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Are there categorically distinct parenting behaviours that differ between families with children with and without disabilities (mild intellectual disability [MID], deaf or hard of hearing children [DHH])? A study involving 719 children and their families assessed mothers' responses to the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire and children's language skills at 8 and 9 years. A latent class analysis revealed three discrete classes of parenting behaviours: (1) authoritative; (2) mildly authoritative; and (3) inconsistent or neglecting. The latter class comprised around 10% of the mothers, across all groups. The behaviours that were associated with this class, however, differed across groups: In families with children without disability, it was characterized by inconsistent (authoritarian and permissive) behaviours; in families with children with disabilities, it is best described as neglecting. A high level of education was related to better parenting behaviours, and in children with DHH, neglecting parenting was associated with poor language development.

Background: This longitudinal study examines the extent to which a school classroom (inclusive vs. special education) is meaningful for theory of mind (ToM) development among children with mild intellectual disability. Materials and Methods: The participant group consisted of 166 primary school-aged children (M = 8.1, SD = 0.99), 79 of whom attended inclusive classrooms; the remaining 87 were in special education classrooms. Results: Although all children developed ToM over time, children's learning of ToM in inclusive classrooms was significantly greater than that seen in special classrooms. The difference remained significant after controlling for age. The present authors have compared children's individual and family characteristics, but there were almost no differences between groups. Conclusions: The present authors discuss the results in the light of their importance for children's cognitive and social development. The implications for children's education are also considered.

We compared the effectiveness of two programs for developing social skills, 'Play Time/Social Time' (PT/ST) and 'I Can Problem Solve' (ICPS), in improving the social skills and theory of mind (ToM) of preschoolers with ASD. The experiment took place in a classroom setting. Fifty-two children attended and data were analyzed with latent growth curve models. Comparison with a control group indicated that both programs were effective in developing social skills. The PT/ST program was more effective than ICPS in developing interaction skills; both programs improved children's ability to cope with difficult social situations. The ICPS program was marginally effective in developing ToM when compared with PT/ST and control condition. These results are relevant to children with ASD and their teachers.

The main aims of this study were to further validate the Children's Social Understanding Scale (CSUS), which is a parent-report measure developed by Tahiroglu and colleagues, and to fill in some gaps in the existing research. Our study included more than 700 Polish parents from a diverse educational background who had children with disabilities, including mild intellectual disability (MID) and hearing impairment (HI), or typically developing children. After conducting a confirmatory factor analysis, we built a model with acceptable fit. The model turned out to be invariant in each of our subsamples. Children without disabilities had the highest scores on the CSUS, whereas children with MID had the lowest scores. We were able to obtain not only good reliability on the measure but also a high test-retest correlation between longitudinal results over a period of 20 months. We validated the CSUS using laboratory theory of mind (ToM) tasks, as well as a social skills measure, after controlling for the language skills and age of the children.

The main aim of the study was to adapt into Polish the Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practice (TEIP) Scale, originally prepared by Sharma, Loreman, and Forlin (2011). A total of 291 Polish teachers participated in the study. We conducted a factor analysis and reliability analysis and obtained satisfactory results similar to those of the authors of the scale. We also conducted a correlation analysis of self-efficacy and attitudes toward inclusive education. The correlation between the entire scale and the attitudes was non-significant. However, there was a significant relationship between efficacy in collaboration and attitudes toward inclusion, which is in line with other research. Although our results are similar to previously published results, more research on this topic is needed.

This study tested whether and how methods called 'Play Time/Social Time' and 'I Can Problem Solve' contribute to the improvement of social skills and the development of theory of mind (ToM) in children. The participants in the experiment were nearly 200 (N = 196) preschool children with low social functioning, with and without disabilities. The study showed that social skills and the level of ToM in children attending the lessons improved more than those of children from the control group. Both methods turned out to be effective in the case of social skills and ToM development among children with and without disabilities. It is worthwhile to popularise these methods among preschool teachers.

This article presents the results of a comparison of two educational methods – the “Storyline” and the “Associations Pyramid” – in developing language creativity among children. The methods were compared in terms of effectiveness with two post-tests, directly after the end of the experiment and after the next three months. Moreover, the initial level of operational thinking (from the pre-test) was used in a regression model as an independent variable to observe whether it predicts results in the language creativity of children in both groups, in post-test 1. Eighty-three preschoolers took part in the experimental study. The two methods do not differ significantly from each other in effectiveness. Also, the level of operational thinking does not predict an overall level of language creativity either in the “Storyline” group or in the “Associations Pyramid” group. The results are discussed in the light of pedagogical practice.

This article presents the results of a study comparing the originality, the length, the number of neologisms and the syntactic complexity of fairy tales created with "Storyline" and "Associations Pyramid." Both methods were developed to enhance children's language abilities and their creative thinking. One hundred twenty eight 5-year-old children were asked to tell stories using either the "Storyline" (SL) or the "Associations Pyramid" (AP) method during four routine class activities. Participants worked in 14 groups, five participants per group. The results showed that stories developed with SL and AP methods are comparably original, however more original than stories developed individually. (Contains 2 figures and 3 tables.)

Over the course of the last 30 years, inclusive education has emerged as a key aim of education policies around the world. Also in Europe, most countries took efforts to make their education systems more inclusive—which led to growing numbers of children and young persons with disabilities in general education in Europe. The implementation processes of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) fuelled these efforts. However, as some authors have argued, not all students with disabilities seem to have benefited in the same way from these developments—such as children and young persons with intellectual disability (ID). This paper aims to explore this phenomenon in more depth by comparing some measures in relation to the implementation processes of the UNCRPD of seven European countries. Doing so, we analyze trends in placements (mainstream and special schools) of students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) in general and of students with intellectual disability specifically. As we show, an increase of students identified as having SEN in mainstream schools can be observed in all countries during the implementation process of the UNCRPD. However, in comparison to this rather broad group of learners, the percentage of students with intellectual disability in mainstream settings did not increase as much. Furthermore, the calculation of the "exclusion rate" revealed that this group of learners remains a key population of special schools. These results need to be understood as effects of specific shortcomings in the implementation of the UNCRPD, as we discuss in a further section. We conclude our paper with recommendations on future research and policies on inclusive education regarding students with intellectual disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents new attempt at analyzing preschoolers' creativity. New operationalization of verbal creativity is proposed and empirically tested. This approach consists of such elements as fluency, novelty, neologisms, logic and cohesion in the story, emotionality, a sense of humor and a number of characters in the story. Differences in verbal creativity were assessed due to parents' SES which is also not a well-studied topic in the field. The article presents the study of 5-year-old preschoolers' verbal creativity and its social conditions. There was an attempt to analyze the differences between children's verbal creativity and to indicate predictors of this kind of creativity. It was shown that there are few differences in telling stories between children from private and state preschools and between girls and boys. The most significant differences appeared between children whose parents have a higher and a lower education. Socio-economic status as an important explanatory variable needs more attention in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]