The transition from high school to adulthood is typically accompanied by student's prepping and planning for post-secondary education and employment following the completion of their education. Obtaining employment is a key milestone in a young adult's life and provides the opportunity for earning money, living independently, and actively…

Engaging recent points of discussion within academia and practitioner research focused on access/ibility in the cybersecurity workplace, this dissertation examines the impacts of National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) cybersecurity workforce frameworks on people and communities within the field of cybersecurity. The emerging era in…

Despite changes in laws and access to education, individuals with disabilities continue to have fewer positive postsecondary outcomes than their non-disabled peers (Shogren et al., 2015). Negative secondary and postsecondary outcomes for individuals with disabilities include failure to graduate from high school, lack of postsecondary education,…

For individuals with disabilities, learning functional living skills, such as meal preparation, laundry, and cleaning tasks, can greatly increase their level of happiness and decrease their need to rely on others (Storey & Miner, 2017). The purpose of this study was to evaluate a pyramidal BST package to teach staff to implement a training…

According to the Assistive Technology Act of 2004, assistive technology is defined as, "any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities." The use of AT helps persons with…

Creating accessible instruction has been a subject of debate and lawsuits since the Civil Rights Movement. Examples include "Mills v. Board of Education" in 1972 discussed the 14th Amendment of equal rights in public K-12 education; instances involving extracurricular after-school programs, such as the YMCA Middle Tennessee Agreement for…

The study explores how middle schools in Bergen County, New Jersey adapted their social studies curricula to include representation of LGBTQ persons, outlined by Chapter 35 of Title 18A:"35-4.35," in their curriculum, and investigated examples of lessons said to include examples of the mandate. This study sought to understand the impact…

Statistical learning (SL), the ability to detect and extract regularities from inputs, has been considered as an early-maturing and domain-general mechanism that is critical for typical language development. However, recent evidence in neurotypical adults and children have found that individuals can vary in their SL abilities across linguistic and…

Children with multiple disabilities may experience significant disabilities in two or more areas of functioning including vision, motor, hearing, and communication such that they face limitations in social interactions throughout their daily lives (Bruce & Ivy, 2017). Many children have complex communication needs and evidence indicates that…

As autistic individuals grow into adulthood, they are much more likely to experience a need for employment-related skills, with research on these skills lacking relative to child-focused research. Accordingly, this dissertation examined existing literature on employment-related skill development and based on community consultation, developed…

A large proportion of students with disabilities (SWD) have social skills deficits that make it difficult for them to succeed in school, work, and life. This quantitative, quasi-experimental, non-equivalent, pretest-posttest, control group study was designed to explore whether SWD can better transfer their learned social skills to natural…

Youth with disabilities benefit from being included in extracurricular activities. However, often youth with a disability do not participate in extracurricular activities. The purpose of this basic, qualitative study was to explore the experiences of Extension Youth Development Professionals (YDPs) as they serve youth with disabilities in their…

This study explored the intersection of Autistic burnout and educator burnout and it's the impact on mental health and wellbeing for Autistic educators in the United States. Through collaboration with five Autistic Community Partners (ACPs), the research team interviewed five Autistic Educators (AEs) who had left the field of education about their…

Since the adoption of CCSS by 43 states, there has been growing concern regarding teacher training and preparation of state standards for students with disabilities. Through a better understanding of the kinds of support and training needed for teachers to apply the CCSS, the educational system may offer students with disabilities the experience…

Current workplace learning for those who work in businesses that host a Project SEARCH program (a high school transition-to-work program) is not cohesive and comprehensive enough to sufficiently promote the equity and inclusion of people with disabilities in the workforce. Consequently, young adults with disabilities may experience implicit or…