The third edition of the Survival Guide for New Special Education Teachers is intended to be used as a guide, a resource, and a reference. Revised and updated keeping in mind the challenges that new special educators face, its content reflects what we believe to be the most essential information to support you, the new special education teacher,…

Despite the long-term negative outcomes associated with restraining and secluding students, these practices are frequently used in schools, with disproportionate use on students with disabilities. Based on recent guidance from the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, misusing these practices violates student rights under the Americans…

Students with extensive support needs are at risk of demonstrating challenging behavior due to inadequate support of their individual needs or class-wide factors such as low quality of instruction. Students with extensive support needs are also among the students who are most likely to experience aversive interventions and be placed in segregated…

Inclusion of students with special education needs (SEN) and especially autism spectrum disorder (ASD) into general education curricula is a challenging practice. In recent years, the practice of inclusion has been expanding within the international school community. Outside of the United States, the process of inclusion is developing rapidly due…

When a student exhibits challenging classroom behaviors that are resistant to traditional classroom management systems, his/her individualized education program (IEP) team conducts a functional behavior assessment (FBA). The FBA process is a series of assessments designed to identify the function of the student's behavior. This is done by…

Teaching a skill within the highly controlled conditions of one setting and promoting the transfer of that skill to a less-structured setting may seem like an unattainable goal. Yet this is the challenge presented by many individualized education program (IEP) IEP objectives that involve generalization of a skill acquired in a resource room to be…

The Individualized Education Plan (IEP) document is a legal plan for special education which is created by a team that includes educators and you, the child's family. The IEP contains goals to promote your child's success in school and should, if needed, include goals on improving their behavior. The IEP provides information about the specifically…

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) is committed to supporting State educational agencies (SEAs), local educational agencies (LEAs), and partners in ensuring that schools and preschool programs have additional tools to foster safe, inclusive learning environments that increase students' engagement and sense of well-being. The Office of…

In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court provided a ruling regarding what constitutes an appropriate education for students with disabilities in "Endrew v. Douglas County." The case concerned a student with autism, and we use it to offer schools and families autism-related recommendations for practice and policy. We analyze the legal history of…

Special educators are responsible for a myriad of roles as part of their responsibilities as teachers. In addition to developing and monitoring individualized education programs (IEPs), co-teaching with general education colleagues, and engaging in direct instruction, they often also support students with behavioral needs. Although not all…

Through educational research over the last decade, effective practices have been identified for dealing with difficult and challenging behavior in schools. Still, in too many cases, the results of this research and the practices it suggests have not reached educators at the district or building level. The purpose of this booklet is to offer…

The only consistency with children, with and without disabilities, is that they are inconsistent. Much of a child's behavior is adult controlled by their reaction, methods used, and consistency in support and discipline. When adults change the way they respond to the child's behaviors, the child gradually will learn to modify their behavior.…

There are an estimated 1.5 to 2.5 million children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in the United States. These children make up about 3-5 percent of a school's student population. Boys are diagnosed almost ten times more often than girls. Girls tend to be more inattentive and their symptoms are dismissed as those of a day…

Increasing evidence shows that punitive discipline is ineffective and detrimental. Using empowerment theory and the opportunity-to-learn conceptual framework, this literature review seeks to broaden school personnel's knowledge of alternative discipline interventions. Searching ERIC and JSTOR databases, we looked for English language, North…

Current research has shown that children with disabilities often felt that their physical education teacher was not prepared to provide them with quality physical education experiences. Over 50% of physical education teachers did not feel prepared to teach children with disabilities. The purpose of this article is to share a "Needs Assessment…