Lifespan Development Resources:
1: Understanding Infant Speech Development
http://video.about.com/babyparenting/Infant-Speech-Development.htm
Source: http://www.about.com
2: Bayley Scales Test Early Development:
The Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development is anassessment instrument designed to measure physical, motor, sensory, and cognitive development in babies and young children. It involves interaction between the child and examiner andobservations in a series of tasks. As with other assessments, the tasks range from basic responses to more complex responses. For example, a basic response might involve introducing an interesting object for the child to track with his eyes. A more complex task might involve a toddler finding hidden objects.
Testing Infant, Toddler Development:
The examiner rates the child’s performance on each task, and scores are totaled. Raw scores are compared to tables of scores for other children the child’s age. This process yields a standard score that enables the examiner to estimate the child’s development compared to other children his age. This allows the examiner to determine if the child has developmental delays, judge how significant they are, and develop an appropriate early intervention program for the child. This information can assist early service providers with diagnosing disabilities.
Detect Signs of Developmental Delays:
The Bayley Scales can assist your child’s pediatrician in identifying early signs of delays and potential learning disabilities.
Limitations of Testing for Delays:
In many cases, developmental delays are temporary. Children grow and develop at dramatically different rates in early childhood, and any test results should be viewed as an assessment of current functioning. Test results do not necessarily indicate a child will have ongoing learning disabilities later in life. A small portion of developmentally delayed children will continue to have difficulty and may be diagnosed with other disabilities as they enter school and approach ages 8-10.
Many Birth Defects are Preventable, Recognizing Signs of LDs, Early Childhood
http://learningdisabilities.about.com/od/intelligencetests/p/bayleyscales.htm
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Generalist Social Work Practice: Resources
“What’s working well that you would like to see continue?” With this question,
Andrea Barry, a family preservation worker, shifts focus in her work with the
Clemens family. She carefully studies the reactions to her question on the faces
of the family members who are gathered with her around their kitchen table.
She reads caution, apprehension, maybe even a little anger, and yes, there it is,
a growing sense of surprise, of intrigue with her approach. As a social worker
with the family preservation program of Northside Family Services, Andrea
has seen this before. Preparing to fend off the blame of abuse or neglect, families
involved with the program are often taken off guard by the careful, nonjudgmental
phrasing of her questions. With the query about “what’s working
well,” Andrea recognizes family strengths and looks toward the future, toward
things families can still do something about. In other words, she sets the stage
for empowering families by focusing on their strengths and promoting their
competence.
Andrea’s question embodies her view of how families might find themselves
in this predicament. To continue to focus on “What are your problems?”
doesn’t make sense to Andrea, who sees family difficulties arising from the
challenge of scarce resources rather than resulting from something that the
family is doing wrong.
Check this link of Pearson: SW Practice M01_MILE9818_07_SE_C01FF-ebook
Counselling Resources
Q & A One
Q1. Usually clients who seek help are in crisis, and their ability to make decisions is significantly impaired. Therefore, it is important that counsellors are comfortable with making important decisions on behalf of their clients.
A1: Counsellors need to avoid disempowering clients by making decisions for them and they should do this only in the most extreme circumstances.
Q2. The application of skills or techniques detracts from spontaneity.
A2: As one learns new strategies and techniques there may be a period of awkwardness and this may detract from spontaneity. With practice, learned skills become integrated.
Q3. Professional counsellors strive to be free of biases.
A3: Ideally this is true, but everyone has biases. Counsellors need be selfaware of their biases and they need to take steps to insure that they do not adversely affect their work.
Q4: Counsellors who have personal experience with the problem or issues that their clients are experiencing will be more effective.
A4: Personal experience may help counsellors understand some of the feelings and challenges that clients face. At the same time, personal experience can cloud objectivity, particularly if assumptions are made about what clients Amust@ be feeling. Counsellors who have the same experiences as clients may be less inclined to let clients Atell their story.@ They may also impose solutions based on what was best for them rather than on what is best for their clients.
Q5: Effective counselling involves blending the client’s needs with those of the counsellor so that everyone involved is satisfied.
A5: Counselling is not reciprocal. The work of counselling is structure to meet the needs of clients. Thus, the onus is on the counsellor to adapt to meet the unique style, values, and culture of the client.
Q6: The skills of counselling are also the skills of effective everyday communication.
A6: Effective listening and communication skills can enhance and deepen personal relationships.
Keys to Success Resources
A Cranky Pessimist’s Guide to Getting Things Done
Thankfully, though, there’s an alternative to all this. Insights from contemporary psychology, and from several ancient philosophical traditions, suggest that the cranky, undermotivated pessimists among us don’t actually need to undergo total personality transformations in order to get on with what needs to be done. Here are four of the most useful ideas I’ve encountered in the course of researching alternatives to the aggravating and counterproductive culture of positive thinking:
1. Don’t wait until you feel like doing something
The problem with most motivational advice is that it’s not really about how to get things done—it’s about how to make yourself feel like getting things done. This is the philosophy of positive thinking at its most straightforward: an emphasis not on action, but on cultivating specific interior states. Unfortunately, this simply reinforces the notion that you need to feel a certain way before you can act—and thus it imposes another hurdle between you and where you want to get, rather than removing one. It is possible, instead, to acknowledge that you don’t feel like doing something, then do it anyway.
To Read further: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-antidote/201211/cranky-pessimists-guide-getting-things-done
Value the Means, Not Just the End
If you’re like most of us, you’re driven to accomplish certain goals—goals personally meaningful and valuable to you. It doesn’t much matter whether the end of your pursuits is completing a manuscript or a marathon. And your “payoff,” your “high,” revolves around your final achievement. It’s unlikely that you consider the actual doing—the specific activities engaged in to reach that goal—as particularly notable or sustaining. Yet if you’re to live life to the utmost—which is to say, live it mindfully—it’s essential that, independent of your aim, you fully immerse yourself in the moment-to-moment progression toward this aim.In a sense, this piece complements an earlier four-part post I wrote entitled “The Purpose of Purposelessness” (see parts 1, 2, 3, & 4), in which I advocated approaching life more playfully—without, that is, constantly focusing on the practical utility of your behavior. For if all your actions are goal-oriented, life becomes pretty much a “business”: more work than play. And it’s questionable whether living in such a purposeful, “directed” manner ultimately yields as much happiness, well-being, or peace of mind as might otherwise be attainable.Read more:http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolution-the-self/201211/value-the-means-not-just-the-endSociology Resources
Ch 11: The Economy: Money and Work
1. How economic systems have been transformed as societies evolved.
The earliest type of economy was a subsistence economy in which people simply gathered what they would find to survive. There was no surplus accumulated in this type of economy. When people began to breed animals and cultivate plants, they had a more dependable food supply enabling them to accumulate a surplus. Some people were then free to do other things rather than produce food and a simple specialized division of labour developed. Some people in this economy were able to accumulate a larger surplus than others and could engage in trade. This surplus and trading fostered social inequality. With the invention of the plow, even more people were freed from food production and a more specialized division of labour emerged. Trade expanded and, as a result, cities emerged. With the coming of the industrial revolution, a small number of people could produce all the food needed and it was now possible to create a very large surplus of goods. This large surplus encouraged extensive trade between nations. People began to emphasize the consumption of goods rather than their production. In post industrial society, the information sector of the economy became key and a “global village” with instantaneous, worldwide communication emerged. ( Page Ref: 240-241)
2. The characteristics of the two major economic systems.
Capitalism is based on private ownership of the means of production, the pursuit of profit, and market competition. “Pure” capitalism, called “laissez-faire capitalism”, exists when market forces operate without government interference. Welfare or state capitalism exists when the means of production are owned by private citizens to pursue profit, but operate under market restraints that limit what a person can produce or sell. This system of laws is designed to protect the welfare of the population. Socialism is based on the public ownership of goods and services without a profit motive. Everyone works for the government and a central committee decides what will be produced, how many of each product will be produced, the cost of the product, and where it will be distributed. There is greater equality in a socialist economy.(Page Ref: 243-245)
3. The changes that have occurred in the two major economic systems.
Over the years, Canada adopted several public policy practices such as universal health care and accessible free public education in which the federal and provincial governments redistribute tax dollars to pay for benefits given to all Canadians. Besides health care and education, there is employment insurance, welfare, the Canada Pension Plan, and Old Age Security. In the countries that have a socialist economy, many have begun to endorse capitalism and allow private ownership of some things and the pursuit of profit. China has allowed the use of credit cards, and approved a stock market. China has also pushed multinationals to deliver breakthrough technology to them and to train Chinese workers to administer the technologies. (Page Ref: 245)
4. Compare and contrast welfare (state) capitalism and laissez-faire capitalism.
Reasons why Canada is not a laissez-faire capitalist society.
Laissez-faire capitalism, sometimes called “pure” capitalism, means that market forces operate without interference from the government. Canada’s system is called welfare or state capitalism because there are many citizen groups (such as credit unions, cooperatives, or caisses populaires) as well as the different levels of government who own the means of production and pursue profits, but in a system of laws that protect the welfare of the population. These are called market restraints, and include following laws, registrations and licenses, and a GST number. There are also agencies that monitor compliance with various laws, such as the Food and Drug Act and the Hazardous Products Act. There are also regulations concerning employment, such as the Employment Standards Act for unionized workers and the provincial Labour Relations Acts for non-unionized workers. Crown corporations are companies owned by the provincial or federal government but managed at arm’s length. The largest federal crown corporation in Canada is Canada Post. ( Page Ref: 243-244)
5. Compare and contrast capitalism and socialism. Discuss the criticisms of each system.
Capitalism is based on private ownership of the means of production, the pursuit of profit, and market competition. “Pure” capitalism, called “laissez-faire capitalism”, exists when market forces operate without government interference. Welfare or state capitalism exists when the means of production are owned by private citizens to pursue profit, but operate under market restraints that limit what a person can produce or sell. This system of laws is designed to protect the welfare of the population. Socialism is based on the public ownership of goods and services without a profit motive. Everyone works for the government and a central committee decides what will be produced, how many of each product will be produced, the cost of the product, and where it will be distributed. There is greater equality in a socialist economy.
The primary criticism levelled against capitalism is that it leads to social inequality. Another major criticism is that a tiny top layer wields vast political power, which means that they can get legislation passed that goes against the public good. The primary criticism levelled against socialism is that it does not respect individual rights. Critics also argue that central planning is grossly inefficient and that socialism i Crown corporations are companies owned by the provincial or federal government is not capable of producing sufficient quantities of consumer goods. (Page Ref: 243-245)
Sociology Resources : Gender inequality
Sociology Resources: Chapter 6 Social Inequality: The Canadian Experience in a Global Context: At-a-Glance |
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| Key Terms and Theorists | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Social stratification: is a system in which people are divided into layers according to their relative power, property, and prestige. Regardless of its forms, the existence of social stratification is universal. There are four major systems of social stratification:
Slavery: ownership of some people by others has been common throughout world history. Indentured service: represents a fuzzy line between a contract and slavery.Finding it profitable to make people slaves for life, slave owners developed an ideology, a system of beliefs that justifies social arrangements. Essential to an ideology that would justify lifelong slavery was the view that slaves were inferior. Slavery has surfaced in current times in Sudan, Mauritania, and Ivory Coast.In a caste system status is determined by birth and is life-long. In sociological terms the basis of a caste system is ascribed status. Societies with this form of stratification practice endogamy, marriage within their own group. Although the Indian government abolished the caste system in 1949, the force of centuries-old practices cannot be easily eliminated, and the caste system remains part of everyday life in India.The clan system was once common in agricultural societies. In this system, every individual is linked to a large network of relatives called a clan, like a greatly extended family. Clans are like castes in that membership is determined by birth and is life-long. Unlike castes, however, marriages can cross clan lines.Class system: is more open, since it is based primarily on money or material possessions. It too begins at birth, when an individual is ascribed the status of his or her parents, but unlike slavery, caste, and clan, one’s social class may change as a result of what one achieves in life. A class system allows for social mobility—that is, the movement up or down the class ladder.In no society is gender the sole basis for stratifying people, but gender cuts across all systems of social stratification. |
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| Karl Marx concluded that social class depends on a single factor: people’s relationship to the means of production—the tools, factories, land, and investment capital used to produce wealth. Bourgeoisie—the owners of means of production and proletariat—the workers who work for them. Class consciousness—common identity based on their position in the means of production. What holds back the workers’ unity and their revolution is false consciousness—workers mistakenly identifying with capitalistsandtheir interests. Max Weber became an outspoken critic of Marx. Social class, he said, is actually made up of three components—property, prestige, and power.Intersectionality: feminists and other sociologists who adopt a critical perspective, approach studies of inequality by considering the ways in which class, gender, and race intersect.Most sociologists use the components Weber identified and define social class as a large group of people who rank closely to one another in wealth, power, and prestige. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Three different ways of measuring social class:
Wealth consists of property and income. In 1950s, C. Wright Mills was criticized for insisting that power—the ability to carry out your will in spite of resistance—was concentrated in the hands of the few. People give some jobs more prestige—respect or regard. Generally, the most prestigious jobs share four elements: a) they pay more; b) they require more education; c) they entail more abstract thought; and d) they offer greater autonomy. Status consistency: Ordinarily, a person has a similar rank in all three dimensions of social class—wealth, power, and prestige. Sometimes individuals have a mixture of high and low ranks, a condition called status inconsistency. |
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Functionalist view:Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Mooreconcluded that stratification is inevitable for the following reasons:
A critical response: Melvin Tumin was the first sociologist to point out the flaws in the functionalist position. The conflict perspective: Conflict theorists stress that conflict, not function, is the basis of social stratification. (William Domhoff, C. Wright Mills and Irving Louis Horowitz Assert that in every society, groups struggle for their share of society’s limited resources) Feminist and anti-racist approaches: These critical thinkers argue that classic analyses of inequality from functionalist and conflict perspectives do not account for the relative lack of power, resources, and wealth experienced by women and racialized minorities. |
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| Key lies in controlling ideas and information, in social networks, and use of technology. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Applying Marx: Marx argued that there are two classes—capitalists and workers, but sociologists see these categories as too broad.Erik Wright resolved this problem by regarding some people as members of more than one class at the same time. They have what he called contradictory class locations.Because of such contradictory locations, Wright modified Marx’s model.Updating Weber, Dennis Gilbert and Joseph Kahl developed a six-class model to portray the class structure of the United States and other capitalist countries. Based on Gilbert and Kahl, the Canadian Social Class Ladder consists of Upper-class, Upper Middle, Lower Middle, Working Class, Working Poor, Lower Class and Underclass.Technically, the homeless aremembersoftheunderclass, but their poverty is so severe and their condition in life so despairing that we can think of them as occupying an unofficial rung below the underclass.
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