Social Stories™ are a story-based intervention commonly used to teach students with disabilities how to behave in new routines or changing environments, academic skills, and social interactions including tacting others' emotions. According to the National Standards Project, story-based interventions are considered an established treatment.…

Background/Context: This qualitative study investigates teachers' perspectives on providing inclusive services for students with complex support needs. Using a Disability Studies in Education (DSE) framework, the research focuses on understanding the challenges and strategies associated with promoting inclusive education, with attention to issues…

Paraprofessionals play a significant role in the education system. However, they often need more training on specific instructional strategies to use with the students they work with. In this study, we trained two paraprofessionals working in a self-contained U.S. elementary classroom for students with high-intensity behavioral support needs. Each…

As a result of educational reforms in many countries, including Finland, new or renovated comprehensive schools have increasingly begun to incorporate open and flexible designs and principles. Multipurpose and adaptable open learning spaces can provide children with amplified opportunities to be physically active during general education.…

Shared reading focuses on the interaction between an adult and one or more children as they experience a book together. While research has documented classroom shared reading practices among students with diverse characteristics, few have focused on students with significant support needs. Using a conversation-analytic approach, this study sought…

Little is known about the content and quality of reading instruction provided to students with intellectual disability. This study aimed to describe the reading instruction provided to students with intellectual disability who were not yet readers in self-contained elementary classrooms. The teachers of 24 classrooms participated in the study.…

The primary aim of professional learning and development (PLD) is to create a meaningful experience to build educator knowledge and practice that can positively affect student behavior. Yet, few studies evaluate the role of PLD with special educators who work with students with emotional and behavioral disorders in self-contained settings. The…

We explore the resiliency (i.e., the ability of a system to return to its original state or move to a new desirable state after being disrupted) of traditional lecture-based classes and flipped classes in the face of disruption caused by COVID-19. One flipped class and one traditional lecture-based class, both taught in the Department of Marketing…

We created the Recognizing Excellence in Learning and Teaching (RELATE) Tool for Special Education Classroom Observation to fill the need for a well-researched, observational tool that provides a more accurate lens for observing instructional and social processes in the self-contained, special education setting. In this study, we examined the…

Adolescent students with high levels of antisocial behavior are at increased risk for future psychosocial problems and can be expected to be especially vulnerable to negative peer influence. This study therefore examined whether higher risk students are more susceptible than lower risk students to classroom peer influence on aggression. Analyses…

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to summarize single-case design studies in which paraprofessionals delivered interventions to students with autism spectrum disorder in school settings. We descriptively analyzed participant and intervention characteristics and study quality and estimated intervention effect using Tau-U across student…

Incremental rehearsal (IR) is a flashcard intervention that involves the interspersal of previously mastered targets and immediate error correction. Previous research indicates IR is an effective intervention for teaching discrete skills. Much of existing research, however, was conducted with typically developing students. The current study aimed…

The practice of serving students with emotional and behavioral challenges in the United States has been fraught with anxiety, fear, and stress. Fortunately, researchers in the field of emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) have identified a range of empirically supported interventions to improve outcomes for students with EBD. This study sought…

This study examined the psychological well-being of students enrolled in two gifted programs with different service delivery models. Participants were 292 fifth- and sixth-grade students (M[subscript age] = 11.70, SD[subscript age] = 0.65) enrolled in a gifted math pull-out program (n = 103), a self-contained gifted program (n = 90), or a program…

COVID-19 has presented new challenges for all teachers, especially teachers of students with special needs. Students have struggled with online learning environments with limited opportunities for social interaction and resources for these disruptive times. The study examined the effect of a professional development (PD) intervention, guided by…