Special Education and Teaching Commons^™

Reaching The Next Stephen Hawking: Five Ways To Help Students With Disabilities In Advanced Placement Science Classes, Lori A. Howard, Elizabeth A. Potts, Ed Linz

Special Education Faculty Research

As the federal government encourages all students to attempt advanced math and science courses, more students with disabilities are enrolling in Advanced Placement (AP) science classes. AP science teachers can better serve these students by understanding the various types of disabilities (whether physical, learning, emotional, or behavioral), associated legal issues, and ways to adapt instruction to improve learning by all students in the class. This article offers examples of adjustments you may need to use in your class.

The Challenges Of Implementing Best Practices: Experiences Of Dialogic Reading By Teachers Of Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Students, Jacquelyn Urbani

Education | Faculty Conference Presentations

Deaf and hard of hearing children frequently have delayed language and little experience with books because they do not share a common language with their hearing parents. However, there is little research concerning their language and literacy development in the classroom and equally little discussion of teacher responsibilities to address these issues.

This study investigated the implementation of dialogic reading, which aims to engage students in active discussion and retellings of stories, using American Sign Language. Because dialogic reading research with language delayed, hearing preschool students resulted in significant improvement of language skill (Whitehurst, Arnold, et al., 1994; Whitehurst, et …

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 …

School Gardens: Reconnecting Children With Nature And Food, Alyssa M. Boyle

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis discusses the importance of school gardens. First, two current environmental and societal problems are highlighted: the industrialized food system and what Richard Louv has termed, "Nature Deficit Disorder," in children. School gardens are then presented as an effective tool that can address and remedy such issues. Lastly, a how-to manual for implementing such projects in schools is provided as well as a few sample lesson plans to be used in conjunction with the garden in each subject across the curriculum.

Pre-Service Secondary Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Inclusive Education, Shane Costello, Christopher Boyle

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The attitudes held by pre-service teachers have been shown to affect their willingness and ability to implement an inclusive approach to education. A sample consisting of 193 pre-service secondary teachers enrolled in secondary education courses at an Australian university were surveyed to determine their attitudes towards inclusive education, with a particular focus on attitudinal changes across the years of study. Results indicated that pre-service secondary teachers held positive attitudes towards inclusive education; however there was a significant decline in positive attitudes through the years of study. Pre-service secondary teachers enrolled in postgraduate programs were more inclusive than those enrolled in …

Barriers To Accommodation Use For Students With Disabilities In Postsecondary Education, Michael James Lyman

Theses and Dissertations

Students with disabilities at the postsecondary level face a number of different barriers to accommodation use. Past research has shown that students with disabilities that use accommodations obtain greater academic achievement and higher graduation rates. Limited research has been conducted to identify barriers to accommodation use, and the research that has been conducted has not sampled a population that was specifically identified as having faced barriers to accommodation use. By interviewing students with disabilities, who had been identified as having faced barriers, this study identified seven themes. Four of the identified themes were considered complex as they contained sub-themes, while …

The Cross-Linguistic Effects Of Dialogic Reading On Young Dual Language Learners, Mary Ellen Donovan Huennekens

Theses and Dissertations

English fluency is a strong predictor of later academic success in the U.S. (Espinosa, 2007) In fact, a child who enters kindergarten with weak English language skills is most at risk for academic failure and dropping out of school; while a child with strong home language (L1) skills is more likely to attain fluency in English (Espinosa, 2007). A large portion of young English learners are acquiring their first and second languages at the same time. It is important to young dual language learners (DLL) that research reveals the best ways to provide effective instruction which helps maintain the home …

Predictors Of Perfectionism In Latter-Day Saint Students, Preston V. Tenney

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to gain insight into the prevalence, nature and etiology of perfectionism in a sample of devout Latter-day Saint college students at Brigham Young University. A number of variables-including self-conscious emotions, mental health, interpersonal/cognitive style, and religious orientation-were entered into multiple regression models to determine the strongest predictors of perfectionism. Participants were 245 students studying at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT in the spring of 1995. The self-conscious construct of shame demonstrated to be the strongest predictor of perfectionism followed by depression and religious fundamentalism. In addition to these findings, it was found …

Effects Of Teacher Gender On Screening For Social, Emotional, And Behavioral Concerns For A Middle School Population, Susan E. Hardman

Theses and Dissertations

Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD) often experience serious educational difficulties and negative outcomes (Gresham, MacMillan, & Bocian, 1996; Landrum, Tankersley, & Kauffman, 2003; Rock, Fessler, & Church, 1997). School-wide screening to identify students with social, emotional, and behavioral concerns (SEB) allows school personnel to identify at-risk students and connect them with needed resources. Some students appear to be identified disproportionally, with male students identified as at-risk more frequently then female students (Young, Sabbah, Young, Reiser, & Richardson, 2009). There are many possible factors that could contribute to this disproportionate identification. Since screening for EBD is often based on …

Using Digital Stories To Improve Writing Skills Of Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Michelle Andreevski

Theses and Dissertations

Writing is an important medium to express one's ideas and needs and is an integral part of the curriculum in secondary schools. Within an accountability system, students are expected to compose narrative, persuasive, and informational essays for state and district level assessments. Students with ASD demonstrate developmental delays in language and communication skills, including verbal and written language, thus, writing is a difficult area and challenge in their learning. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of computer-assisted instruction using digital stories to teach expressive writing to students with ASD. A total of six students with autism participated in …

Understanding Lactation Consultants' Evaluation Of Oral Mechanism Function And Dysphagia In Nursing Neonates, Elizabeth Louise Howard

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Infants with dysphagia are at increased risk for poor health and nutritional outcomes (Arvedson, 2008) if improperly diagnosed or managed. Communication between multidisciplinary team members is imperative for transition from screening to intervention. An overlap in scope of practice may exist between lactation consultants (LCs) and speech-language pathologists (SLPs). In order to facilitate multidisciplinary understanding and communication, this study was designed to understand how LCs evaluate oral mechanism function and dysphagia in breastfeeding neonates as well as their understanding of the role of SLPs in the management of dysphagia in neonates through a comparative multi-case, summative qualitative study. Participants described …

Special Education Teacher Persistence, Sally A. Thorp

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The focus of this study was special education teachers, who remained in the teaching field 5 or more years. Through the use of qualitative mixed-methods study, variables contributing to their longevity were explored. Research indicates that 50% of special education teachers leave the field within five years of employment (Alliance for Education, 2004). For the study, 22 teachers from different school districts, as well as different geographical parts of the U.S., were interviewed. One man and 21 women, all with more than five years of experience were interviewed. Data obtained from these interviews was organized into six themes. Themes identified …

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 …

The Impact Of Audio Books On Middle School Students With A Mild Intellectual Disability, Justin Schanck, Milkia Waller

The Corinthian

The purpose of this research is to determine what types of interventions improve the basic reading skills of children diagnosed with a mild intellectual disability, which is defined as having an IQ score of 70 or below. Often these students struggle to keep up with the academic rigor in the middle and high school setting. They lack the basic reading skills necessary to complete coursework and pass their end-of-course tests, which often leads to them dropping out of school. This study is a start to seeing if specific interventions have the capabilities to improve basic reading skills for students with …

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 …

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, …

Measurement Properties Of The Motivation For Youth Treatment Scale With A Residential Group Home Population, Matthew C. Lambert, Kristin Duppong-Hurley, M. Michele Athay Tomlinson, Amy L. Stevens

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

A client’s motivation to receive services has long been identified as a highly relevant component of mental health treatment. In fact, ample evidence demonstrates that client motivation is significantly related to seeking services, remaining in services, and improved client outcomes (e.g., Broome, Joe, & Simpson, 2001; Ryan, Plant, & O’Malley, 1995; Schroder, Sellman, Frampton, & Deering, 2009). Additionally, it has been recognized that motivation is a “dynamic” characteristic that changes throughout treatment (Melnick, De Leon, Hawke, Jainchill, & Kressel, 1997; Schroder et al., 2009). In this way, motivation is an important client factor to assess and monitor throughout the treatment …

A Review Of Choice And Preference Assessments To Increase Academic Attainment For Autism Spectrum Disorders, Jamie Emery, Janet L. Applin, Marty Boman

Kentucky Teacher Education Journal: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Kentucky Council for Exceptional Children

Many schools use choice and preference assessments to decrease and/or increase behaviors of students with disabilities such as Autism Spectrum Disorders or ASD. Although there exists scant evidence from the literature exploring the relationship between utilizing choice and preference assessments as a tool to increase academic achievement, the Council for Exceptional Children’s (CEC ) “ Initial Level Special Educator Preparation Standards” require beginning special education professionals to, “select, adapt, and use a repertoire of evidence-based instructional strategies to advance learning of individuals with exceptionalities,” (CEC, 2012). To contribute to the knowledge base regarding using choice and preference assessment as a …

Bibliotherapy And Autism Spectrum Disorder: Making Inclusion Work, Nancy D. Turner

Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education

As the incidence of autism spectrum disorder increases and as the emphasis on inclusion for students with autism continues in schools, it is critical that professionals, parents, and community members work to provide consistent evidence-based practices across settings. Based upon research conducted through the National Professional Development Center on Autism (2009), there are twenty-four evidence-based practices for students with autism. One important practice for inclusive classrooms is that of Peer Mediated Instruction and Intervention (PMII). With the goal to increase quality interaction between individuals with and without disabilities, an initial step of PMII is to familiarize neurotypical peers with age-appropriate …