Aim: To provide an understanding of counsellors' experiences of working with male victims of female-perpetrated domestic abuse. This topic has been virtually unexplored within counselling literature. Method: A qualitative design was adopted to address the objective of this research. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six counsellors. Snowball sampling was used to identify suitable participants. Three were males and three females, and all had experience of working with male victims of female-perpetrated domestic abuse. Results were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Findings: Ten over-arching themes emerged from the transcripts, including a distinct lack of recognition of male victimisation, which was seen as hampering counsellors' work with clients. Participants, particularly female counsellors, also drew on the significance of their gender. Furthermore, counsellors described changes in their perceptions of women within modern society. A central feature of participants' accounts was a sense of privilege in sharing clients' experiences. However, participants described the work as challenging, and employed both personal and professional strategies to help them cope with work-related difficulties. Discussion: Findings offer an initial understanding as to the experiences of counsellors that have worked with male victims. This may be helpful in leading to the development of more effective strategies employed by counsellors and counselling agencies in successfully working with male victims, whilst increasing awareness of male victimisation.

Adults with learning disability pose an educational challenge for teachers and support workers. They frequently have limited skills in reading and writing, and may find it difficult to pay attention to topics of little interest to them. Nevertheless, they can be keen to use new technology, and often have hobbies and interests that are catered for on the Internet. This article describes a project aimed to highlight the advantages and weaknesses of web-based learning for adults with learning disability, and to suggest improvements. Eight students with mild to moderate learning disability were helped to find websites related to their interests, and supported in creating multimedia work linked to those sites. Results showed the powerfully motivating effect of the websites for students, but highlighted the access difficulties posed by websites for such students. Further work in this area is needed, to develop strategies for exploiting the motivating effect of websites, and to improve the accessibility of sites for people with low literacy levels.

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Microcomputers have recognised value for people with learning disability (mental retardation) and their use has been a feature of many service settings since the 1980s. Recent technological advances, such as the modern and powerful personal computers with multimedia capability and the Internet, have, however, not yet been widely adopted in day and residential services. The implications of these developments for service planning and management are not fully understood. A survey of microcomputer use for adults with learning disability within The Home Farm Trust, a UK national organisation for people with learning disability was carried out in the light of a planned organisationwide initiative to introduce modern information and communications technology (ICT) to service users. Results show that there had been a limited provision of computers within the organisation and that staffing and support for the introduction of new ICT were not fully in place. The findings are discussed in the light of research on the organisational requirements for effective ICT use. These requirements were built into the planning of a major initiative to equip the organisation with new ICT for its service users. Future research should lead to simple audit procedures to aid organisations develop effective ICT use. IntroductionInformation and communications technology (ICT) has a recognised and important range of uses within services for children and adults who, because of physical, sensory or intellectual disabilities, have special educational or support needs. These uses include face-to-face and written communication, education, employment, environmental control, and recreation. (For reviews see Hegarty, 1991;Hegarty and Whittaker, 1993;Woodward and Rieth, 1997; Nisbet and Poon, 1998). A distinction is made here between the information and communications technologies that are used by staff within the

The purpose of this study was to evaluate systematically the effect of presenting food consistently, in a position regarded as optimal, to children with severe neurological impairment who have associated oral-motor dysfunction. We tested the validity of some recommendations often made in the literature regarding good feeding practices. The trial used an ABA within-subjects design and extended over a 9-month period. Sixteen children between 7 and 17 years of age with severe neurological impairment and associated eating difficulties were studied. Six subjects had some speech. The effects of the intervention were compared by detailed analysis of standard feeding assessments carried out and video-recorded under control and experimental conditions. Statistically significant differences in components of oral-motor behavior were found when a consistent method of food presentation was employed and significant improvements, which could not be attributed to maturation alone, were found between assessment periods. There were also significant differences in the degree of oral-motor learning achieved by children who had some speech and those who had none. Newly acquired skills were not always evident at followup, however, nor in control assessments of feeding. We conclude that some children, even those with severe neurological impairment, can acquire mastery over latent or previously undeveloped oral-motor skills when feeding strategies are modified to allow appropriate opportunities for learning to occur.