Teachers of young children with moderate to significant support needs may have insufficient training to implement naturalistic instructional practices such as contingent responding. Naturalistic instructional practices are well researched, but limited studies exist on training teachers to use contingent responses to support children increasing…

Historical reasoning, as a disciplinary literacy, aims to develop higher-order thinking in addition to depth of historical knowledge beyond the textbook and memorization of facts. It teaches students to use information across multiple sources to contextualize and corroborate historical accounts, constructing an informed yet critical interpretation…

Spelling instruction is often overlooked by many teachers during reading and language arts. The purpose of this study was to implement a manageable differentiated word study instruction curriculum, drawn from the "Words Their Way (WTW)" curriculum, to determine how it affected students' spelling accuracy and how the participants…

Teachers' perceptions play a critical role in defining and giving meaning to new initiatives and policies in schools. However, very little is known about the perceptions of self-contained special educators responsible for students with significant cognitive disabilities (SCD) pertaining to the inclusion of students with SCD in general education…

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…

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…