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    An examination of the role of teacher aides who work with children with traumatic brain injury : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Wellington
    (Massey University, 2003) McIntosh, Michelle Anne
    Children with traumatic brain injury (TBI) often return to school requiring modifications to their learning environment due to the subsequent effects resulting from a brain injury and one of the most common practices is to provide the child with a teacher's aide (TA) to assist the child in meeting the learning objectives set out by professional staff. The current study examined the role of TA's who work with children with traumatic brain injury. Using questionnaires, the views of TA's, parents and teachers of 16 children who had sustained a traumatic brain injury were sought and compared on a number of issues, including TA's knowledge about the effects of brain injury, nature of lesson planning, attendance at IEP meetings, job preparation and training, tasks and responsibilities, problems relating to TA's effectiveness, and TA's overall performance and effectiveness. Participants were also asked to describe ways in which the TA's performance could be improved and to describe any further thoughts they had regarding the role of the TA. The overall group differences between TA's, parents and teachers were examined as well as the individual responses of the TA, parent and teacher of 7 children. Key findings included, TA's should know a lot about the effects of brain injury, however, most were found to have some or very little knowledge; TA's should develop written lesson plans together, although most received instructions from the teacher; TA's should attend IEP meetings and most were found to attend all or some; TA's did not hold primary responsibility for a range of tasks; TA's required further training, particularly in the areas of brain injury, teaching strategies, and communication, and the majority of respondents believed TA's performance to be excellent or very good and TA's to be effective. Additional issues raised were, the TA's proximity to the child, the type of person employed as a TA and schools' lack of knowledge about the extent of the child's problems. Although there were some discrepancies in responses between individual TA's, parents and teachers of the 7 children, overall, TA's, parents and teachers' views regarding the TA's role did not differ significantly.
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    Initial development of a neuropsychological screening measure for school children : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2003) Reimann, Andrea Susanna
    The present study developed a pilot neuropsychological screening measure, called the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status for Children (RBANS-C) which is designed to be used with children between five and ten years of age. This pilot measure was trialled on a sample of 30 New Zealand primary school children to evaluate its screening ability for children. It is based on the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) which is used to screen adults for neurocognitive deficits. Like the RBANS, the RBANS-C is made up of a battery of subtests that assess five cognitive domains, including attention, immediate and delayed memory, visuospatial/constructional abilities and language. Some of the subtests of the RBANS-C were altered to be more suitable for children while others were left the same as in the RBANS. The results from the pilot tryout indicated that some subtests have adequate psychometric properties while others do not. This is most likely due to the small sample size and to a lack of some research controls as well as to inadequacies of some of the subtests. Nevertheless, the results suggest that the RBANS-C seems to identify children with cognitive difficulties, and to some extent isolate those difficulties. No significant sex differences but some considerable age variations were observed since the measure lacks any adjustments for age effects which further improvements of the RBANS-C should incorporate. Also, future research on the RBANS-C will need to develop an alternative form and make necessary modifications to make the RBANS-C an effective neuropsychological screening tool for school children.
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    Incidence and neuropsychological sequelae of head injury in a New Zealand adolescent sample : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Psychology at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1995) Body, Catherine May
    The purpose of this study was to determine if there were head-injured students experiencing difficulties that were not being recognised by parents and teachers alike. The study involved two parts. The first part involved a survey of all fourth formers at Awatapu College in Palmerston North, New Zealand, and was concerned with obtaining information regarding incidence, etiology, and awareness of head injury. The second part of the study examined a proportion of students who reported ongoing problems of the kind common after a head injury in more detail. Information was obtained through a self-report questionnaire, neuropsychological measures, a teacher rating form and a parent rating form. The results yielded a incident rate of nearly 14% which is substantially higher than that reported by previous studies, and the results also suggest that head-injured students are more aware of common symptomatology following head injury in comparison to non head-injured students. Apart from on Trial 5 and 6 of the AVLT, there was no significant difference between the head-injured and control groups on the neuropsychological measures. With regards to behavioural and cognitive difficulties that the students may be experiencing, there was a low level of agreement between students, teachers and parents.