MIDDLE EASTERN JOURNAL OF DISABILITY STUDIES
Year:2012 | Volume:1 | Issue:1|Papers Count:6

Objective: This research investigated the relationship personality traits, resources management strategies and motivational strategies in predicting academic achievement whit intellectual disability students at second grade of high school in townships of Tehran.Materials & Methods: The participants were 200 students (126 girls and 74 boys) at second grade of high school in townships of Tehran that were selected with a stratified randomly sampling method. All of them completed the personality traits questionnaire (Costa and McCrae, 1992), motivational strategies for learning questionnaire (Pintrich and et al, 1991) and achievement goals questionnaire-revised (Elliot and Murayama, 2008). The data were analyzed by method of step wise regression.Results: The findings showed that openness, conscientiousness, effort regulation, help seeking, mastery approach goal, performance avoidance goal and self-efficacy have a positive and significant relationship with academic achievement and neuroticism and test anxiety have a negative and significant relationship with academic achievement. Selfefficacy, conscientiousness, mastery approach goal and neuroticism predicted 45 percent of variance of academic achievement and self-efficacy had the most contribution in prediction of academic achievementconclusion: the results are due to the importance of motivational variables (self-efficacy and mastery approach goal) and personality (conscientiousness and neuroticism) in predicting academic achievement on the student with intellectual disability. Theoretical implications of findings were discussed.

Objective: Management and rehabilitation of disabilities relevant to fine motor skills in spastic cerebral palsied patients is often complex and challenging, therefore exploiting an easy and effective method similar to music therapy for completing the rehabilitation process can be very essential. The Aim of the present study was to investigate the mentioned hypothesis that is the effect of Persian traditional music on gross manual dexterities of spastic cerebral palsied children.Materials & Methods: twenty patients (9 girls and 11 boys) suffering from spastic cerebral palsy with ranging in age from 7-12 years participated in this semi-experimental study. Ten of them randomly assigned to experimental group and followed to control group. Musical intervention performed for experimental group. Level in Gross manual dexterity of two groups assessed before and after intervention via the Box and Block Test. Data was analyzed by U Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test.Results: The results indicate that Patients in the experimental group demonstrated a significant increase from pretests to posttests in non-dominant hand (P<0.05), but there was no significantly difference between pretest in comparison whit posttest of in dominant hand (P>0.05).Conclusion: It can be conclude that active musical activities can improves gross manual dexterity of spastic cerebral palsied children in non-dominant hand.

Objective: Spasticity and contracture in the flexor muscles of the wrist may occur after stroke, especially in which early recovery did not appear. Splints are prescribed to reduce spasticity and to prevent contracture after stroke. Although there is a few research in this field. The aim of our study is to examine the impact of the Extension splint on function of upper extremity in chronic stroke patients.Material & Methods: Fourteen patients with chronic cerebrovascular accident participated in the study according to inclusion criteria, and after initial assessments they were given splints. Goniometry was the method of assessing range of motion, and Fugl-Meyer assessment was used to examine the function of upper extremity, and spasticity of upper limb was evaluated by Modified Ashworth Scale. Patients were instructed to wear the extension splints for 1 month and 2 hours a day and all night (6 to 8 hours). Assessments were repeated at the end of the first, third and fourth weeks.Results: The difference of wrist’s spasticity level and passive range of motion of wrist were significant before and after 1 month (P<0.001, P=0.01). And other items did not significantly improve (P>0.05). Also a result indicates that there are improvements in all outcomes to some extent and these results were not significantly different in the outcomes.Conclusion: The results show that 1-month using of this splint with 30-degrees of wrist extension reduces spasticity and improves passive wrist range of motion. But changes in other outcomes were not significant.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe the experiences of adult people with acquired blindness in performing their activities of daily living and to investigate the role of environmental factors in this process.Materials & Methods: A qualitative phenomenological method has been designed for this study. a sample 22 adults with acquired blindness who were blind for more than 5 years of life were purposefully selected and semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted. The interviews were transcribed verbatim, coded and analyzed using van Manen’s method.Results: The five clustered themes that emerged from the interviews included: 1) products and technology - discusses the benefits and drawbacks to using advanced technology to promote independence.2) physical environment- ' The streets are like an obstacle course', 3) support and relationships- refers to the assistance that blind people receive from family, friends, and society, 4) attitudes- includes family and social attitudes toward blind people, and 5) services and policies- such as social security, supportive acts, economic factors, educational problems and providing services.Conclusion: findings identify how performance of blind people in daily living activities is affected by environmental factors and what are these factors. The results can enable occupational therapists and other health care professionals who are involved with blind people to become more competent during assessment, counseling, teaching, giving support, or other interventions as needed to assist blind people. Recommendations for further research include more studies of this population to identify other challenges over time. This would facilitate long term goals in the care. Studies that include more diversity in demographic characteristics would provide greater generalizability. Such characteristics as adolescent age group, married and single, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status are particularly important to target.

Objective: This research was planned to evaluated depression in nursing students at Azad University of Yasouj Materials & Methods: This study is a descriptive and an instrument used was Beck Inventory scale for depression. All undergraduate nursing students at Azad university of Yasouj (200 people) were tested with Persian language version of Beck Depression Inventory (BDI).for analysis of information we used SPSS & Excel. The main statistical method for data analysis was independent T test.Results: Data analysis showed 60% of men are normal and 40% showed degree depression. Our study showed mild depression in 29.33%, moderate depression in 8%, and severe depression in 2.67% of this group. In woman group we found 45.5% are normal and 55.5% are depressed. We found mild depression in 44%, moderate depression in 7.2%, and severe depression in 3.2% of this group. On the whole we found that 51% of subjects were normal and 49% were depressed. In depressed group our study showed mild depression in 38.5%, moderate depression in 7.5%, and severe depression in 3% of students Using a factor analysis test (T test), it was revealed that two factors (sex and depression). The results of analysis showed significant difference between males and females. T test for depression was showed significantly different between female (19.2) and male (14.88) subjects.Conclusions: This research shows that is a high proportion of nursing students have depression. We have suggested some recommendations in order to prevent and control the sources of the depression.

In this paper, we are presenting the basic concepts of missing data in a very simple but practical approach.Missing data are ubiquitous throughout the social, behavioral, and medical sciences. In Statistics, missing data occur when no data value is stored for the variable in the current observation. Missing data reduce the representativeness of the sample and can therefore distort inferences about the population.Missing data are a common occurrence and can have a significant effect on the conclusions that can be drawn from the data. All the methods of parameters estimation are based on the completion of data set assumption and only in this case the result will be a non- biased one, and with the increase of missing proportion, the rate of biased results increase too.For decades, researchers have relied on a variety of old techniques that attempt to “fix” the data by discarding incomplete cases or by filling in the missing values. Unfortunately, most of these techniques require a relatively strict assumption about the cause of missing data and are prone to substantial bias.