Browsing by Subject "School"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Open Access
    A functional balance profile of school aged children and adolescents diagnosed with Down Syndrome, schooled in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa: a pilot study.
    (2025) Nolte, Cilje; Rogers, Christine
    Children and adolescents with Down Syndrome (DS) are at a higher risk of falls due to impaired balance and gait patterns, which complicates their ability to safely engage in daily activities (Jung, Chung & Lee, 2017). Assessing balance function in children is not only important for identifying balance deficits, but also to inform and highlight integral areas of balance function that should be addressed during rehabilitation. Although various outcome measures have demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity in typically developing children, the applicability of outcome measures in children with DS has not been fully established. This pilot study aimed to evaluate the clinimetric properties, including reliability, validity, and practicality, of four functional balance outcome measures: the Paediatric Balance Scale (PBS), the second edition of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT-2, Subtest 5), the full Children's Balance Evaluation Systems Test (Kids- BESTest), and its shortened version (Kids Mini-BESTest). To contextualise the results, a control group of age- and sex-matched typically developing peers was included for comparison. The primary objectives were to assess reliability (inter-rater and test-retest), known-groups validity, criterion validity (via correlations with Timed Up & Go (TUG) scores), and internal consistency (using Cronbach's alpha) of each measure. Outcome measures used in real-world settings like schools and clinics require qualities beyond being clinimetrially sound. Aspects regarding the practical applicability of these outcome measures should also be considered. Thus, this study evaluated the accessibility, safety, and practicality of administering these tests in a DS population, including time requirements, cost-effectiveness, and participant acceptability. The secondary objectives were to describe the balance profile of the DS group and explore the effects of potential confounders, including middle ear function, cochlear outer hair cell function, and Body Mass Index (BMI), on balance performance and test outcomes. Children from the Merryvale School for Special Education in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape (EC), South Africa (SA), participated in this study, while typically developing controls were sourced from local schools in the same area. Safety measures, such as gait belts and close guarding, were implemented to ensure participant safety and minimise fall risk during assessments. Data confidentiality and participant welfare were prioritised throughout the study. The results demonstrated significant differences in balance performance between children with DS and typically developing peers across all four assessment tools. The DS group exhibited lower mean scores and shorter durations for balance tasks, with notable floor effects in specific items, particularly within the Kids-BESTest and PBS. Independent t-tests revealed statistically significant group differences (p < 0.001), with large effect sizes (e.g., Cohen's d = 3.94 for BOT-2 Subtest 5). Reliability analysis showed good inter-rater and test-retest reliability for all tools, with Cronbach's alpha values ranging from 0.867 to 0.971, indicating strong internal consistency. Validity testing confirmed known-groups validity, with balance assessments effectively differentiating between DS and typically developing groups, while criterion validity demonstrated a significant association between balance test scores and TUG performance (e.g., Kids-BESTest R² = 0.536, p < 0.001). Health-related variables, such as BMI and middle ear status, significantly correlated with poorer balance outcomes. This correlation further emphasises the multifactorial nature of balance impairments in children with DS. This study offers initial insights into effective, safe balance assessment methods which audiologists can use for DS populations. These insights ultimately pave the way for future research to support balance related interventions.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Open Access
    A qualitative exploration of high school dropout and retention among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in South Africa
    (2025) Kleinhans, Crystal; Knight, Lucia; Duby, Zoe
    In South Africa high school attrition and disengagement rates have been problematic for the past decade with adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) more likely to dropout of school than their male counterparts, especially those AGYW from socio-economically disadvantaged communities. Increased levels of education, a social determinant of health, strongly correlates with better health outcomes for youth. The disengagement and dropout of AGYW in high school is a public health concern. AGYW are at a greater risk of HIV infection and other sexually transmitted infection (STI) due to biological, cultural, religious, socio-economic and structural factors, and efforts to increase their retention and completion of high school, a protective factor, will increase the likelihood of better health outcomes in this population group. This study was a qualitative analysis of AGYW and stakeholders across five provinces from urban, semi-urban and rural districts. The transcripts were thematically analysed to explore the perceptions of and attitudes to high school completion and dropout and the factors which may contribute to either. Findings revealed that AGYW valued their high school education and associated it with future success and independence but several context specific factors on the individual, interpersonal and institutional levels influenced their retention and likelihood of dropping out of high school. An understanding of the multiple factors which influence high school dropout and retention, as indicated on the different levels of the socio-ecological model, may inform more target specific interventions to increase the retention and completion of high school of AGYW in South Africa.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Open Access
    The nature and value of teaching and learning Mandarin Chinese as a school subject in South Africa: a case study of language and literacy ideologies in a public secondary school in South Africa
    (2025) Reali, Chiara; Kell, Catherine
    In 2014 Mandarin Chinese was officially introduced as a second addi9onal language in South Africa's school curriculum. With China's growing status and influence in the world, South Africa's current posi9oning within the BRICS and South Africa's strong rela9onship with China has raised the importance of research into the landscape of the teaching and learning of Mandarin Chinese as a school subject in South Africa. This case study was conducted in 2021 in South Africa in a public secondary school in which Mandarin Chinese is taught as a school subject within the Confucius Ins9tute project framework. Through linguis9c ethnographic and biographical approaches, this study explores Chinese teachers' and South African students' language and literacy ideologies with respect to Mandarin Chinese and its script. With the “bipar9te nature of ideologies as ‘ontologies plus values'” (Hall & Cunningham, 2020, p. 4) as the main theore9cal principle informing this study, language and literacy ideologies with respect to Mandarin Chinese and its script are explored in rela9on to both “ontologies” and “values” with the aim of showing the deeply intertwined rela9onship between conceptualisa9ons of Mandarin Chinese and of its script and the value aTribu9on to them. The data analysis shows that, despite a 9mid desire shown by a few students for a social approach to language, the teaching and learning of Mandarin Chinese is mainly informed by a conceptualisa9on of Mandarin Chinese as a highly standardised and abstract system which can be packaged and commodified as a well-defined and structured object. As regards the teaching and learning of the Chinese script, some tensions arise. On one hand, the teaching and learning of the Chinese wriTen language seems to be informed by a market-driven skills-based approach, which either over-relies on pinyin (i.e., phone9c system for transcribing Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet) at the expense of the teaching and learning of Chinese characters or conceptualises Chinese characters as arbitrary symbols simply reproducing the spoken language. On the other hand, the teachers also aTempt to convey an approach to Chinese literacy which emphasises the role of Chinese characters within Chinese language and culture, their grapho-seman9c features and their dis9nc9ve rela9onship with spoken language. However, this second approach is not appropriated by the students, who mainly learn Chinese characters as phone9c/arbitrary symbols, thereby poin9ng to a conceptualisa9on of literacy as a decontextualised skill. I argue that both the teaching and learning of Mandarin Chinese as an abstract system of vocabulary and grammar structures and the teaching and learning of the Chinese script as a decontextualised system of phone9c/arbitrary symbols speak of a conceptualisa9on of language and literacy as being exclusively denota9onal, whereby the socio-cultural embeddedness of Mandarin Chinese and of its script are overlooked. Hence, Mandarin Chinese and its script are thought of as “an arbitrary and fungible system of representa9on” (Course, 2018, p. 12), which can be accessed and learnt in the same way as other (alphabe9c) languages. Hence, if languages and their scripts, by virtue of their exclusively denota9onal nature, are conceived as fungible systems of denota9ve communica9on characterised by an ontological equivalence, it follows that they can be easily compared, hierarchised and exchanged according to their instrumental value, namely their high or low likelihood of enabling speakers (and readers/writers) to communicate widely and access opportuni9es. As data shows, Mandarin Chinese is seen, similarly to English, as a highly valuable communica9on tool on a global level, and, thus, as a valuable commodity which can be exchanged for opportuni9es in terms of travelling, acquiring knowledge and accessing well-paid jobs. On the contrary, Afrikaans and African languages, due to their characterisa9on as languages localised into a narrow, economically stagnant and parochial reality, are seen as less valuable because they do not seem to open future opportuni9es for the students. I conclude that a conceptualisa9on of languages and of their scripts in mere denota9onal terms (i.e., languages and scripts as instruments to communicate denota9ve meanings deprived of any socio-cultural connota9on and/or human value) suggests, on one hand, that languages and their scripts are ontologically equivalent (i.e., Mandarin Chinese and its script can be accessed and acquired as any other language); however, on the other hand, the exclusively denota9onal nature of languages and scripts easily allows an aTribu9on of instrumental value to languages and their scripts, which, paradoxically, makes them highly non-equivalent (i.e., Mandarin Chinese and English as more valuable than Afrikaans and African languages within South Africa's linguis9c market). In sum, by embracing the recent ‘ontological turn' in language studies, the explora9on of the intricate rela9onship between ontologies of language (in its spoken and wriTen form) and value aTachment to it might help uncover “highly commodified” (Badwan, 2021, p. 46) understandings of language and literacy in the field of (foreign) language educa9on and invite to think about new and different ways forward. Par9cularly relevant in this project, reflec9ons on the conceptualisa9ons of the nature of literacy informing the teaching and learning of the Chinese script might spark novel thoughts with respect to the teaching of wriTen language in general, especially in terms of its “material culture” (Dickinson, 2017, p. 265), its rela9onship with spoken language and the importance of wri9ng in itself or, in Snoddon's (2022) words, “wri9ng as being” (p. 722).