Special Education and Teaching Commons^™

The Role Of Professional Development On Secondary Special Educators Self-Efficacy Regarding The Use Of Evidence-Based Transition Practices, Lauren P. Bruno

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine how transition specific professional development influenced secondary special educators’ knowledge and perceived self-efficacy regarding the use of evidence-based transition practices. Past research has suggested that secondary special educators enter the profession with limited knowledge and skills to provide effective evidence-based transition practices to students with disabilities. Based on Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory, and Desimone’s framework for effective professional development, this study identified how different variables related to professional development can influence teacher self-efficacy in terms of delivering evidence-based transition practices. Specifically, a correlational research design was used to investigate teacher self-efficacy to …

Effective Inclusion Practices For The Academic And Social Success Of Students With Intellectual Disabilities, Caitlin J. Siems

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper includes a comprehensive literature review of the research and best practice implications for providing effective inclusion in the general education setting to individuals with intellectual disabilities. Similarly, it reviews the relevant research regarding effective inclusive practices in adaptive sports, unified programs, and extracurricular activities. The review seeks to answer questions regarding the impact inclusion has on the self-concept and adaptive behaviors of individuals with intellectual; disabilities and their typical functioning peers. The paper provides insights for best practice for educators and information regarding effective frameworks for inclusion in the classroom. Instructional and whole school models that include the …

Factors Contributing To School Placement For Students With Emotional Behavioral Disorders, Colleen F. Weis

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Students with Emotional Behavioral Disorders, in combination with significant and chronic behaviors, are often placed in alternative educational settings. No clear rationale is used by school districts to determine educational placement, and schools rely on a variety of settings to provide instruction and services to students with disabilities. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the narrative regarding student placement in restrictive settings and the individual and institutional rationales for student transitions. It also studied the narratives supporting students’ return to a less restrictive educational placement. Participants were school district representatives in one Minnesota county who served on …

The Pros And Cons Of Inclusion For Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder (Asd) In The Mainstream Classroom, Benjamin Kwofie

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

General education placement are believed to offer innumerable benefits for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), however, decisions about including students with ASD remain controversial. This thesis highlights the benefits and challenges of including students with ASD in the mainstream setting. Inclusion represents the belief or philosophy that students with disabilities should be integrated into the regular education classroom with the relevant support to enable them to succeed. ASD is a very complicated disability; there are various levels of ability a student with ASD may have and there are also many types of this disorder. There are several effective strategies …

Examining The Variability In General Education Placements For Students With Intellectual Disability, Meghan Cosier, Julia M. White, Qiu Wang

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Despite the overwhelming body of research suggesting that students with intellectual disability benefit from access to general education placements, students with intellectual disability continue to be educated primarily in segregated settings. Furthermore, the percentage of students with intellectual disability included in general education classrooms varies greatly among and within states across the United States. In an effort to explore such variability in New York State, we examined trends in general education placement rates of students with intellectual disability across districts and possible predictors of placement in regular classes. Results suggest that although descriptive patterns of placement exist, a more definitive …

Dynamics Of Special Education Teacher Collaboration On Bullying, Velma P. Smith

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Bullying has plagued U.S. public schools: special education students become victims on a consistent basis and their academic outcomes may be adversely affected. Few studies have focused on the collaboration of teachers to reduce bullying. The purpose of the qualitative study of 12 special education teachers and counselors was to understand the process they use when they collaborate on reducing the bullying problem in a small Midwestern school in the United States. Montiel-Overall's theory of collaboration and Shulman's model of pedagogical content knowledge reflected the focus of the 2 research questions that informed this study. Participants described their collaboration and …

The Effectiveness Of Reading Interventions For Middle School Students With Learning Disabilities, Jennifer Hicks

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Students with learning disabilities are often unable to master reading comprehension and often fail to acquire reading comprehension skills at basic levels as measured on reading achievement assessments. Reading intervention programs Compass Learning and SRA Corrective Reading teach students how to apply strategies to their reading to improve their understanding of written text. The purpose of this quantitative ex-post facto research design was to determine the extent to which the reading intervention programs implemented at the research school improved reading achievement scores for seventh grade students with learning disabilities in reading, and to determine how much scores changed from the …

The Effects Of Book Club Participation On Reading Comprehension In Children With Disabilities, Elizabeth Ann Kosmicki

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Reading comprehension is a skill that effects future employment and income. However it is an ability that children with various disabilities struggle with. Researchers suggest that instruction in the use of reading comprehension strategies may improve understanding of texts. Furthermore, book clubs might serve as a vehicle to deliver this instruction in a natural setting. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of book clubs on the reading comprehension strategy use of children with disabilities. Two third grade children, one male with ADHD and one female with Down syndrome, participated in a book club. As part of …

Front Matter, Joonna Smitherman Trapp, Brad Peters

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Front Matter

Jaepl, Vol. 23, Winter 2017-2018, Joonna Smitherman Trapp, Brad Peters

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Editors’ Parting Message

Essays

The Politics of Consciousness, Kurt Spellmeyer

Writing, Silence, and Well-being, Robert P. Yagelski

Writing as a Liberal Art in an Age Neither Artful nor Liberal, Douglas Hesse

The Tyranny of ‘Best Practices,’ Roger Thompson

SPECIAL SECTION: TEACHING AND LEARNING AS BODILY ARTS

Corporal Pedagogies: An Introduction, Wendy Ryden

Embodied Databases: Attending to Research ‘Places’ through Emotion and Movement, Kati Fargo Ahern

Embodied Ethos and a Pedagogy of Presence: Reflections from a Writing Yogi, Christy I. Wenger

Rhetorics of Reflection: Revisiting Listening Rhetoric through Mindfulness, Empathy, and Non-Violent Communication, Renea Frey

Performance and the Possible: Embodiment, Privilege, …

Performance And The Possible: Embodiment, Privilege, And The Politics Of Teaching Writing, Lesley Erin Bartlett

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

An astute examination of the roles students often expect their teachers to assume prompts questions and challenges for those whose bodies do not correspond with those expectations.

Connecting, Christy I. Wegner, W. Keith Duffy, Sheila Kennedy, Jen Consilio, Carl Vandermeulen, Robert Randolph

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Christy I. Wenger, The Emotional Labor of Our Work

W. Keith Duffy, Interdisciplinary Dangers: A Small Caveat

Sheila Kennedy & Jen Consilio, One Mindful Step

Carl Vandermeulen, The Way to the Falls

Robert Randolph, A Good Rain

Back Matter, Joonna Smitherman Trapp, Brad Peters

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Back Matter

Hablando De La Herida: Honoring Spanish-Speaking Parents’ Experiences Obtaining School-Based Speech And Language Services For Their Children, Amalia W. Hernández

LMU Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the experiences of Spanish-speaking Latino/a parents in their attempts to obtain school-based speech and language services for their children; the impact of these experiences on parents; and parent perspectives on how school-based speech-language pathologists can co-create collaborative relationships. Through a detailed analysis of a focus group and individual interviews of 31 Spanish-speaking parents of children in the REAAD! (Reaching Educational Achievement and Development) Literacy Enrichment Program at a university in Los Angeles, California, this study provided a space for parents to share their experiences and offer insights regarding what shaped their experiences. Through the theoretical lens of …

Effects Of Parent-Implemented Interventions On Outcomes Of Children With Developmental Disabilities: A Meta-Analysis., Tina Dyches, Timothy B. Smith, Barbara Mandleco, Byran Korth

Faculty Publications

Background: A large body of literature exists related to parent-implemented interventions for children with disabilities, so it is helpful to synthesize the results of outcome-based interventions for children with developmental disabilities. Specifically, what are the effects of parent-implemented interventions intended to improve children’s (1) social behaviors, (2) life skills/adaptive behavior, and (3) communication skills?

Method: Using meta-analytic aggregation of effect sizes across 30 studies with a total of 1,356 participants, this review examined the association between parent-implemented interventions and intended outcomes of young children with developmental disabilities.

Results: Across all 30 studies comparing children’s outcomes to control groups, the random …

Economic, Cognitive, Academic, And Attendance Characteristics Of Elementary Students Receiving Special Education Services : A Program Evaluation In One District, Jaime M. Haas

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Public education, at present, is focused on ensuring the success of all students and has tasked educators with producing positive results. Despite this political climate, research has indicated that some learners, such as those considered economically disadvantaged and those requiring special education, tend to face higher adversity, making it more difficult for them to reach achievement markers. As these subgroup differences have become concerning for districts aiming to close the achievement gap, program evaluation has emerged as a useful tool to determine the effectiveness of educational practices. In the current investigation, a program evaluation was utilized to examine an elementary …

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Government And New Teacher Induction Policy: Is The Government In Harmony With National And International Trends In Teacher Education?, Sohail Ahmad, Barkat Ali

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

Role of competent teachers is fundamental in improving quality of education, therefore we find more organized and rigorous teacher education programs in those countries which have better quality of education. Quality teachers can be produced from quality pre-service teacher education programs. In Pakistan, raising teachers’ status and competency received a remarkable attention for the last two decades. There has been consistent emphasis on improving quality of teacher education almost in all the National Education Policies in Pakistan. And this emphasis was translated into various reforms and development initiatives such the initiation of B.Ed. (Hons.) and ADE programs. Although due to …

A Rapid, Handheld Device To Assess Respiratory Resistance: Clinical And Normative Evidence, Aaron B. Holley, Wesley D. Boose, Michael Perkins, Karen L. Sheikh, Nancy P. Solomon, Angela M. Dietsch, Jafar Vossoughi, Arthur T. Johnson, Jacob F. Collen

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Introduction: Following reports of respiratory symptoms among service members returning from deployment to South West Asia (SWA), an expert panel recommended pre-deployment spirometry be used to assess disease burden. Unfortunately, testing with spirometry is high cost and time-consuming. The airflow perturbation device (APD) is a handheld monitor that rapidly measures respiratory resistance (APD-R_r) and has promising but limited clinical data. Its speed and portability make it ideally suited for large volume pre-deployment screening. We conducted a pilot study to assess APD performance characteristics and develop normative values.

Materials and Methods: We prospectively enrolled subjects and derived …

Working Memory In School-Age Children With And Without A Persistent Speech Sound Disorder, Kelly Farquharson, Tiffany Hogan, John E. Bernthal

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore the role of working memory processes as a possible cognitive underpinning of persistent speech sound disorders (SSD).

Method: Forty school-aged children were enrolled; 20 children with persistent SSD (P-SSD) and 20 typically developing children. Children participated in three working memory tasks – one to target each of the components in Baddeley’s working memory model: phonological loop, visual spatial sketchpad and central executive.

Result: Children with P-SSD performed poorly only on the phonological loop tasks compared to their typically developing age-matched peers. However, mediation analyses revealed that the relation …

Grxcr2 Is Required For Stereocilia Morphogenesis In The Cochlea, Matthew R. Avenarius, Jae-Yun Jung, Charles Askew, Sherri M. Jones, Kristina L. Hunker, Hela Azaiez, Atteeq U. Rehman, Margit Schraders, Hossein Najmabadi, Hannie Kremer, Richard J. H. Smith, Gwenaelle S. G. Geleoc, David F. Dolan, Yehoash Raphael, David C. Kohrman

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Hearing and balance depend upon the precise morphogenesis and mechanosensory function of stereocilia, the specialized structures on the apical surface of sensory hair cells in the inner ear. Previous studies of Grxcr1 mutant mice indicated a critical role for this gene in control of stereocilia dimensions during development. In this study, we analyzed expression of the paralog Grxcr2 in the mouse and evaluated auditory and vestibular function of strains carrying targeted mutations of the gene. Peak expression of Grxcr2 occurs during early postnatal development of the inner ear and GRXCR2 is localized to stereocilia in both the cochlea and in …