The objectives of the study were: 1) To asses the awareness of the stakeholders of B. Ed. program about the use of instructional technology at B.Ed. level in Punjab. 2) To find out the attitude of administrators and academic staff/professionals of the University of Education Lahore, the principals and the teachers of Government Colleges for Elementary Teachers affiliated with the University, towards the use of instructional technology in the teaching learning process. 3) To investigate the availability of hardware and its use in the University of Education, Lahore and its affiliated Government Colleges for Elementary Teachers (GCETs). 4) To highlight the problems being faced by the teachers, while using instructional technology. 5) To identify the facilities for repair, maintenance and upgrading of instructional technology equipments. viThe hypotheses of the study were: 1) The media is used during instructions in teachers training institutions. 2) Teacher educators use instructional technology in B.Ed. level classes. 3) There is provision for repair and maintenance of hardware of instructional technology. 4) Faculties of the University of Education, Lahore and Government Colleges for Elementary Teachers have experience in using instructional technology effectively. 5) Principals/Administrators of the University of Education, Lahore and affiliated Government Colleges for Elementary Teachers encourage the use of instructional technology in teaching and learning process. 6) Instructional technology makes teaching-learning process effective at teacher training institutions. The samples of the study were randomly selected from the total population. They consisted, 42 out of 42 principals and administrators (100%), 335 out of 669 teachers (50%) and 1421 out of 7106 students (20%) of the population. Three questionnaires were developed pilot, tested and finalised for administering to the target population. 88.09% principals/administrators, 81.79% teachers, educators and 81.14% students sent their responses timely. The collected data was analyzed using the techniques of descriptive statistics i.e. mean and percentage. Moreover, chi square and t-test were applied for analysis of data. It was found that the use of instructional technology makes teaching learning process effective. It was further observed that internet facility was available for teachers in teachers’ training institutions. The administrators monitor the use of instructional technology in teachers’ training institutions. The teachers observed that viithe use of instructional technology is costly but enhances the quality of education. It was further found that the use of projected and non-projected aids increase the interest of students towards lectures. However, it was concluded that availability of funds for the purchase of equipment is a problem. The use of instructional technology makes the teaching- learning process effective and the administrators are well aware about the use of instructional technology equipments. Further, it was concluded that the use of instructional technology creates interest among students towards study. Therefore, it was recommended that the funds for the purchase of instructional technology equipments may be provided to the teacher training institutions. The facilities like storage of equipments, their maintenance and alternate arrangements of electricity failure may be arranged in the institutions. Orientation of instructional technology use in class may be given to the teachers’ educators.
Background of the Study: The aim of the present research was to examine the assessment practices of Speech-Language Pathologists for Cognitive Communication Disorders after Traumatic Brain Injury.
Methodology: It was a cross-sectional survey method, a convenient sampling technique. Research was carried out from January 2021 to June 2021. The sample size was n=21, out of which n= 9 (42.8%) participants, each from Rawalpindi and Islamabad n= 3 (14.4%) participants from Lahore filled in their responses. Medium; being Online, the questionnaire was distributed either through email, WhatsApp or Facebook MessengerApp. SLPs who were undergraduates or who had no experience working with TBI clients were excluded. Questionnaire included 12 items. Responses of research participants were recorded using Google Forms and presented in the form of n (%). The data were analyzed using descriptive analysis, and chi-square analysis was performed to confirm the association between settings, city of practice and years of experience through Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 22.0.
Results: Speech-Language Pathologists reported that they routinely assessed (62% each) Receptive and Expressive communication. However; less than half of the participants routinely evaluated domains like verbal pragmatic skills (43.3%), functional communication (33.3%) and phonemic awareness (33.3%). SLPs assessed their clients by employing tests like MoCA (55.62%), Quick Aphasia Battery (18.75%), Cognitive Assessment (LOTCA Protocol) (14.35%) and a combination of Formal (48%) and Informal (52%) clinical interviews.
Conclusion: Informal discourse assessment is incorporated more frequently as compared to informal discourse evaluation in assessment practices of Speech-Language pathologists of Pakistan for cognitive communication impairment followed by traumatic brain injury.
Cognitiveradionetworks(CRNs)havegainedatremendousinterestintheresearch community, as they tend to solve the existing and future issues of frequency spectrum scarcity by exploiting the spectrum holes in underutilized licensed and unlicensed frequency bands, thereby, improving the spectrum utilization. The number of channels in a Cognitive Radio Network (CRN) always varies with time and location as compared to legacy wireless networks with fixed number of radio channels. This variability of available channels in cognitive radio networks has brought new design challenges in MediumAccessControl(MAC)protocolsandhasledtotheneedformostefficientand reliable MAC protocols in a CRN that can sustain under variable network conditions. Thesharingofdiscoveredspectrumholesamongthecontendingsecondaryusers(SUs) increases the overall spectrum utilization; however, the utilization of these discovered spectrum holes within the CRN depends on the access mechanism of SUs. In random access, waste of these spectrum holes would occur due to collisions and un-attempted slots by SUs. Therefore, optimal use of these discovered holes with minimum or no waste is desirable in an efficient CRN. A self- organizing collision-free MAC protocol isproposedforthedistributedCRNthatismoreefficientinspectrumsharingbyavoiding collisions and maximally utilizing un-attempted slots during access phase, thus increasing the spectrum utilization and throughput. This is achieved by organizing and queuing the active SUs through a timer value and directing them in an orderly fashion to use the discovered holes. Finding holes from the underutilized portion of spectrum at varying times and locations is the most important function in CRNs. This requires efficient sensing policy at the MAC layer that can discover more idle channels in minimal time. Spectrum sensing policies for searching idle channels from the underutilized primary band can significantly affect the performance of SUs in terms of throughput, reliability and en ergy efficiency. The sensing policy depends on the channel sensing order that decides how SUs sense the primary user band in minimal period of time. A cooperative parallel sensing scheme with sequential channel selection order is proposed as part of the MAC protocol, which can discover all the free channels in the primary user band in minimal time. The proposed scheme has been analyzed for the number of channels sensedandthenumberofidlechannelsdiscovered. Furthermore,energyefficiencyand throughput of the proposed scheme have also been evaluated. The results show considerable improvement for the proposed scheme as compared to the random channel spectrum sensing schemes prevalent in adhoc CRNs. The work in this thesis has aimed to improve spectrum management by adopting new spectrum sensing policies and improvingspectrumsharingbyself-organizingthecognitiveusersforcollisionfreeaccess in adhoc CRN MAC protocols.