In accordance with the Special Education Act that indicates that young children with special needs must have individualized educational plans and receive education with their typically developing peers in the general education setting, Taiwan implemented an experimental preschool inclusion program in 1989. Subsequently, during the 1990s, there was…

In the context of the United States K-12 school system, reclassification processes of emergent bilinguals are laden with high-stakes assessments. Largely absent in reclassification scholarship is the consideration of how reclassification policies uniquely affect those learners with identified disabilities. Applying an intersectionality lens that…

This paper aims to provide a tentative roadmap for ensuring that higher education policy makers and practitioners are apprised of what might be done to advance a concept of socially just assessment praxis. It extends current thinking around the notion of social justice approaches to assessment by further developing the conceptual framework…

This article examines the validity of IQ-achievement discrepancy and low achievement as criteria for the identification of disabilities in Spanish-speaking English-language learners (ELs) and the factors that moderate the validity of these approaches as bases for identification. While there has been a long history of examining the validity of…

English learners (ELs) require access to appropriate instructional services that match their strengths and needs to have an equal opportunity to achieve the same academic standards as other students. If ELs are not properly identified and classified, they may be excluded from services that would better help them meet high academic standards, and…

Background: The speech and language therapy profession is required to provide services to increasingly multilingual caseloads. Much international research has focused on the challenges of speech and language therapists' (SLTs) practice with multilingual children. Aims: To draw on the experience and knowledge of experts in the field to: (1)…

The main goals of the sport education model (SEM) are to help students become competent, literate, and enthusiastic sportspersons by offering learning opportunities through contextualized sport experiences within the physical education setting. While various resources recommend suitable and easy-to-use assessment tools for physical education…

Although most assessment developers have a sense of the nature of the general student population, they often lack an understanding of the characteristics of special education students and English Language Learners (ELLs) who will participate in the assessment. The Race-to-the-Top Assessment Consortia have the rare opportunity to know who these…

Federal and state policies require all students with significant cognitive disabilities to participate in state assessments and be included in measures of adequate yearly progress. Although these alternate assessments of grade-level content based on alternate achievement standards have been in place for several years, little is known about the…

Deficits in understanding the mental state of others ("mind-reading") have been well documented in individuals with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD). However, it is unclear whether this deficit in social cognition differs between the subgroups of PDD defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text…

The purpose of this article was to describe a taxonomy of pretend play for children with disabilities based on a systematic review of the literature to characterize pretend play. Thirty-seven studies were identified as measuring pretend play in children with disabilities. Several inconsistencies were found in the measurement of pretend play across…

Background: Traditional disability categories may reveal little of the functional characteristics and social competence of a child. Objective: To compare the social competence of typically developing children, children with established disabilities and undiagnosed children identified by a functional approach to be in need of special support.…

The "International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health--ICF" (ICF-CY) conceptual framework offers a new paradigm and taxonomy of human functioning disability, which can be used to guide holistic and interdisciplinary approaches to assessment and intervention. In settings serving children, youth, or adults with disabilities, the…

Perhaps the greatest value of response to intervention (RTI) as a decision framework is that it brings attention to variables (e.g., mastery of prerequisite skills, frequency of instructional corrective feedback, reinforcement schedules for correct responding) that if changed might make a meaningful difference for students (e.g., child rate of…

Generally recognized as the standard work in its field, "Behavioral, Social, and Emotional Assessment of Children and Adolescents" provides a comprehensive foundation and guide for conducting conceptually sound, culturally responsive, and ecologically oriented assessments of student social and emotional behavior. It is aimed at graduate…