Disability and Equity in Education Commons^™

Camp Shriver – A Free Inclusive Summer Sports Camp For Children With And Without Disabilities, Gary N. Siperstein, Mark Spolidoro, Barbara Gildea, Center For Social Development And Education, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Camp Shriver at UMass Boston provides a free and fully inclusive summer recreational program for children in the surrounding communities of Boston and Quincy. Through Camp Shriver, UMass Boston reaches out to children and families who have few opportunities, particularly families of children with disabilities.

Inclusive Concurrent Education Partnership, Aimee D’Avignon, Laura Vanderberg, Felicia Wilczenski, Institute For Community Inclusion, University Of Massachusetts Boston;

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Inclusive Concurrent Education Grant was implemented at the beginning of the fall 2012 semester after a planning period covering the spring and summer of 2012. Seven students from Boston Public Schools participated in the program’s first semester at UMass Boston, auditing a class each chosen from their personal interests. Five students completed.

The objective of the Inclusive Concurrent Education partnership is to provide secondary students with significant intellectual disabilities an opportunity to take an undergraduate course at UMass Boston. The goals are to provide an opportunity for these students to pursue their interests and to learn such skills as …

Health Care Inadequacies For Disabled Americans, Emily Housecamp

The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research

In lieu of an abstract, below is the first paragraph of the paper.

Many disabled individuals, including the mentally retarded, the physically disabled, and the elderly, face constant erasure in American society. Rarely, if ever, are people with disabilities portrayed in television commercials, and if they are ever present in a movie or television show, they commonly portray such disabled stereotypes as "supercrips." They also must face many unnecessary difficulties, including discrimination in the workplace, various abuses, and a lack of handicap accessibility. One of the most difficult aspects of life for a disabled American, however, is the inability to …

El Éxito Del Colegio De Educación Especial San Rafael / Success Of The Special Education School “San Rafael”, Cecilia Vichier-Guerre

Spain: Language, Community, and Social Change

For my service project in Granada, Spain, I spent the last few months volunteering in special education at San Rafael Hospital, working with students who have disorders ranging from cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, epilepsy to autism. I witnessed first-hand how Andalucía’s warm culture can have a positive impact in the workplace, an advantage in comparison to American education.

I worked one on one with the children helping them in their activity books. These lessons challenged my creativity to explain mathematics or grammar in ways the children could understand, a feat considering my limited Spanish. Volunteering at San Rafael redefined my …

Special Education: A Comparison Between Special Education In Bali And In America, Jacey Ann Dold

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In America, education is very highly valued. America believes that everyone has the right to education. Traditionally, students complete about 12 years of primary education before they continue on to college and then possibly graduate school. However, in Indonesia, specifically Bali, education is not seen as anything that should take priority over any other activity. Now lets shift the focus into a more specific kind of learning: special education. Special education for special needs people is a progressing teaching system that is continuously being developed in both Indonesia and America.

This paper will attempt to assess the special education systems …

Landscapes To Learnscapes: Exploring Schoolyard-Based Education, Emily I. Palena, Caroline T. Spurgin

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis explores schoolyard-based education as a viable and necessary method for rectifying the shortcomings within the American public school system and the Nature-deficit Disorder epidemic. We argue that schoolyard-based education should be fully integrated into the school system, not in the sole form of popularized school gardens, but as a standard teaching method. We show this using extensive research and a case study of three elementary schools in Claremont, California.

The Impact Of Demographics On 21st Century Education, Norman Eng

Publications and Research

Do all students need STEM education or should it be focused primarily on the mathematically and scientifically inclined? Here, demographics may hold the key to such questions from which a 21st century education model should be based on.

Assistive Technology And Students With Disabilities, Charles J. Russo, Allan G. Osborne Jr.

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

As part of providing a free appropriate public education (FAPE) to students with disabilities, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires school boards to offer assistive technology when necessary to ensure that students receive the educational benefits to which they are entitled.

As important as related services such as assistive technology (AT) are, the Supreme Court noted that school boards must provide such help only to the extent that it is necessary for students with disabilities to benefit from the programming identified in their individualized education plans (Irving Independent School District v. Tatro 1984). Although the related services mandate …

A Collective Case Study Of The Perceptions And Implementation Of Self Advocacy From Four Educators Of Students With Disabilities, Heather Heap

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This qualitative study identified four educators' perceptions and their implementation of teaching advocacy to students with disabilities within a public secondary educational setting. Federal mandates, such as Public Law 94-142, requested educators including administrators, counselors, special educators, and general educators to help facilitate self advocacy skills in the public educational setting. Using observations, comprehensive interviews, and available documentation, this collective case study identified four educators' experiences (an administrator, a counselor, a special educator, and a general educator) in developing student self advocacy as it pertains to the educators' perceived role in working with students with disabilities. This study identified their …

The Relation Between High School Teacher Sense Of Teaching Efficacy And Self-Reported Attitudes Toward The Inclusive Classroom Settings, Heather Wright

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to investigate if collective sense of teaching efficacy, general sense of teaching efficacy, or personal sense of teacher efficacy influenced teacher attitude toward inclusive classroom settings. Additionally, the study sought to determine if teacher attitude toward inclusive classroom settings differed when taking into account primary student disability type. Prior research indicates that there is a direct link between teacher sense of efficacy and student disability type when determining teacher attitude toward inclusive classroom settings. The sample population for the survey consisted of a convenience sample that represented only a select number of teachers, thus …

Chartering The Way To A Free And Appropriate Public Education (Fape): The Challenges For Charter Schools To Provide Fape, Michael J. Seltzer

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are an integral part of the school choice movement, following a market-model of education based on autonomy, competition, and choice. However, charter schools are also mandated to adhere to all laws and regulations in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) when educating students with disabilities. The education of students with disabilities within the charter school environment can result in policy tensions. This paper will examine the salient issues surrounding special education as it pertains to the state, authorizer, and operator in the areas of transparency, processes, and outcomes.

Judicial Clarity: Giving Teeth To The Application Of Federal Disability Laws In Charter Schools, Sarah Wieselthier Esq.

Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Partnerships With Catholic Colleges Support Schools, Susan M. Ferguson

Center for Catholic Education Publications

Animating our faith and hope for our church and our future, Catholic higher education and P-12 Catholic school partnerships are growing in number and variety. New times call for new measures grounded in respect and recognition of our deep and lasting traditions. Recent events seem to show the way to new endeavors that will bring innovative means to cultivate formation in faith and heighten academic excellence for students in our nation's Catholic schools. Critically considering partnership formation, sustainability and impact creates excitement and spurs action.

Education Under China’S Market Economy: A Case Study Of Urban And Rural Teachers In Hunan Province, Qing Li

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

The purpose of this article to investigate the working and living conditions of teachers under China’s market economy, with a focus on urban and rural schools. This paper is a case study of teachers in Hunan province, representing Central China. A total of eighteen teachers in seven different schools participated in the study.

The analysis of data shows that teachers experience change of teaching as reflected in the shift to learner-centred approaches, as well as changes of curriculum, textbooks and teacher evaluation. Under market economy, Chinese educational system still possesses urban rural inequalities, for the same or different reasons. The …

Dyscalculia: Characteristics, Causes, And Treatments, Gavin R. Price, Daniel Ansari

Numeracy

Developmental Dyscalculia (DD) is a learning disorder affecting the ability to acquire school-level arithmetic skills, affecting approximately 3-6% of individuals. Progress in understanding the root causes of DD and how best to treat it have been impeded by lack of widespread research and variation in characterizations of the disorder across studies. However, recent years have witnessed significant growth in the field, and a growing body of behavioral and neuroimaging evidence now points to an underlying deficit in the representation and processing of numerical magnitude information as a potential core deficit in DD. An additional product of the recent progress in …

Assessing The Readiness Of Higher Education To Instruct And Support Students With Asperger's Disorder, L. Marc Ellison

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study explores the current ability of higher education to effectively educate and support college students diagnosed with Asperger’s Disorder. As the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders increased dramatically during the past decade, it is estimated that tens of thousands of individuals diagnosed with Asperger’s Disorder are preparing to enter colleges and universities in the United States. Emerging research details specific service systems and resources necessary to effectively educate and support college students with Asperger’s Disorder. Public, four-year institutions of higher education were surveyed (N=578) to assess their current readiness to use identified best-practice methods of support with this student …

Case 7: Frankston Special Development School, Michelle Anderson, Leanne Eames

Tender Bridge

Frankston Special Developmental School provides a specialised and challenging curriculum in a supportive environment for students with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities whose ages range from five to eighteen years. Individual education programs are delivered by trained special education staff, including a speech therapist, an occupational therapist and a physiotherapist. Students also have access to extracurricular programs. The 120 students who attend live within a 20-kilometre radius of the school. The School has been a subscriber of Tender Bridge since 2010, but did not really make use of the subscription in the first year. But that all changed when the …

The Quality And Effects Of Secondary Transition Plans On Special Education Graduates' Postsecondary Outcomes And Their Effects On Secondary Transition, Vickie Miller

Education Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of the study was to determine whether or not the implementation of special education graduates' secondary transition plans by a team of supporters such as teachers, parents, administrators, and postsecondary mentors were well-constructed and in alignment with the graduates' high school curriculum and intended postsecondary goals, as well as whether the supporters followed through with helping the graduates achieve those postsecondary goals. The study also examined whether a loop existed between linking the secondary transition plans (indicator 13) to the postsecondary outcomes (indicator 14) and the feedback from the postsecondary outcomes back to the transition plans.

Under the …

Cultivating Democracy At One High School Intervention Program For Latinos At Risk Of Dropping Out, Margaret Sauceda Curwen, Keith Howard

Education Faculty Articles and Research

In California, where this study takes place, it is estimated that 85,000 students drop out of high school annually. Consequences are often linked to economic and social issues including long term economic costs to the state and the likelihood of lesser participation in voting and civic engagement (Rumberger, 2012). This account documents one high school’s alternative intervention program that includes online academic credit recovery and socio-emotional guidance leading to graduation for Latino students who are at risk of dropping out. Findings highlight the program’s support for these students in gaining confidence in self, envisioning themselves in the community and, for …

The Mathematical Development In Number And Operation Of Struggling First Graders, John Lannin, Delinda Van Garderen, Matthew J. Switzer, Kelley E. Buchheister, Tiffany Hill, Christa Jackson

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Number and operations serve as the “cornerstone” of the K-12 mathematics curriculum in many countries. Solving problems in the mathematical domains of algebra, geometry, measurement, and statistics is often closely connected to student knowledge of number and operation (Griffin, 2005). Although considerable knowledge exists regarding the development of number and operation for typically developing children, less is known about the development of children who struggle in mathematics. Moreover, children enter school with considerable differences in their understanding of number and operation. While most children, through exposure to various informal and formal tasks, develop a deeper understanding of number and operation, …