Abstracts - Earli

irregular from a letter-sound correspondence analysis, is regular if analysed into its morphemes,"magic" and "ian". If deaf students can learn to use morphemes in analysing written words, theycould make further progress in literacy learning. Morphemes and grammar are stronglyinterconnected: for this reason, students might also improve their reading comprehension andwriting from learning about morphemes. We developed and assessed a teaching programme fordeaf primary school students aimed at improving their awareness of grammar and morphology inwritten English. A total of 112 deaf students (aged 7 to 12 years) participated in this study. Abaseline of students’ performance was collected in one year; an intervention was implemented inthe subsequent year and its results analysed by comparison with the baseline. The teachingprogramme contained IT supported exercises to promote awareness of morphemes, games to offerthe students extra practice with morphemes, and especially designed story books, which exposedthe students to the words in context and created the opportunity for further exercises. Thesematerials can be downloaded from http://www.edstud.ox.ac.uk/research/childlearning/index.htmlThe students were pre- and post-tested in the use of suffixes in spelling, reading comprehensionand writing. Post-test results, controlling for age, hearing loss, IQ and pre-test scores, showed thatthe students who had participated in the programme significantly outperformed the comparisongroup in all three measures. The programme was described by a deaf teacher as "not a magic keybut certainly another brick on the wall".Effects of the inclusion of children with Special Educational Needs in Dutch mainstream educationEvelyn Kroesbergen, Utrecht University/Langeveld Institute, NetherlandsLinda Sontag, Tilburg University/IVA, NetherlandsRoel van Steensel, Tilburg University/IVA, NetherlandsPaul Leseman, Utrecht University/Langeveld Institute, NetherlandsSanne van der Ven, Utrecht University/Langeveld Institute, NetherlandsVarious studies have investigated the effects of inclusion on the cognitive and socio-emotionalabilities of children with Special Educational Needs (SEN). Some researchers observed positive or"neutral" outcomes (Waldron & McLeskey, 1998; Banerji & Daily, 1995), while others foundindications for negative effects (Vaugh et al., 1996). This paper presents the results of a study intothe relationship between the full inclusion of SEN children with various types of disabilities intoDutch mainstream education and their cognitive and socio-emotional development, as well as therelationship between (potential) beneficial effects and school environment variables. In the studySEN pupils in mainstream classes (n=76) were compared to their normally achieving classmates(n=333) and to a group of comparable SEN children in special education classes (n=52). Variouseffect measures – standardized school tests, psycho-social measures and teacher report forms –were used to assess children’s development in the course of one school year. Statistical analysesrevealed neutral and – in one case – positive effects on cognitive development, although SENchildren still lagged behind their normally achieving classmates. Analyses further indicated anegative effect on socio-emotional development, i.c. self-perception of academic competence,probably due to social comparison with normally achieving classmates (Festinger, 1954). Thesefindings do not support the ideal of full inclusion for all SEN children. Instead, it is recommendedthat children need the presence of other SEN children, e.g. through participation in semi-inclusivesettings ("pull-out classes").– 89 –