Volume 15 (2011): Issue 1 (June 2011)

AAC practitioners and researchers have developed non-speech communication strategies and technology greatly during the past 30 years. This article concentrates on one of them: the Facilitated Communication Method. The aim of this research is to describe the facilitated communication method in the light of the perceptions and experiences of facilitators (N= 11) who have assisted handicapped people with expressing themselves with this method. The purpose is to bring out the use of the method, its preconditions and functionality, especially among autistic people. The data was gathered by semi-structured interviews. The research was based on a qualitative research paradigm with a phenomenographic method. The results show that no common formula for how to make the facilitated communication method succeed can be found, because every communication situation is different. However, the method aids many people with communication disabilities who are searching for a communication method that supports speech replacement.

The paper presents the outcome of an experiment on concept understanding in Polish congenitally totally blind and sighted children. A test of free associations was administered to a group of 40 sighted and 24 congenitally totally blind children between the ages of 7 and 9. The research instrument included 25 sample concepts grouped into four categories such as colors, nature phenomena, features of living organisms and physical processes. The collected responses lend support to the fact that there exist many impediments to proper concept understanding due to limited hands-on experience arising out of blindness, visible in the research by the presence of gaps in knowledge or egocentrism-based responses. The data exhibits a blind child's high dependence on contextual clues and a delay in the process of decontextualization, especially if it is not accompanied by sufficient stimulation from the child's environment.

The paper describes the results of comparative research on the level of dogmatism in the utterance texts of patients diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia (N=130) and healthy individuals (N=130). The analysis was conducted with the use of the Suitbert Ertel Dogmatism Quotient. The results indicate significant differences between these two groups.

This study explores the phenomenon of threatened identity that occurs because of significant, often abrupt changes in human life. As a result of a difficult experience, decision, change of cultural environment, loss of someone or something very important, an individual may feel he/she is someone different than before. Thus, establishing the continuity of one's personal identity may be a problem. In a report on this type of situation Glynis Breakwell (1986) proposes the term "threatened identity." She places it in the context of her structural model of identity. The present study is aimed at investigating possible images of threatened identity and characterizing them from the point of view of narrative sequences, the affective level and the ultimate - positive or negative - consequences of the individual's functioning. With regard to these aspects, five types of threatened identity have been distinguished from the empirical evidence: (1) the constructive re-evaluation, (2) the key experience, (3) the stable narrative sequence, (4) the seeking of power and autonomy and (5) the loss of part of oneself.

The aim of the studies was to seek an answer to the following question: Which relationship patterns correlate with different conflict resolution strategies in women's and men's intimate relationships? The subjects were 56 engaged couples (aged 19-37) answering Conflict Resolution Strategy Questionnaires, Personal Authority in the Family System Questionnaires and The Family of Origin Scale. The network of correlations between conflict resolution strategies and relationship patterns is more complex for women than for men. In the women's group, the correlation connects constructive strategies (dialogue and loyalty) foremost with patterns defining intimacy (or its components). However, destructive strategies (exit and neglect) are related to patterns definitive of individuation levels in the family of origin, independence and position. In the men's group, however, the correlation connects conflict resolution strategies (constructive and destructive) to relationship patterns definitive of partner relations. Furthermore, constructive strategies are associated with lower intergeneration triangulation intensity and higher intergenerational intimidation intensity.

This paper investigates certain problems encountered when technology-based instruction is employed in teaching English as a foreign language. Three EFL specialists from Saudi Arabia are interviewed and their insights on solving those problems are presented. Many academics feel ill-equipped to utilize new technologies in teaching because they are technophobes who fear or dislike technology or do not have sufficient experience in employing computer applications. Other academics found technology-based teaching time-consuming, leading to increased workload, and demanding high levels of technical support. Solutions to face the reluctance to engage in electronic forms of teaching include the provision of instructional support to provide faculty with the necessary technical skills, changing college policies to consider teaching with technology an activity for which faculty receive credit, improving the reward system to motivate faculty to better productivity and higher performance, and addressing critical work-related issues, such as workload.