Audrey Sorrells

From Marginalized to Maximized Opportunities for Diverse Youths With Disabilities A Position Paper of the Division on Career Development and Transition

Current secondary education and transition practices have created differential education and employment outcomes by gender, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and disability classifications. These differential outcomes result in economic and social marginalization of far too many students with disabilities. Transition education practices need to respond to these differential outcomes and provide targeted, systematic, and long-term opportunities for all students to attain individually and family-determined postschool goals. This position paper recommends an ecological framework for considering the multiple systems that influence transition education and postschool outcomes for diverse youths with disabilities. The authors argue for educators, researchers, and policy makers to attend to social, political, economic, educational, and cultural contexts in developing effective interventions and improving postschool outcomes.

Ethnicity Reporting Practices for Empirical Research in Three Autism-Related Journals.

This review examines ethnicity reporting in three autism-related journals (Autism, Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, and Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders) over a 6-year period. A comprehensive multistep search of articles is used to identify ethnicity as a demographic variable in these three journals. Articles that identified research participants’ ethnicity were further analyzed to determine the impact of ethnicity as a demographic variable on findings of each study. The results indicate that ethnicity has not been adequately reported in these three autism related journals even though previous recommendations have been made to improve inadequacies of descriptive information of research participants in autism research (Kistner and Robbins in J Autism Dev Disord 16:77–82, 1986). Implications for the field of autism spectrum disorders are discussed in addition to further recommendations for future research.

Examination of a Social Problem-Solving Intervention to Treat Selective Mutism.

The authors examined the use of a social problem-solving intervention to treat selective mutism with 2 sisters in an elementary school setting. Both girls were taught to answer teacher questions in front of their classroom peers during regular classroom instruction. Each girl received individualized instruction from a therapist and was taught to discriminate salient social cues, select an appropriate social response, perform the response, and evaluate her performance. The girls generalized the skills to their respective regular classrooms and maintained the skills for up to 3 months after the removal of the intervention. Experimental control was demonstrated using a multiple baseline design across participants. Limitations of this study and issues for future research are discussed.

The Ecological and Population Validity of Reading Interventions for Adolescents: Can Effectiveness Be Generalized?.

This article examined the ecological and population validity of research on reading interventions for adolescents in Grades 6 through 12. The 26 studies meeting selection criteria were analyzed to determine the characteristics of the students, interventionists, classroom structures, and school environments used, as well as whether there were differential effects of treatments across those characteristics. In the 20+ years since the calls by the Council for Learning Disabilities and National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities for greater specificity in descriptions of study participants and contexts, the findings of this study suggest that researchers have provided greater detail on participants, but many questions remain about the extent to which findings can be generalized. Specifically, gaps in the research exist with regard to African American and Native American students; English language learners; students in suburban, rural, and adjudicated schools; students in high school; interventions delivered by regular classroom teachers; interventions focused on vocabulary; and interventions in large groups and general education classrooms.

Characteristic Reading Behaviors of Poor Readers Who Have Learning Disabilities.

Most students who receive special education services have significant difficulties with reading. Because teachers are considered the major source of referral for special education services, they must know the characteristic reading behaviors that distinguish students with reading disabilities. The purpose of this study was to validate literature-based reading behaviors by professionals who work with students with reading disabilities (RD) and to identify those behaviors that predict reading disabilities. Utilizing a rating scale developed from the neuropsychological and learning disability literature, 391 professionals were asked to identify reading behaviors in their poor readers identified as having learning disabilities (LD). Findings from t-test analyses revealed statistically significant differences between students with LD who had reading disabilities and students with LD without reading disabilities, affirming the literature-based group of behaviors that constitute reading disability. Additionally, reading rate was found to be most predictive of reading disability in the LD group with reading disabilities. Implications include characteristic reading behaviors that can be used with other reading measures during screening and diagnosis and that can be considered when planning remedial intervention programs.

Assistive Technology for People with Behavior Problems

This chapter provides a selective overview of the use of assistive technology used to support persons with diverse abilities who engage in problem behavior. By it is nature this is a very broad topic and incorporates a wide array of populations and assistive technologies strategies. The chapter begins with a description and definition of problem behavior. Next is an overview of the characteristics of the populations that have received assistive technology interventions to treat problem behavior. This overview of population characteristics will enhance the reader’s understanding of the nature of problem behavior and also provide a deeper understanding of the rationale for the use of various assistive technologies in the following section of the chapter. The next section of the chapter provides a selective overview of the assistive technologies used to manage problem behavior. Assistive technology strategies will be divided into two general categories—those that focus on (a) antecedent cue or self-control strategies (enhancing stimulus control of adaptive behavior and/or teaching persons to monitor their own behavior) and (b) consequence strategies (providing consequences contingent upon problem behavior or teaching persons to use appropriate communication to access desired consequences). The final section provides an overview of the clinical and academic implications of the use of assistive technologies to support persons with behavior problems.

A Synthesis of Technology-Mediated Mathematics Interventions for Students With or at Risk for Mathematics Learning Disabilities:

With the increasing availability of technology and the emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education, there is an urgent need to understand the impact of technology-mediated mathematics (TMM) interventions on student mathematics outcomes. The purpose of this study was to review studies on TMM interventions that target the mathematical outcomes of K–12 students with or at risk for mathematics learning disabilities (MLDs). A review of the literature revealed 19 studies (9 single-case and 10 group/quasi experimental designs) published between 2000 and 2016. Results suggest that TMM interventions had mainly positive results on the mathematics outcomes of students with or at risk for MLD. This study also examined the extent to which principles of explicit instruction were integrated in TMM interventions. While many of the interventions provided frequent practice opportunities with academic feedback, few complemented such practice opportunities with overt demonstrations and explanations of mathematical content. Implications for designing TMM interventions are discussed.

Effects of Two Interventions on Solving Basic Fact Problems by Second Graders with Mathematics Learning Disabilities.

This study used a multiple probe across participants design, replicated across two interventions and counterbalanced across participant groups to examine the effects of number sense intervention and extensive practice intervention on strategy transformation when students with mathematics learning disabilities (MLD) solved basic fact problems. In addition, the effects of both interventions on students’ fact retrieval performance and generalization performance were also tested. To examine the effects of each intervention, the participants were divided into two groups and the order of the interventions was varied between the two groups. The results showed that, in general, students demonstrated a greater extent of strategy transformation and generalization after receiving the number sense intervention. However, the extensive practice intervention promoted students’ use of retrieval-based strategies to solve basic facts. Findings suggested that both interventions had positive impacts on students with MLD and should be used in tandem.