Students with or at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders pose an immense challenge for educators, and typical practices to address them are punitive and exclusionary, leading to poor academic and social outcomes for students. To address the complex needs of students with intensive emotional and behavioral needs, evidence-based practices and…

Little is known about the feasibility and acceptability of interventions designed to address the needs of high school students with emotional and behavioral challenges and adopted by their teachers. In this study, 336 general and special education teachers rated classwide interventions (e.g., expectations, routines, positive student-teacher…

For the realm of this study, the researcher reviewed two separate mathematics programs that have been implemented within the school district to address both the needs of the students with learning disabilities and the requirements of the local and state assessments. The mathematics programs are designed with two different methods to meet the…

Implementing evidence-based practices (EBPs) for children with autism is challenging for teachers because these practices are often complex, requiring significant training and resources that are not available in most school settings. This brief investigation was designed to identify areas of strength and difficulty for teachers implementing one…

Children grow and change more rapidly during the first eight years of life than any other time in their life span. Progression through the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional developmental stages varies for each individual child. Children with atypical development experience a wide spectrum of variability in their development. Over the past…

Special education referral and identification rates have risen dramatically over the last thirty years. In fact, several studies report an increase of nearly 200% (Cortiella, 2008; Vaughn, Linan-Thompson, & Hickman, 2003). During the last several years a new model of identifying students with learning difficulties has received much…

Response to intervention (RTI) can be both a system for providing early interventions to struggling students and a special education diagnostic tool for evaluating and identifying students with specific learning disabilities. Contributing to the very limited literature on state-level approaches, this report describes how nine states define and…

One question frequently arises in the work of the Regional Comprehensive Centers: "What are states, districts, and schools doing about RTI?" This document addresses that question, with particular focus on instruction and the implementation of effective practices. It uses a frequently asked questions (FAQs) format, with answers based on…

Describes a survey of 51 graduate students/full-time teachers at schools implementing full inclusion programs. Participants expressed their views concerning implementation methods, effects on instructional practices, community reactions, and advantages and disadvantages. Schools need to do a better job of explaining the rationale for full…

Although Pennsylvania has long made programming for all handicapped children mandatory, the passage of P.L. 94-142 has necessitated some changes even in this state. The major hurdle in the implementation of such a law is confusion and misinterpretation. Educators fear that the handicapped may be dumped into regular classes in an arbitrary manner.…

The Instructional Support Team (IST) process is mandated in all Pennsylvania schools that include any grade from kindergarten through 6. Middle schools that house grade six or below are required to enroll in IST training and ultimately achieve IST validation. In addition to the IST requirement, all secondary schools are required to have a Student…

Considerable variation exists across response-to-intervention (RTI) approaches. There is currently insufficient research on outcomes associated with these different RTI approaches to inform decision-making. However, school psychologists who are asked to work within an RTI model need guidance to select an approach that has a high likelihood of…

Responsiveness-to-intervention (RTI) is the front-running candidate to replace current practice in diagnosing learning disabilities, but researchers have identified several questions about implementation. Specific questions include: Are there validated intervention models? Are there adequately trained personnel? What leadership is needed? When…

A project was undertaken to develop a realistic survival skills curriculum in language arts for adult basic education (ABE) students that could be used with predischarge residents in institutions for mentally ill individuals in Pennsylvania. After identifying 28 predischarge residents at the Harrisburg State Hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,…