John M. Schaefer

Location Matters Geographic Location and Educational Placement of Students With Developmental Disabilities

Despite decades of advocacy, most students with developmental disabilities continue to spend the majority of the school day in self-contained special education classrooms. However, there is tremendous variability of educational placement across the United States. Identification of geographic trends that explain this variability could provide opportunities for targeted advocacy. Using state-level data in Ohio, we tested the hypothesis that urbanicity predicts educational placement. Through mapping and multivariate analysis of variance, we found that students in urban districts tended to spend less time in general education classrooms, and students in rural districts tended to spend more time in general education classrooms. Furthermore, the urban districts with the largest enrollments tended to place an even lower proportion of students in general education classrooms. Given their disproportionate influence on state trends and propensity toward more self-contained and segregated placements, large urban districts offer a unique opportunity for targeted advocacy and change.

Survival of Histoplasma capsulatum in experimental histoplasmosis in Mice.

Summary Yeast phase H. capsulatum when inoculated, intraperitoneally, into white Swiss male mice may be recovered frequently from reticuloendothelial tissues as late as 45 weeks after infection. The lungs and hearts blood usually clear within 16 weeks post-inoculation. Mice surviving previous sublethal challenge or those previously given 1 dose of heat-killed organisms show little variation in these respects, when challenged, from those receiving primary challenge.

The Place of Peers in Peer-Mediated Interventions for Students With Intellectual Disability

Although peer-mediated interventions are an evidence-based approach for improving social and learning outcomes for students with intellectual disability (ID), their impact on participating peers has received limited attention. Knowing whether and how peers are affected could influence the extent to which these interventions are more widely adopted in schools. The purpose of this review was to (a) summarize extant research on the behaviors of peers without disabilities and their perception of interacting with students with ID, (b) identify common behaviors measured for peers, and (c) evaluate the effects of peer-mediated interventions on peers. Toward that effort, we reviewed 53 studies. Results indicate that interventions have successfully increased peers’ interactions with their classmates with ID and suggest some positive outcome for peers; however, consistent methodological gaps limit further analysis. We offer recommendations for strengthening future research involving peers within interventions for students with ID.

Relation of sex and age to resistance of Mice to experimental Histoplasma infections.

Conclusions Age, sex, and dose are important factors in comparative susceptibility of mice to fatal histoplasma infections. Both sexes may show lower mortality ratios with increasing age. Females develop resistance earlier than males. This difference is most apparent between 8 to 14 weeks.

A Review of Research on Teaching People with Significant Disabilities Vocational Skills.

Although an important part of adult life, individuals with significant disabilities experience low rates of gainful employment. The purpose of this review was to summarize and analyze the literature on teaching vocational skills to individuals with significant disabilities. Sixty-two articles (with 75 experiments) included in this review were published between 1969 and 2014, and indicated that most participants were successfully taught to engage in a variety of vocational skills in a range of settings. Unfortunately, this review also determined that the research on teaching vocational skills to individuals with significant disabilities is steadily decreasing, with only 15 new studies published since 2000. Potential directions for future research will be proposed.

Some Factors Affecting Resistance of Mice to Experimental Histoplasmosis.

Summary White Swiss male mice 8 to 12 weeks of age were more susceptible to intraperitoneal inoculations of yeast phase H. capsulatum than mice 14 weeks or more in age. Mice surviving previous sub-lethal infections were more resistant to subsequent challenge 6 weeks later. Vaccination with heat-killed yeast phase antigens resulted in a decrease in the number of fatal infections following massive challenge 6 weeks later.

Findings Across Practitioner Training Studies in Special Education: A Comprehensive Review and Meta-Analysis:

Existing reviews address important questions about subsets of practitioner training studies in special education but leave important questions about the broader literature unanswered. In this comprehensive review, we identified 118 peer-reviewed single-case-design studies in which researchers tested the efficacy of practitioner training on implementation of educational practices to students with disabilities. We found publication of studies has proliferated in recent years, and most studies involved a multiple-baseline or multiple-probe design, researchers as training agents, in-service special education teachers or paraprofessionals as trainees, and students with learning disabilities or autism spectrum disorder as recipients of intervention. Through visual analysis, we detected 521 effects out of 626 opportunities across studies. The mean d-Hedges-Pustejovky-Shadish effect size was d = 2.48. Behavioral-skills training was associated with the most consistent improvement of implementation fidelity. We found statistically significant associations between implementation fidelity and modeling, written instructions for implementation, and verbal performance feedback.

Using Video Prompting to Teach Leisure Skills to Students With Significant Disabilities

Recreational activities are an important part of anyone’s quality of life, owing to the various benefits of participation (e.g., social, physical). For individuals with significant disabilities, engagement in leisure skills continues to be a low priority in many schools, which can adversely affect the level of school and community membership. This study used video prompting to teach leisure skills to 9 students with significant disabilities. Video prompting was effective with all but 1 student. In addition, to explore whether leisure skill acquisition would lead to shifts in preference, this study examined leisure skill preference at pre- and postacquisition. The authors found a dramatic shift in students’ preferences after they acquired new skills.

Effects of Peer Support Arrangements across Instructional Formats and Environments for Students with Severe Disabilities.

Peer support arrangements are an evidence-based practice for increasing interactions between students with severe disabilities and their peers in general education classrooms, but it is unclear how interactions vary across instructional formats or generalize outside the classroom. In this single-case design study, we tested the efficacy of peer support arrangements with three middle school students with severe disabilities, and focused on variability across instructional formats and generalization to the cafeteria and recess yard. We replicated previous findings of increased interactions and extended the literature by demonstrating positive effects across instructional formats with the largest gains during small group instruction and independent work time. We found no evidence of generalization; interactions only increased in nonclassroom settings after we directly targeted those settings. We recommend educators to implement peer support arrangements in general education classrooms, increase opportunities for small group instruction when appropriate, and purposefully target social interactions across settings.

National survey describing and quantifying students with communication needs

ABSTRACT Purpose: Research literature has yet to quantify and describe how students with complex communication needs are supported in the classroom and how special educators are being prepared to offer support. This study sought out special educators to complete a survey about their students with complex communication needs. Method: Over 4,000 teachers representing 50 states reported on the communicative and behavioral characteristics of 15,643 students. Teachers described the training they have received and instructional approaches they used. Results: The majority of students were reported to use speech as their primary communication mode. Over half of students utilizing alternative and augmentative communication (AAC) were reported to have non-proficient communication. Teacher training varied across respondents as well as the supports they used to support these students in the classroom. Conclusion: The majority of students with disabilities using AAC when communicating across the nation are not proficiently communicating. Implications and recommendations will be discussed.