Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Education Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 30 of 34

Full-Text Articles in Education

School Culture For Students With Significant Support Needs: Belonging Is Not Enough, Diane Carroll, Connie Fulmer, Donna Sobel, Dorothy Garrison-Wade, Lorenso Aragon, Lisa Coval Oct 2015

School Culture For Students With Significant Support Needs: Belonging Is Not Enough, Diane Carroll, Connie Fulmer, Donna Sobel, Dorothy Garrison-Wade, Lorenso Aragon, Lisa Coval

Connie L. Fulmer

This qualitative study examined the influence of school culture on services for students with significant support needs. Students with significant support needs are defined as those who typically have cognitive impairments, often paired with sensory and physical challenges, and who require substantial supports to receive benefit from education. Using Schein's (1988) definition of culture, ethnographic methods, including observations, interviews and artifacts, were used to collect data related to artifacts, values, and assumptions. Results of this study indicate a strong sense of family, community and belonging. However, belonging did not include critical components of instruction as described as best practice in …


The Semantic Domain Of Classifiers In American Sign Language, Ronnie Wilbur, Mark E. Bernstein, Rebecca Kantor Oct 2015

The Semantic Domain Of Classifiers In American Sign Language, Ronnie Wilbur, Mark E. Bernstein, Rebecca Kantor

Rebecca Kantor

This study observed the communicative partnerships between normal-hearing mothers and their normal-hearing (N=3) or hearing-impaired (N=5) children (ages 17-46 months) prior to brief periods of separation. Results indicated that the quality and development of communicative interaction between normal-hearing mothers and hearing-impaired children is central to the success of early education programs.


The Acquisition Of Classifiers In American Sign Language, Rebecca Kantor Oct 2015

The Acquisition Of Classifiers In American Sign Language, Rebecca Kantor

Rebecca Kantor

The purpose of this study was to obtain data on the developmental stages that deaf children pass through in acquiring the adult form of pronominal classifiers in American Sign Language, by obtaining data on production, comprehension, and imitation from nine children aged three to eleven years. All nine children are congenitally, profoundly deaf and have deaf parents. In all cases classifiers were mastered much later than would be predicted from a timetable for signs with similar structure. Evidence was found for a developmental sequence and for acquisition strategies similar to those that have been identified for hearing children learning a …


Communicative Interaction: Mother Modification And Child Acquisition Of American Sign Language, Rebecca Kantor Oct 2015

Communicative Interaction: Mother Modification And Child Acquisition Of American Sign Language, Rebecca Kantor

Rebecca Kantor

The communicative interaction in American Sign Language (ASL) of two deaf mothers with their deaf children was studied at 3-week intervals for 10 months to find what modification, if any, the mothers made in their language utterances addressed to the children (12–20 and 20–30 months old). As was hypothesized, and has been shown of hearing-speaking mothers’ language, modification in the direction of simplified and more linear language was found. Special attention was paid to POINTing behavior (i.e. pointing gestures constrained by the linguistic rules of ASL) and to verb “modulation” or inflection (changes from ASL citation forms to mark the …


Select Methods For Teaching Reading To Ells [Book Chapter], Amy L. Boele Oct 2015

Select Methods For Teaching Reading To Ells [Book Chapter], Amy L. Boele

Amy Boele

No abstract provided.


Finding Community Through Stories, Amy L. Boele Oct 2015

Finding Community Through Stories, Amy L. Boele

Amy Boele

No abstract provided.


Listening To Their Voices: Factors That Inhibit Or Enhance Postsecondary Outcomes For Students' With Disabilities, Dorothy Garrison-Wade Sep 2015

Listening To Their Voices: Factors That Inhibit Or Enhance Postsecondary Outcomes For Students' With Disabilities, Dorothy Garrison-Wade

Dorothy Garrison-Wade

Although an increasing number of students with disabilities are considering postsecondary educational opportunities, many of these students find the challenges daunting as compared to their secondary educational experiences. The purpose of the qualitative case study reported herein was to learn more about students' perceptions of services received in college in order to develop a clearer understand of how to better ensure positive outcomes. Fifty nine students with various disabilities and six disability resource coordinators from five two year community colleges and three four-year universities participated in the study. Three major themes emerged from the data, including: (a) capitalizing on student …


Students’ Perceptions About Successfully Transitioning To Postsecondary Institutions, Dorothy Garrison-Wade, Jean P. Lehmann Sep 2015

Students’ Perceptions About Successfully Transitioning To Postsecondary Institutions, Dorothy Garrison-Wade, Jean P. Lehmann

Dorothy Garrison-Wade

Through the auspices of federal legislation, students with disabilities are gaining access to higher education. Still for many students with disabilities, the paramount barriers facing them in their transition to postsecondary education are overwhelming. This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study of 59 postsecondary students with disabilities on factors students perceived to inhibit or contribute to their successful transition into college. The study examines support services and access to reasonable accommodations available to students with disabilities. Students reported the major barriers to accessing college and succeeding in college were societal attitudes, lack of preparation, and financial constraints. The …


A Conceptual Framework For Understanding Students' With Disabilities Transition To Community College, Dorothy Garrison-Wade, Jean Lehmann Sep 2015

A Conceptual Framework For Understanding Students' With Disabilities Transition To Community College, Dorothy Garrison-Wade, Jean Lehmann

Dorothy Garrison-Wade

Students with disabilities are significantly underrepresented in the nation's community college population for multiple reasons. These include low expectations, poor high school preparation and transition planning, lack of communication or support services, and ineffective or poor support from school services personnel and faculty. This paper presents a literature synthesis. Its purpose is to inform an initial framework for building towards a conceptual framework for understanding the transition to community college by students with disabilities. The framework was developed from an earlier mixed methods study involving 100 college students with disabilities and 10 disability resource counselors in eight universities and colleges, …


School Culture For Students With Significant Support Needs: Belonging Is Not Enough, Diane Carroll, Connie Fulmer, Donna Sobel, Dorothy Garrison-Wade, Lorenso Aragon, Lisa Coval Sep 2015

School Culture For Students With Significant Support Needs: Belonging Is Not Enough, Diane Carroll, Connie Fulmer, Donna Sobel, Dorothy Garrison-Wade, Lorenso Aragon, Lisa Coval

Dorothy Garrison-Wade

This qualitative study examined the influence of school culture on services for students with significant support needs. Students with significant support needs are defined as those who typically have cognitive impairments, often paired with sensory and physical challenges, and who require substantial supports to receive benefit from education. Using Schein's (1988) definition of culture, ethnographic methods, including observations, interviews and artifacts, were used to collect data related to artifacts, values, and assumptions. Results of this study indicate a strong sense of family, community and belonging. However, belonging did not include critical components of instruction as described as best practice in …


Alternative Service Delivery Models For Students With Learning Disabilities, Evelyn Johnson, Carrie Semmelroth Aug 2015

Alternative Service Delivery Models For Students With Learning Disabilities, Evelyn Johnson, Carrie Semmelroth

Carrie Semmelroth

More than 40 years of intervention research describes effective interventions for increasing the academic performance of students with learning disabilities. However, the performance and outcomes for students with learning disabilities remain discouraging, especially in light of the increasing cost to provide special education services. Between 60 – 70 percent of students with learning disabilities are unable to meet grade level performance standards in the basic academic areas of reading, writing and mathematics. The disconnect between research and practice suggests a need for rethinking special education service delivery. This paper reports the results of a program evaluation of a not-for-profit center …


The Technical Properties Of Science Content Maze Passages For Middle School Students, Evelyn S. Johnson, Carrie Semmelroth, Jennifer Allison, Teresa Fritsch Aug 2015

The Technical Properties Of Science Content Maze Passages For Middle School Students, Evelyn S. Johnson, Carrie Semmelroth, Jennifer Allison, Teresa Fritsch

Carrie Semmelroth

The use of Curriculum-Based Measures is rapidly expanding to the middle school level, where maze passages are frequently used to monitor progress in reading. At secondary grade levels, the focus of reading is on reading to learn, especially in the content areas. Therefore, we were interested in developing maze passages based on grade-level science texts to determine whether maze passages constructed from expository texts would have sufficient reliability and validity to serve as reading and science benchmarking tools. Participants included 367 seventh-grade students from three states. Students completed eight maze passages over three testing periods, a reading measure at two …


Response To Intervention At The Secondary Level: Identifying Students At Risk For High School Dropout, Carrie Lisa Semmelroth Aug 2015

Response To Intervention At The Secondary Level: Identifying Students At Risk For High School Dropout, Carrie Lisa Semmelroth

Carrie Semmelroth

Using the basic premise of RTI, which is to identify those students at risk, in order to provide timely intervention, this study contributes to the development of a universal screening measure to identify high school at risk of drop out. This study was designed to apply the Early Warning System (EWS) tool developed by the National High School Center as a possible Tier 1 universal screening measure to identify students at risk as part of an RTI framework for the secondary school level. Freshmen data from one high school from the 2004-2005 school year was entered into the EWS tool …


Introduction To Aei’S Special Issue On Special Education Teacher Evaluations, Evelyn Johnson, Carrie Lisa Semmelroth Aug 2015

Introduction To Aei’S Special Issue On Special Education Teacher Evaluations, Evelyn Johnson, Carrie Lisa Semmelroth

Carrie Semmelroth

The purpose of this introductory article is to provide an overview to the special issue on special education teacher evaluation. This special issue features five articles that collectively present a comprehensive review of the current state of understanding about the issues concerning devising and implementing special education teacher evaluation systems. Within this special issue are articles that provide a discussion of some of the primary challenges associated with evaluating special education teachers; an overview of the issues associated with using observation tools to measure special education teachers; and three studies that each feature a unique approach to special education teacher …


Using Generalizability Theory To Measure Sources Of Variance On A Special Education Teacher Observation Tool, Carrie Lisa Semmelroth Aug 2015

Using Generalizability Theory To Measure Sources Of Variance On A Special Education Teacher Observation Tool, Carrie Lisa Semmelroth

Carrie Semmelroth

This study used generalizability theory to identify sources of variance on a pilot observation tool designed to evaluate special education teacher effectiveness, and was guided by the question: How many occasions and raters are needed for acceptable levels of reliability when using the pilot RESET observation tool to evaluate special education teachers? At the time of this study, the pilot Recognizing Effective Special Education Teachers (RESET) observation tool included three evidence-based instructional practices (direct, explicit instruction, whole-group instruction, and discrete trial teaching) as the basis for special education teacher evaluation. Eight teachers (raters) were invited to attend two sessions (October …


Measuring Rater Reliability On A Special Education Observation Tool, Carrie Lisa Semmelroth, Evelyn Johnson Aug 2015

Measuring Rater Reliability On A Special Education Observation Tool, Carrie Lisa Semmelroth, Evelyn Johnson

Carrie Semmelroth

This study used generalizability theory to measure reliability on the Recognizing Effective Special Education Teachers (RESET) observation tool designed to evaluate special education teacher effectiveness. At the time of this study, the RESET tool included three evidence-based instructional practices (direct, explicit instruction; whole-group instruction; and discrete trial teaching) as the basis for special education teacher evaluation. Five raters participated in two sessions to evaluate special education classroom instruction collected from two school years, via the Teachscape 360-degree video system. Data collected from raters were analyzed in a two-facet “partially” nested design where occasions (o) were nested within teachers …


Examining Interrater Agreement Analyses Of A Pilot Special Education Observation Tool, Evelyn S. Johnson, Carrie L. Semmelroth Aug 2015

Examining Interrater Agreement Analyses Of A Pilot Special Education Observation Tool, Evelyn S. Johnson, Carrie L. Semmelroth

Carrie Semmelroth

This paper reports the results of interrater agreement analyses on a pilot special education teacher evaluation instrument, the Recognizing Effective Special Education Teachers (RESET) Observation Tool (OT). Using evidence-based instructional practices as the basis for the evaluation, the RESET OT is designed for the spectrum of different instructional needs found within special education classrooms. The RESET OT informs what Danielson (2011) maintains are the two features of a teacher evaluation system 1) ensuring teacher quality and 2) promoting professional development. In June 2012, six special education teachers participated in a data coding session using the pilot RESET OT to evaluate …


Special Education Teacher Evaluation: Why It Matters, What Makes It Challenging, And How To Address These Challenges, Evelyn Johnson, Carrie Lisa Semmelroth Aug 2015

Special Education Teacher Evaluation: Why It Matters, What Makes It Challenging, And How To Address These Challenges, Evelyn Johnson, Carrie Lisa Semmelroth

Carrie Semmelroth

There is currently little consensus on how special education teachers should be evaluated. The lack of consensus may be due to several reasons. Special education teachers work under a variety of complex conditions, with a very heterogeneous population, and support student progress toward a very individualized set of goals. In addition, special education is marked by historical rates of attrition, with a lack of highly qualified teachers entering the field, and a number of special education teachers completing alternate certification programs, leading to a combined effect that impacts overall professional quality. In this article, we first review the challenges associated …


Special Educator Evaluation: Cautions, Concerns And Considerations, Carrie Semmelroth, Evelyn Johnson, Keith Allred Aug 2015

Special Educator Evaluation: Cautions, Concerns And Considerations, Carrie Semmelroth, Evelyn Johnson, Keith Allred

Carrie Semmelroth

There is currently little consensus on how special education teachers should be evaluated in a way that is effective, fair and responsive to their unique teaching responsibilities. In this paper, we explain several of the current approaches to teacher evaluation under consideration, and then provide an overview of the challenges associated with the use of these models for special education teachers. We describe a model currently under development that is designed to better meet the unique characteristics of special education teacher evaluation. Our alternative approach proposes to evaluate special education teacher effectiveness through two primary components: observations of the special …


The Predictive Validity Of The Early Warning System Tool, Evelyn Johnson, Carrie Semmelroth Aug 2015

The Predictive Validity Of The Early Warning System Tool, Evelyn Johnson, Carrie Semmelroth

Carrie Semmelroth

The Early Warning System (EWS) is a tool developed by the National High School Center to collect data on indicators including attendance, GPA, course failures and credits earned. These indicators have been found to be highly predictive of a student’s likelihood of dropping out of high school in large, urban areas. The EWS tool was studied in two suburban schools. With the exception of attendance data, findings suggest that the indicators and suggested threshold for risk determination are predictive in suburban contexts.


Reconciling Leadership And Partnership: Strategies To Empower Professionals And Families, Keith W. Allred, Christine L. Hancock Jun 2015

Reconciling Leadership And Partnership: Strategies To Empower Professionals And Families, Keith W. Allred, Christine L. Hancock

Keith W. Allred

When early childhood professionals attempt to carry out traditional leadership roles at the same time they implement family-centered early care and education, they may find themselves in a quandary. A number of the assumptions associated with traditional leadership are not in harmony with family-centered practices, which include engaging families as partners with programs and teachers in their children’s development and learning (Douglass & Gittell 2012). In their work with families, early childhood professionals often find themselves challenged by the need to be both leaders and partners.


Abandoned To Their Fate: A History Of Social Policy And Practice Toward Severely Retarded People In America, 1820-1920, Philip Ferguson Jun 2015

Abandoned To Their Fate: A History Of Social Policy And Practice Toward Severely Retarded People In America, 1820-1920, Philip Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

This study examines the history of severely mentally retarded people from 1820 to 1920 in America, and their relationship with an emerging class of professionals newly charged with their care. The early history of one specialized asylum in Rome, New York, receives particular attention as an illustrative case study of the processes that influenced institutional development throughout the last half of the nineteenth century. The notion of "chronicity" is adopted to refer to a process of social construction whereby multiple dimensions of social failure (aesthetic, moral, and economic) in the lives of people called "idiots" and "imbeciles," were subsumed under …


Creating The Continuum: J. E. Wallace Wallin And The Role Of Clinical Psychology In The Emergence Of Public School Special Education In America, Philip M. Ferguson Jun 2015

Creating The Continuum: J. E. Wallace Wallin And The Role Of Clinical Psychology In The Emergence Of Public School Special Education In America, Philip M. Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

This paper reviews the history of the continuum of services in intellectual disability programs. The emergence of public school special education in the United States in the first two decades of the 20th century is used as a case study of this history by focusing on events and personalities connected to the St. Louis Public Schools. Using Annual Reports from the era along with the abundant publications and personal papers of J.E. Wallace Wallin, the author explores how the growing class of specialists in clinical psychology and psychometrics gained a foothold in the schools as educational gatekeepers for student placements …


The Promise Of Adulthood, Philip M. Ferguson, Dianne L. Ferguson Jun 2015

The Promise Of Adulthood, Philip M. Ferguson, Dianne L. Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

"How do we assure ourselves that [our severely disabled son] Ian is somehow contributing to all the choices that get made about what constitutes a good adult life for him? We have created new options for Ian and others as we have struggled to answer these ques-tions. We have also increased our understanding of what it means for someone who has a variety of severe disabilities to be adult."


Family Portraits: Past And Present Representations Of Parents In Special Education Text Books, Dianne L. Ferguson, Philip M. Ferguson, Joanne Kim, Corrine Li Jun 2015

Family Portraits: Past And Present Representations Of Parents In Special Education Text Books, Dianne L. Ferguson, Philip M. Ferguson, Joanne Kim, Corrine Li

Philip M. Ferguson

This paper analyses the descriptions of families of children with disabilities as contained in introductory special education texts over the last 50 years. These text books are typically used in pre-service teacher education courses as surveys of the education of ‘exceptional children’. The textbooks reflect the mainstream professional assumptions of the era about topics such as disability, special education, inclusion, and family/school linkages. However, they also shape the assumptions of the next generation of educators about these same topics. The paper summarises the results of a qualitative document analysis of a sample of these textbooks from two different eras. The …


Finding A Voice: Families’ Roles In Schools, Dianne Ferguson, Amy Hanreddy, Philip Ferguson Jun 2015

Finding A Voice: Families’ Roles In Schools, Dianne Ferguson, Amy Hanreddy, Philip Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

Every day, around the world, families of children with disabilities experience a wide range of settings and services meant to provide support for the challenges they face.


Place, Profession And Program In The History Of Special Education Curriculum, Scot Danforth, Steve Taff, Philip Ferguson Jun 2015

Place, Profession And Program In The History Of Special Education Curriculum, Scot Danforth, Steve Taff, Philip Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

"This chapter explores how three topical threads: place, professionalism, and program, have woven their way through the history of special education. The authors argue that these themes have played out over the last 200 years in the United States in a way that provides a helpful explanatory narrative for the evolution of policies and practices for children with disabilities. The authors' narrative looks at three key eras. First, they look at the influence of the French Enlightenment on American social activists in the middle of the 19th century. This was a time when the theme of place held sway as …


The Present King Of France Is Feeble-Minded: The Logic And History Of The Continuum Of Placements For People With Intellectual Disabilities, Philip Ferguson Jun 2015

The Present King Of France Is Feeble-Minded: The Logic And History Of The Continuum Of Placements For People With Intellectual Disabilities, Philip Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

This chapter focuses on the logic and history of the continuum of placements for people with intellectual disabilities.


“First Grub, Then Ethics”: The Place Of Research In A Time Of Crisis, Philip Ferguson Jun 2015

“First Grub, Then Ethics”: The Place Of Research In A Time Of Crisis, Philip Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

A reflection on school's failures to meet the needs of students with disabilities and their families in light of the attacks of September 11, 2001 and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.


Special Educator Evaluation: Cautions, Concerns And Considerations, Carrie Semmelroth, Evelyn Johnson, Keith Allred Apr 2015

Special Educator Evaluation: Cautions, Concerns And Considerations, Carrie Semmelroth, Evelyn Johnson, Keith Allred

Keith W. Allred

There is currently little consensus on how special education teachers should be evaluated in a way that is effective, fair and responsive to their unique teaching responsibilities. In this paper, we explain several of the current approaches to teacher evaluation under consideration, and then provide an overview of the challenges associated with the use of these models for special education teachers. We describe a model currently under development that is designed to better meet the unique characteristics of special education teacher evaluation. Our alternative approach proposes to evaluate special education teacher effectiveness through two primary components: observations of the special …