Erik Drasgow

Developing Legally Correct and Educationally Appropriate IEPs

The Individualized Education Program (IEP) has been the cornerstone of special education since the Education for All Handicapped Children Act became law in 1975. We begin this article by examining the relationship between the IEP and a free, appropriate public education. Then we discuss the IEP process and highlight the procedural changes and new requirements mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997. Next, we present information from a number of due process hearings and cases that have involved IEPs to illustrate mistakes school districts often make that can result in rulings against a district. Finally, we provide guidelines to assist schools with developing legally correct and educationally appropriate IEPs.

Developing Legally Correct and Educationally Appropriate Programs for Students With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Over the past decade, there has been a dramatic increase in litigation regarding the education of students With autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Because of the complexity of ASD and the costs of litigation related to the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, ASD has become a high-stakes issue for parents and school districts. The purpose of this article is to extrapolate principles from the ASD litigation to provide guidelines to assist Individualized Education Program teams in developing appropriate special education programs for students With ASD.

Conditional Use of Aided and Unaided AAC A Review and Clinical Case Demonstration

Individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities often have severe communication impairment and are therefore candidates for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). For these individuals, successful communication across a range of situations, settings, and communicative partners may depend on their type or mode of AAC. An aided AAC mode may be more effective under some circumstances, whereas an unaided mode may be more effective under other circumstances. This situation suggests the need to develop conditional use of multiple modes of AAC and to teach individuals when to use each mode. In this article we examine aspects of multimodal AAC and review instructional strategies for developing conditional use of aided and unaided AAC. This is followed by a case study involving an adolescent boy with developmental disability who acquired conditional use of aided and unaided AAC based on the presence or absence of an aided device. Results suggest that careful programming during intervention may promote conditional use of multiple modes of AAC.

Promoting a Lifetime of Inclusion.

The purpose of this article is to assist parents and professionals in developing effective educational programs that promote a lifetime of successful inclusion for individuals With severe disabilities. We first establish the principle of normalization as the philosophical basis of inclusion. We next describe conditions and practices that reflect the principle of normalization and that foster inclusion across the life span. These conditions and practices consist of universal design, person-centered planning, self-determination, and positive behavior support. We end by suggesting that inclusion may be vieWed as a continuum and that With the appropriate supports and skill development, all people, regardless of disability level, can successfully move up the continuum to more inclusive environments.

Bilingual/Bicultural Deaf Education: An Overview

Methods and approaches used to foster English language acquisition in deaf students have a long history of change. The recent use of manually coded English (MCE) systems has not produced desired results. Current research on American Sign Language (ASL) has proved it to be a genuine language with its own systems for making words and sentences. The acceptance of ASL has led to increased demands that deaf students be allowed to acquire ASL as a first language and English as a second language. Proposed methods for teaching English as a second language have been drawn from models of second language acquisition in hearing speakers. Because language and culture are closely related, these proposed bilingual ASL/English models include a cultural as well as a linguistic component. Several proposed models and related research are here examined and a pilot program for bilingual/ bicultural teaching is suggested.

American Sign Language as a Pathway to Linguistic Competence

Recently, it has been argued that American Sign Language (ASL) should be the first language of some deaf children and that English should be taught as a second language. This article supports that argument on both philosophical and empirical grounds. Philosophical support stems from viewing deafness as a cultural difference rather than as a medical disability. Empirical evidence demonstrates that (a) ASL is a natural language, (b) deaf children acquire ASL in a normal and predictable manner when exposure occurs at an early age, and (c) deaf children who acquire ASL at an early age may outperform other deaf children on all measures of academic achievement. Based on the empirical evidence presented, implications for educational practice are provided.

Increasing Induction-Level Teachers' Positive-to-Negative Communication Ratio and Use of Behavior-Specific Praise through E-Mailed Performance Feedback and Its Effect on Students' Task Engagement.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of e-mailed specific performance feedback that included progress monitoring graphs on induction-level teachers’ ratios of positive-to-negative communication behaviors and their use of behavior-specific praise in classrooms for students with emotional and behavioral disorders, mild intellectual disabilities, and learning disabilities. We also examined the effects of teachers’ communication behavior on students’ academic task engagement. Results indicate that the e-mailed performance-feedback intervention increased teachers’ use of positive communication behaviors and decreased their use of negative communication behaviors. These effects resulted in higher positive-to-negative ratios. Furthermore, the teacher praise became more behavior-specific for academic and social behaviors, and students’ level of task engagement improved and became more stable.

Teaching a child with autism and severe language delays to reject: direct and indirect effects of functional communication training

We used functional communication training to teach Bob, a 10‐year‐old student with autism and severe language delays, to reject items by touching an icon. Our initial assessment revealed that Bob’s behaviours serving a rejecting function consisted of pushing away, yelling, bear hugging‐grabbing, and leaving. We used prompting, differential reinforcement, and error correction procedures to replace pushing away with touching an icon to reject. We examined the effects of this direct intervention on pushing away on Bob’s other rejecting behaviours to determine if there was any response co‐variation. Results indicate that we were successful at replacing pushing away with touching an icon to reject items, but that this intervention had variable effects on the other behaviours serving a rejecting function. We discuss the implications of our procedures and results for the use of functional communication training in the treatment of problem behaviours in children with autism.

Discrete-Trial Functional Analysis and Functional Communication Training With Three Individuals With Autism and Severe Problem Behavior

Discrete-trial functional analysis (DTFA) is an experimental method for determining the variables maintaining problem behavior in the context of natural routines. Functional communication training (FCT) is an effective method for replacing problem behavior, once identified, with a functionally equivalent response. We implemented these procedures in the natural environment for three individuals with developmental disabilities who resided in a residential treatment facility. Study 1 results show that the DTFA procedures experimentally validated the function of each participant’s problem behavior after completing a functional assessment using informal and descriptive methods. Study 2 results reveal that FCT was successful at replacing problem behavior with an alternative communication behavior that served the same function. A unique feature of this study was the use of behavioral indication (i.e., observable behavior signaling momentary motivation) as a cue for determining when to deliver the FCT intervention.

Effects of Different Social Partners on the Discriminated Requesting of a Young Child with Autism and Severe Language Delays.

We examined the effects of two adult social partners on the requesting repertoire of a young child with autism and severe language delays. We used a multiple-schedule design (Kazdin, 1982) to evaluate the request topography that the participant emitted relative to each social partners contingent differential reinforcement for specific requesting forms. The contingencies associated with each adult were reversed after the participant reached a preestablished criterion of discriminated responding. The participant learned to request in a discriminated manner in the presence of each social partner. Implications of these results are discussed.