Jo M. Hendrickson

Middle and High School Students' Perceptions on Being Friends with Peers with Severe Disabilities

A survey on friendships with peers with severe disabilities of 1,137 middle and high school students was conducted across three states. Students indicated that they should try to make friends with peers with severe disabilities and that friendships are most likely to develop when students with disabilities are educated in general education classes, for all or part of the school day. Students perceived themselves, special education teachers, and youth organizations as primarily responsible for facilitating these friendships, and that effective strategies involve learning situations in which students work together, teachers present information on disabilities, and teachers and parents arrange social events for all students.

Forty Years Later —The Value of Praise, Ignoring, and Rules for Preschoolers at Risk for Behavior Disorders

The pivotal role of teachers in establishing positive, supportive, inclusive learning environments based on the implementation of empirically-supported teaching strategies (IDEA, 1997, 2004: NCLB, 2002) is uncontestable. Nonetheless, it is not uncommon to find classrooms characterized by teacher reprimands for inappropriate behavior, coercive interchanges between teachers and children, and limited use of positive teacher feedback. This suggests a need for teachers to implement scientifically supported strategies for promoting positive social and academic growth of young children at risk for behavioral disorders. In the context of a multi-tiered approach to positive behavior supports, we decided to revisit three classroom-level interventions strategies for which there is longitudinal evidence regarding their efficacy—namely, praise, planned ignoring, and classroom rules. Each is discussed, along with guidelines for use by classroom teachers with the goal to improve teacher-child relationships, build positive learning communities, and manage difficult behaviors.

Lessons Learned From Research on Early Intervention: What Teachers Can Do to Prevent Children's Behavior Problems

There is mounting evidence that the majority of severe and chronic problem behaviors demonstrated by school-aged children and adolescents stem from behavior patterns that are established during early childhood. Without early identification and proactive prevention/intervention among young children at risk, problem behavior is likely to continue to develop and lead to long-term, chronic, and disabling conditions. Today, early detection and intervention seems to be the most powerful course of action for ameliorating life-long problems associated with children at risk for emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD). Notwithstanding mounting support for early intervention, it is not easy to identify the components of a quality program of early intervention. The purpose of the following discussion is threefold: (a) to discuss some of the major factors associated with childrens behavior problems, (b) to summarize the current research on early intervention for the prevention of behavior problems for children at risk, and (c) to offer strategies that teachers can use to identify and treat children at risk of developing behavior problems.

Bullying Status and Behavior Patterns of Preadolescents and Adolescents with Behavioral Disorders

A peer-rating scale was employed to identify the bullying status and behavior patterns of 27 preadolescents and adolescents with BD who were included in general education classes. Together with responses of 247 peers (total n = 274), results indicated that 11% of the students with BD were labeled bullies (vs. 11% of peers), 33% victims (vs. 9% of peers), and 15% bully/victims (vs. 4% of peers). Statistically significant differences were found in bullying status and behavior patterns. Bullies tended to be inattentive and hyperactive with limited prosocial interactions. Victims, as well as being withdrawn, were more inattentive and hyperactive than non-bully/non-victims. Bully/victims were highly inattentive and hyperactive. Students with BD were unilaterally rated as having increased behavior problems and decreased prosocial skills.

Effects of Combined Reading and Question Generation on Reading Fluency and Comprehension of Three Young Adults With Autism and Intellectual Disability

Reread–Adapt and Answer–Comprehend (RAAC) is a reading intervention designed to target fluency and comprehension for students with disabilities. Previous researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of the intervention for students with learning disabilities. This study extended the research by using the RAAC intervention with three postsecondary students with autism spectrum disorder. In the context of a multiple baseline across participants design, the results can be interpreted to conclude that the RAAC intervention may improve oral reading fluency and comprehension for young adults with autism. Using the linear weekly growth model based on the slope, the authors calculated realistic and ambitious goals. Participants’ fluency gains exceeded the ambitious levels of growth and transferred to unpracticed passages. In addition, all participants correctly answered more factual and inferential comprehension questions during the intervention.

Antecedent and Contingent Modeling to Teach Basic Sight Vocabulary to Learning Disabled Children

The results of this study support the validity and reliability of the TOLD subtests when they are used with language-impaired children. A group of children who had been classified as having deviant language performed significantly more poorly than a matched group of normal children on all seven subtests skills. Children with articulation problems were inferior to normal speakers on all but two receptive tasks. Even more interesting is the fact that the TOLD results appear to confirm the clinical classifications of the language-impaired child, since those with deviant language performed significantly worse than those with articulation and sentence imitation.

Early-career EBD Teacher Knowledge, Ratings of Competency Importance, and Observed Use of Instruction and Management Competencies

The empirical, conceptual, and theoretical knowledge of early-career EBD teachers was assessed two years after student teaching and compared to their ratings of the importance of specific instruction and classroom management competencies as well as to their application of those competencies. Twelve teachers, six elementary and six secondary, with masters degrees in special education were assessed and three explicit instruction lessons observed across a 4-month period. A significant positive correlation was found between teacher knowledge and teacher classroom use of individualized support strategies; no correlations were found between knowledge, teacher ratings, and teacher use of three other competency clusters. Thirteen competencies were applied universally and the overall quality of explicit instruction was satisfactory to excellent. Although very dissatisfied with education law and administrative issues, eleven intended to teach in special education for the foreseeable future; one planned to switch to general education after two more years. Implications for teacher education and future research are discussed.

Cognitive, Affective, and Relational Dimensions of Middle School Students: Implications for Improving Discipline and Instruction.

ur system of public education was founded on the proposition that children should have the opportunity to acquire an education, and this is a responsibility it has performed well (Van Acker 2004). But recently, that role has changed dramatically; no longer is it enough simply to offer students educational opportunity. Today, the expectation is that all students will benefit from that schooling and achieve academic success (Van Acker 2004). Among the most omnipresent signs of that shift in responsibility is the rise in standards-driven, high-stakes testing. Federal legislation, most notably the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), put tremendous pressure on school personnel to raise student achievement. At the elementary, middle, and secondary level, administrators and teachers now are accountable for obtaining high levels of achievement gain on standards-based assessments. In light of current educational reform, it is understandable that few school personnel are very tolerant when it comes to classroom behavior problems. Many classroom teachers have adopted a “refer-and-remove” philosophy when it comes to students who do not comply with the code of conduct. Student referrals for special education are especially prevalent in middle schools. However, that practice is at odds with other federal legislation, namely, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1997). The act stipulates that, under certain conditions, school personnel must address the reciprocal relationship between student learning and behavior problems (Gable et al. 2000). If teachers are to adequately address behavior that impedes the teaching/learning process, they must have the skills and supports to respond to a rapidly changing school age population. There are a number of factors that can undermine a teacher’s ability to respond successfully to behavior problems in schools. They include: (a) difficulty relating to an increasingly more diverse group of students,; (b) lack of skills to adequately assess student behavior and to identify major factors associated with problem behavior; and (c) the inability to develop pupil-specific academic interventions that provide students success and, at the same time, promote positive social interactions (see Gable et al. 2000; Wilson et al. 1998). In the following discussion, we examine critically these three overlapping areas, underscore the importance of explicit instruction, and highlight the significance of both informal conversations and structured interviews with students. We explain how student interviews can be especially useful when addressing common behavior problems of middle school students.

Content of Special Education Teacher Preparation Are We Headed in the Right Direction

This article represents an effort to examine the content of special education teacher-training programs in relationship to the changing role and function of special educators. This investigation involved a national survey of special education undergraduate and graduate programs on the relative amount of emphasis placed on (a) preschool, primary, adolescent, and adult populations and (b) 11 content areas. While the data reveal no significant differences with regard to the four pupil populations, rankings for the 11 content areas were significantly different across university educational levels (i.e,, undergraduate and graduate programs). Implications for training special education personnel are discussed.

Teacher-Handicapped Child Classroom Interactions

Traditionally, teachers in preservice special education have been trained according to categories of exceptionality or handicapping condition. Advocates of an emerging noncategorical approach argue that (a) categories are not educationally relevant, (b) categorical groupings overlap with individual differences, and (c) diagnostic labels can lead to negative and stereotypic perceptions of exceptional learners. The present study represents an effort to provide empirical data to clarify the relationship between teacher behavior and pupil categories of exceptionality. Two specific hypotheses were examined. First, is there a relationship between teacher-pupil interactions and category of exceptionality or type of teacher traininglexperience? Second, is there a relationship between teacher planning behavior and pupil categories of exceptionality or type of teacher training/ experience? Sixty-eight teachers of learning disabled/behavior disordered and mentally retarded pupils were observed during direct instruction and participated in structured interviews to answer the above questions. Results indicate that there are few differences in interactions between teachers of the learning disabled/behavior disordered and teachers of the mentally retarded and their pupils. Results also indicate that there are few differences between those two groups of teachers with respect to ways in which they plan for direct instruction. Findings of this study support the opinion that teacher competencies should relate directly to specific instructional problems rather than emphasize categorical labels or deficits attributed to child categories.