In 2025, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) will have been the primary law driving the field of special education for 50 years. A contentious area of disagreement has been the relationship between two primary mandates of the law: the obligation of schools to provide a free, appropriate public education (FAPE) to eligible…

The purpose of this interview-based qualitative study was to explore how individualized education program (IEP) team members determine least restrictive environment and educational placement. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires students with disabilities to be educated in the least restrictive environment and to the…

With this position paper, we advance the case for reformation of U.S. special education law and praxis. These have undergone mostly incremental changes over the five decades since their inception despite a substantial body of evidence amassed over this period, which points to a major gap between extant policy and praxis, and contemporary cultural…

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 students with disabilities are entitled to specially designed physical education in the least restrictive environment outlined in their Individualized Education Program (IEP). Adapted Physical Education (APE) is physical education designed to meet the needs of all children…

Social policies can be well-intentioned but ineffective in achieving what is intended. They can be undermined or destroyed by their exaggerated or oversimplified caricatures with a single, narrow focus. Caricatures may result in the opposite of the original intent of more carefully crafted variants. Institutionalization and deinstitutionalization…

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework for designing lessons that is grounded in data and recognized as best practice under IDEA and ESSA. The use of the method allows for greater intervention with students socially, emotionally, and academically. UDL allows intentional and purposeful work with populations that are normally…

Changes to special educational needs and disability (SEND) legislation in England were implemented in 2014. Here, we evaluate the impact of these changes from the perspective of 80 autistic young people aged 16-25 years. Using an online survey and/or interviews, we examined young people's views on three key principles of the SEND reforms: the help…

Access to general education preschool in California has varied for children with disabilities. One reason for the disparity of educational placement is the preschool regulations outlined in California Department of Education's Title 22: Community Care Licensing guidelines. These regulations, particularly in preschool, support or hinder preschool…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to provide updated national estimates on the annual number, educational environments, and secondary school outcomes of students who are D/deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) receiving special education (SpEd) and related services in the United States. Method: We performed a retrospective cross-sectional…

This study explored visually impaired youths' perspectives toward feeling valued in integrated physical education. Situated in an experiential qualitative approach, this study utilized inclusion understood as an intersubjective experience broadly, and feeling valued specifically, as a conceptual lens to guide and inform methodological and data…

We acknowledge that some students with severe disabilities are not being taught in general education. We do not agree that inclusion in general education is inherently better, nor do we think it is always appropriate, and we provide some reasons that a full continuum of alternative placements is not only legally mandated but appropriate. We are…

Since 1975, the implementation of the Least Restrictive Environment, a federal mandate of Public Law 94-142, has been historically challenging for physical educators and adapted physical educators. Confusion and misinterpretation of the law's intent, as well as competing ideologies, have perpetuated failed Least Restrictive Environment (LRE)…

The issue concerned with enhancing support to the intellectually disabled students for enabling them to access the general education has gained significant importance in the recent years all over the world. The intellectually disabled students suffer from neurodevelopmental disorders that acts as a barrier to the normal functioning of the brain…

The goal of this article is to assist individualized education program (IEP) team personnel to not make errors in the placement of students. To do so the authors: (1) describe what a placement decision is and who makes the decision; (2) review the placement requirements of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2006); (3) examine…

In this paper we discuss the connection between the lack of special education specific preparation for leaders and decades of evidence of racial inequities in special education. In doing so, we have a four-fold purpose. First, we outline the basic Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) legal requirements that educational leadership…