Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities

This article describes a preliminary study investigating whether a specific awareness and training for six teacher-paraprofessional teams would have an effect on the inclusion of six students with mild to severe disabilities in elementary general education environments. An experimental design employing a pretest-posttest control group with matched subjects was used to evaluate the effectiveness of training that emphasized the continuous improvement components of teamwork, goal setting, and data collection. Data focusing on student interaction and engagement were collected using MS-CISSAR. Results indicated an increase in teacher interaction and a decrease in paraprofessional interaction with special education students after the training component. Engaged behavior was not found to change noticeably for this group of students. Individual student strategies and benefits are also reported. The article includes a discussion of training format, key elements, and their relationship to long-term systems change.

Concomitant with the increase in the number of paraprofessionals assisting students with disabilities is the emergence of legal issues pertaining to the need, selection, responsibilities, preparation, and supervision of those paraprofessionals. The purpose of this article is to provide a legal analysis of administrative and judicial decisions concerning these issues and to propose guidelines for ensuring appropriate paraprofessional involvement in the educational programs for students with disabilities.

The purpose of this study was to examine teachers' perceptions of alternate assessments. A total of 983 teachers from five states participated in this study. The results suggest that teachers tended to agree that their students should be included in school accountability, but they did not agree with most items assessing the educational benefits of alternate assessments. Teachers reported that the most significant impact of alternate assessments is the increase in paperwork and demands on their time. In contrast, when teachers perceive alternate assessments counting in school accountability systems, more teachers report a positive impact for alternate assessments. Significant differences in positive impact of alternate assessment between testing approaches (i.e., portfolio, performance-based, checklist) were also found. Implications and recommendations are discussed

Difficulties with social interaction are characteristic of autism. This study presents data illustrating the use of motivational strategies in play dates to improve the quality of social interactions between children with autism and their typically developing peers. Specifically, a multiple baseline design across participants shows how a contextual support package implemented during play dates can promote reciprocal interactions and improve affect. These results support the use of intervention strategies that target the pivotal area of motivation and provide evidence for using play dates as a context for intervention. The findings are discussed in terms of promoting quality interactions and encouraging friendship development.