Despite expectations for accommodations in inclusive classrooms, little guidance for effective practice is available. Most accommodations policies and evidence-based practices address assessments. High school regular and special educators collaborated in focus groups to articulate a model based on their practices and perceptions of best practice.…

Universal design for transition (UDT) refers to an approach to instructional planning, delivery, and assessment that bridges the gap between teaching academic and functional/transition goals. It builds upon the principals of universal design for learning (UDL) assuring that instructional practices are designed to meet the needs of diverse learners…

Observation of 20 teachers from mainstreamed preschool programs found that teachers engaged in many roles (including instructor, monitor, coplayer, entertainer, observer, behavior manager, materials manager, caregiver, and unavailable) and switched roles frequently. A model is proposed for assessing teachers' roles when planning how to embed…

A questionnaire completed by 453 preschool teachers and three focus groups examined how preschool teachers planned classroom activities and individualized instruction for children with disabilities. Results indicated that teachers spent between 1 and 5 hours per week planning, used some procedures that conflicted with recommended practices, and…

A survey asked regular and special educators to rate the importance of 228 items potentially valuable for creating learning environments. Results indicated a high degree of consensus about variables considered important in learning environments, with 40 variables receiving the highest average ratings. Regular and special educators' judgments were…

This study used quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the use of inclusive pedagogy by science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty at three community colleges. The purpose was to identify barriers to the adoption of inclusive teaching methods for diverse learners and students with disabilities and to propose ways to…

Assessment and decision-making practices of a national sample of 60 teachers serving handicapped preschool children were examined. Teachers were surveyed regarding the assessment information they and other professionals collect on their students and how they use it in educational programming. It was found that teachers used behavioral observations…

Surveys of 60 preschool teachers and in-depth interviews with 10 other teachers regarding assessment and instructional decision-making practices with handicapped children revealed that evaluation and monitoring procedures were not used systematically or regularly. Behavioral observations were the most widely used single source of information for…

Recently employed teachers in Virginia were asked to describe how well their teacher education programs had prepared them for teaching handicapped children in regular classrooms. Teachers responded that their college courses had paid more attention to describing handicaps and legislation than to development of instructional activities for such…

The three-year Early Childhood Emergent Literacy Technology Curriculum (ELiTeC) study (E2) was designed to replicate, on a broad scale, the results of earlier research in which a curriculum model was developed, implemented, and studied in preschool classrooms for children with disabilities or those at risk. ELiTeC was based on the assumptions that…

This publication discusses the role of Language Sample Analysis (LSA) in identifying language disorders, providing detail necessary to initiate a focused intervention program, and providing a method for monitoring progress in language intervention. Section 1 provides an overview of the LSA process and types of language disorders, while Section 2…

This final report presents a summary and second-year findings of a 2-year project designed to measure the effectiveness of microcomputer instruction on reading and mathematics skills, classroom behavior, general cognitive development, and problem-solving ability of 700 disabled students (ages 3-11) enrolled in four special education schools in New…

An ongoing research program is examining use of technology to surmount difficulties in incorporating curriculum-based measurement in instructional programs for students with disabilities. The use of computers to assume the mechanical aspects of measurement and to help teachers translate assessment information into feasible instructional…

The papers presented at the 1989 National Educational Computing Conference focused on ways of using technology to improve educational quality. Topics of the 50 papers and more than 120 abstracts provided in these proceedings include applications of artificial intelligence and the development of expert systems; authoring systems; using the computer…

The research project investigated whether expert system tools have become sophisticated enough to be applied efficiently to problems in special education. (Expert systems are a development of artificial intelligence that combines the computer's capacity for storing specialized knowledge with a general set of rules intended to replicate the…