to understand the sharing of the governing body's workload within an agreed formal committee structure; to develop governors as effective managers of their role through critical self-evaluation; to encourage governors to undertake appropriate training as a means of es 5.6.2 Accessibility design guidelines Listed below is a selection of accessibility guidelines that offer a starting point for your own research into the guidelines available for designing accessible, user-friendly products. 5.2.2 Key accessibility principles Below are listed 10 principles for accessibility. These principles underpin many of the sets of accessibility guidelines available, which are referred to in ‘Design guidelines and their limitations’. 1. Keyboard operation: the ability to operate applications fully via the keyboard. This means supporting the standard keyboard shortcuts available for the operating system, such as Alt+F4 to close a wi 4.5.1 Don't – alter courses to the disadvantage of non-disabled students Educators are not expected to make changes that would make the course less effective for most other students. For example, audioconferencing may be a valuable tool that has a positive effect on students’ grades. In this case, you would not be expected to abandon it, even if the audioconferencing cannot be made accessible for deaf students. Health and safety for all students also has to be maintained, although it is rare for there to be a conflict. 4.4.3 Do – consider the impact of alternative study methods and helpers The impact is related to the two types of barrier mentioned above and the intended learning outcomes of an activity. For example, does it contradict the learning objectives if a deaf student relies on a transcript or subtitles for a specific activity? A student may wish to use a helper for course components that cannot be made accessible to them. Returning to the example of someone who cannot hold a stylus, will it be the same experience if they observe someone else using a mobile device? 4.1 Adjustments for all This activity on ‘Accessibility, pedagogy and reasonable adjustments’ discusses considering the needs of disabled students in terms of the concept of reasonable adjustments and the potential impact of a disability on achieving learning objectives. The activity asks you to consider some specific course scenarios and your responses to them. The subsequent activity, ‘Specifying, designing and evaluating accessibility’, goes on to look at design decisions in the development of accessible 3.13.1 General OU Knowledge Network, ‘Guidelines for describing visual teaching material’ http://kn.open.ac.uk/ public/ index.cfm?wpid=2709
US National Public Website on Assistive Technology
3.11 Accessible content and alternatives Assistive technology can give access only to whatever is on the screen; it doesn't provide any alternative content, unless this is specifically added. For example, a screen reader cannot interpret visual content but it can read a description if one has been provided. Multimedia content might need to be supplemented with the same content in other formats. Deaf students need transcripts of audio and for the audio track of video material. If the video is an interview, a simple transcript m
Activity 1
