Sheila R. Alber

Teaching Middle School Students with Learning Disabilities to Recruit Positive Teacher Attention

Four middle school students with learning disabilities were taught to recruit teacher attention while they worked on assignments in two inclusive general education classrooms. The students were taught to show their work to the teacher two to three times per session and make statements such as: “How am I doing?” Training was conducted in the special education classroom and consisted of modeling, role-playing, corrective feedback, and praise. A multiple baseline across students design showed that recruitment training increased (a) the rate of recruiting by the students, (b) the rate of teacher praise received by the students, (c) the rate of instructional feedback received by the students, and (d) the accuracy with which students completed their workbook assignments.

The Changing Face of Education: Teachers Cope With Challenges Through Collaboration and Reflective Study

In these times of legislative mandates for accountability and high-stakes testing, meeting the needs of diverse learners has never been more urgent. If change is to occur in classrooms across the United States, the change forces will be the administrators and teachers in each school. Educators must now choose a plan of action to address student diversity, and change the way schools conduct business. This article presents a three-pronged outline for coping with the changing face of education: (1) educators and the process of change; (2) educators finding the time to study together; and (3) educators reflectively reviewing student work in study teams and adjusting research-based instructional practices to improve both teaching and learning.

The Comparative Effects of a Modified Self-Questioning Strategy and Story Mapping on the Reading Comprehension of Elementary Students with Learning Disabilities

An alternating treatments design was used to examine the effects of story mapping, a modified self-questioning strategy, and no intervention on literal and inferential reading comprehension of elementary students with learning disabilities. Immediate post-tests indicated that students attained significantly greater comprehension in the self-questioning and story mapping conditions over no intervention. Although students attained similarly high levels of overall comprehension when they used story mapping and self-questioning, students scored slightly higher on inferential comprehension questions in the self-questioning condition. Additionally, 4 out of the 5 students indicated a preference for the self-questioning strategy.

Teaching Students to Recruit Positive Attention: A Review and Recommendations 1

Positive teacher attention and praise are powerful influences on student performance in the classroom. But the classroom is a very busy place, a place where important efforts by students can easily go unnoticed. In such instances, an existing and potentially effective natural contingency of reinforcement is “asleep” and needs to be “woken up.” Teaching students how to recruit positive teacher attention is one way to activate dormant contingencies of reinforcement and help students take a proactive role in their learning. This paper reviews the recruiting research to date, discusses implications for practitioners, proposes a recruitment training package including strategies for promoting generalization of recruiting skills, and offers recommendations for future research.

Teaching Middle School Students with Learning Disabilities to Recruit Peer Assistance During Cooperative Learning Group Activities

Four 8th graders with learning disabilities were taught to recruit assistance from peers during cooperative learning activities in two general education classrooms. The students were taught to show their work to a peer and make statements such as:“Can you help me?” or “How am I doing so far?” Training was conducted in the special education classroom and consisted of modeling, role playing, corrective feedback, and praise. A multiple baseline across students design showed that recruitment training increased (1) the rate of recruiting responses by the students, (2) the rate at which the students received instructional feedback and praise from peers, and (3) the productivity and accuracy with which the students completed their language arts assignments.

A Comparison of Least-to-Most Prompts and Progressive Time Delay on the Disruptive Behavior of Students with Autism

We compared the effects of two instructional strategies on the frequency of errors and episodes of disruptive behavior of 4 students with autism. In Phase I, easy and difficult tasks were presented to determine whether the tasks were associated with differential rates of disruptive behavior. Phase II compared the effects of a least-to-most prompting procedure (LTM) to a progressive time delay procedure (PTD) on errors and disruptive behavior when difficult tasks were presented. Observers sequentially recorded instructor instructions, response prompts, prompts for appropriate sitting, and feedback statements; and student disruptive, correct, error, and no responses during 1:1 sessions. Results showed PTD produced fewer errors than LTM for all 4 students, and lower rates of disruptive behavior for 2 students. When PTD was implemented as the final phase with 2 of the students, rates of disruptive behavior associated with the task previously taught with LTM immediately decreased. Conditional probability statements indicated that disruptive behavior occurred infrequently with all 4 students when effective response prompts were used.

Fun and Effective Ways to Build Your Students' Vocabulary

Understanding vocabulary words and how they relate to other ideas and concepts is a critical subskill that influences reading comprehension. Students with deficient vocabularies are likely to have difficulty comprehending written material. This article provides teachers of middle and high school students with empirically validated strategies and recommended activities for vocabulary instruction. Specifically, we discuss teaching vocabulary through drama, semantic mapping, video technology, the Keyword Method, and active student responding activities.

When to Self-Correct?: A Comparison of Two Procedures on Spelling Performance

We compared the effects of two self-correction procedures on the spelling performance of 5 elementary school students with learning disabilities. Previous studies consistently have demonstrated self-correction to be more effective than “traditional” approaches to spelling instruction. However, we could find no single-subject design experiments analyzing the procedural details of how or when self-correction should be conducted to be most effective. For 4 days each week students practiced a list of 20 spelling words by listening to an audiotape on which the weekly list was dictated and writing the words. For half of each weeks words, students checked and self-corrected after attempting each word; for the other half of the list, the students self-corrected after attempting all 10 words. An alternating treatments design showed self-correction after each word to be more effective for acquisition of new spelling words as measured by end-of-the-week tests for all 5 students, and maintenance of previously studied spelling words as measured by 1-week maintenance tests for 4 of the 5 students.

Drama Activities That Promote and Extend Your Students' Vocabulary Proficiency

Students with limited vocabulary development tend to have difficulty mastering important language arts skills such as reading comprehension and written expression. Using drama activities to teach target vocabulary words can be an effective and motivating instructional practice for all students, especially those with learning problems. This article presents specific drama activities for teachers to implement when introducing new vocabulary, conducting guided practice, facilitating cooperative learning groups, and assigning independent practice. Additionally, we make recommendations for promoting generalization of new vocabulary.

Book Review: FACING LEARNING DISABILITIES IN THE ADULT YEARS by Joan Shapiro and Rebecca Rich New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, 216 pages

ANY PROFESSIONALS AGREE THAT THE CONSEQUENCES OF learning disabilities last a lifetime. Difficulties in all aspects of life can be impaired by the presence of a learning disability. For many, healthy adult adjustment often depends on the quantity and quality of the special education services that were provided during an individual’s preschool and school-age years and the availability and quality of postsecondary services (e.g., counseling, vocational training, college-level disabilities programs, services for students with learning disabilities). In addition, adult adjustment often depends on the knowledge and sensitivity of people who are involved in the life of the adult with a learning disability. When family members, service-care providers (e.g., employment counselors), and co-workers understand and are sensitive of learning disabilities, adult adjustment for the person with a learning disability becomes easier. Additionally, the aspects of self-initiative, self-advocacy, and selfresponsibility are also critical factors related to successful adult adjustment. For these reasons and others, Shapiro and Rich gathered