There is a growing number of inclusive postsecondary education (IPSE) programs and scholarship in higher education. Providing a spectrum of educational opportunities for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in higher education plays a pivotal role in creating inclusive and meaningful access to postsecondary education.…

Discipline disproportionality among African American students with disabilities is well documented in empirical research; however, there are limited studies about school administrators' perspectives on practices leading to disproportionality for this population. The purpose of this study was to examine school administrators' perspectives on…

History, trends, and data indicate the harm of segregation for persons with significant cognitive disabilities (SCD; Burton & Blatt; 1966; Nielsen, 2013). One school district in the northeastern part of the United States began facilitating systemic change in 2017. This qualitative case study investigated this school district's multi-year…

Students with disabilities are entering higher education at increased rates (National Center Educational Statistics, 2016). The aim of this study was to investigate graduate teaching assistants' knowledge, attitudes, and professional development needs regarding students with disabilities in higher education. A modification of Sniatecki's (2015)…

With the passing of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) in 2004, it became law that every child age three to twenty-one with a disability in the United States had access to a free and appropriate education through services provided by certified special education teachers and therapists. As service providers, special education teachers are…

The role of the building administrator as the special education leader of inclusion is one of major importance when supporting students with disabilities. The building administrator may face a multitude of decisions dealing with areas of special education such as eligibility, least restrictive environment, services, discipline, and instruction.…

Special education researchers and practitioners have increasingly demonstrated that disability accommodations may afford students with disabilities (SWD) enhanced opportunities for academic success. However, disability accommodations have primarily been designed and delivered within the context of the traditional classroom settings in higher…

Many students in the United States are not proficient in mathematics. Mathematics vocabulary is one area that may impact students' understanding of and engagement with mathematics. This dissertation investigated the implementation, effectiveness, and teacher's perceptions of a program for teaching mathematics vocabulary necessary for fourth grade…

The dissertation includes two independent chapters which investigated the experiences of individuals with disabilities in connection with societal attitudes regarding disability. The first article is a systematized review which analyzes and synthesizes the existing literature on implicit and explicit disability attitudes across multiple domains…

Individuals with developmental disabilities demonstrate deficits in intellectual and adaptive functioning that can include difficulty describing past events; accurate recall may be improved by learning to engage in precurrent, or problem solving, behavior. Visual imagining is a problem-solving strategy that involves seeing in the absence of the…

This qualitative study explored the experiences of vocational rehabilitation counselors (VRC) serving racially diverse clients and how VRCs are trained and educated to work with racially diverse clients. VRCs are typically employed by federally funded state or federal rehabilitation agencies. In their role, they aim to provide individualized tools…

College-choice research typically analyzed students based on a single perspective of their identity rather than from an intersecting perspective. However, such research fails to account for the experience of people with intersecting identities determining their college options. This study explores (a) the factors that contributed to the…

Many middle school students with disabilities struggle to read fluently and express comprehension of entire passages. This is because they comprise a population of students who continue to struggle to quickly and accurately read single words in isolation, also known as word recognition automaticity. These students often have struggled for several…

Although a college degree is an increasingly important gateway to economic advancement in the United States, high school students with disabilities enroll in postsecondary education at lower rates than nondisabled students. The disparities in college access for these students indicate that there may be differences in how they are navigating the…

Ten participants who demonstrated consistently high resiliency were nominated by their teachers of the visually impaired for this study. They were asked to complete an initial survey consisting of basic demographic information as well as the Walsh Family Resiliency questionnaire. Those who scored with a 4 or higher and indicated interest in…