Naturalistic instruction strategies support increased opportunities for young children to practice attainment of communication and social emotional skills. This is critically important for young children with autism spectrum disorder, which is characterized by challenges in communication and social emotional development. Specifically, children…

Training frontline staff to respond to and manage challenging behaviors of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) poses a pervasive problem in the delivery of treatment services. Traditional synchronous staff training methods are expensive, time-consuming, and often do not result in high treatment integrity. Video Modeling alternative to…

Many studies have noted the detrimental impact adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can have on individuals' developmental trajectories and, as a result, the utilization of trauma-informed practices has been of increasing interest within the field of education. Most research on trauma-informed pedagogy is derived from samples of children in grades…

The ability to communicate effectively to others is a pivotal skill necessary to get one's needs and wants met; however, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have significant delays in communication skills. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices provide an alternative means for children with complex communication…

The three research papers completed and compiled to make up this dissertation explore the relationship between social presence and social construction of knowledge in asynchronous online discussion forums in higher education courses in the instructional technology field. Paper 1 is a literature review of the interaction analysis model (IAM)…

Active-duty service members pursuing college degrees face many obstacles due to their military service, such as frequent relocation, long work hours, extended field time, and deployments. While online learning makes higher education more accessible to service members, asynchronous courses can leave active-duty students feeling that online…

The present study sought to examine four key factors to mathematical anxiety research. First, examine if adult learner is less impacted by mathematical anxiety interventions than their younger peers. Second, the potential effect of incubation theory on mathematical anxiety treatment involving low math anxious individuals. Third, if older adults,…

Federal legislation has mandated students with and without disabilities be prepared for college and careers (ESSA, 2015; IDEA, 2004). Students with high-incidence disabilities experience less success than their peers without disabilities (Newman et al., 2011). Initially, college and career readiness efforts lacked a focus on students with…

AutismSpeaks.org estimated that a total of 1.1 million teens with autism will enter adulthood in the next decade (Autism Speaks, n.d.). Unfortunately, research shows many of those individuals will have bleak outcomes in life postsecondary (Lake et al., 2014; Posar & Visconti, 2018). This issue will compound without proper resources and…

Meeting the future demands of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) requires cultivating a diverse workforce. However, historically underrepresented groups--such as Black, Hispanic, and American Indian individuals; first-generation college students; those who are socioeconomically challenged; and women--have struggled to achieve…

This study, in the context of peer-facilitated asynchronous online discussion, explored the characteristics and patterns of students' cognitive presence, and examined the practices that aim to enhance cognitive presence development. Participants were 53 students from a graduate-level online course that focused on the integration of educational…

Gifted students' development is asynchronous in the social, emotional, physical and cognitive domains. Because of this, unique interventions must be used by teachers of the gifted in order to best serve their developmental and educational needs. This qualitative study used transcendental phenomenology to examine and describe the experiences…

Introduction: Little is known about how group cohesion develops in online support group communities. Previous research suggests that message content, self-disclosure, and emotional expression may be central to this process. The purpose of this study was to identify linguistic and qualitative characteristics of participants' messages that…

Nurse educators, at every level of pre-licensure nursing education, are charged with developing critical thinking skills within their students. Post-clinical conference is one teaching strategy that nurse educators can employ to help promote the development of critical thinking skills in pre-licensure nursing students. However, traditional…

There is a national shortage of school-based Speech Language Pathologists (SLP). Schools located in rural and geographically remote areas are often impacted by the shortage, and as a result students with an autism spectrum disorder may not receive services that are mandated by their Individual Education Plan. This study examined the use of…