This article is a personal memoir of how Vivian Gussin Paley deepened a veteran teacher's understanding of how young children learn through play. With careful observation of children at fantasy play, intentional listening, and dictation, Paley enhanced and sharpened appreciation of how children relate to their surroundings and build skills for…

In this interview, a special educator and sports writer talks about the role that baseball can play in bringing young people with and without learning disabilities together. He exemplifies how a game can provide extensive opportunities for social interactions and establishes why playing baseball is more suitable for teaching social skills to…

In this interview, disabilities activist and commissioner of the Alternative Baseball Organization (ABO) Taylor Duncan relates his life as a student with autism and other special needs. He goes into stigmas that he had to overcome in school as he tried to participate in regular baseball activities. Encouraged by a coach to not give up and pursue…

What matters more--grit or gratitude? University of Pennsylvania professor Angela Duckworth's research on the importance of "grit" to academic success sparked a new area of focus in K-12 education--as well as its fair share of criticism. But Duckworth, founder and CEO of the Character Lab, believes that the concept is often…

By teaching social rules thought to be necessary for social competence, social skills training (SST) curricula aim to improve indicators of well-being for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), such as the attainment of meaningful friendships. However, several recent meta-analyses indicate that SST curricula may fall short of these…

Adolescence is a developmental period that affords both risk as well as enormous opportunity. Ripple effects can extend far and wide and speak to the nuance and complexity in understanding and treating ADHD during the adolescent period. The studies in this special issue provide novel and important insights into the lives of adolescents with ADHD,…

Adolescence is a developmental period that affords both risk as well as enormous opportunity. Ripple effects can extend far and wide and speak to the nuance and complexity in understanding and treating ADHD during the adolescent period. The studies in this special issue provide novel and important insights into the lives of adolescents with ADHD,…

It is only in recent years that research has begun to focus on gender differences in males and females on the autism spectrum. There is now an increasing awareness that we are missing women and girls on the autism spectrum and the assumption has been that there are more males with autism or Asperger syndrome. The questions needing to be asked are…

This commentary draws on the four articles in this issue to discuss interactional competence from a usage-based perspective. The usage-based conception of language knowledge as an inventory of form-meaning pairings used for communicative purposes will be qualified by incorporating the idea that these communicative purposes are social actions. L2…

This memo, which is the seventh in the series, features an interview with the Director of Curriculum and Instruction at the Two Rivers Public Charter School in Washington, DC. Originally planned as a piece analyzing the long-term work of the school, this memo was redesigned to feature an interview highlighting how the school rapidly responded to…

Does the current drive to incorporate social and emotional learning (SEL) into the K-12 curriculum represent a positive reform that will lead schools to educate the "whole student" and ultimately boost young people's academic success? Or is it a distracting fad that comes with high opportunity costs? Common sense and considerable…

The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) believes it is essential to define giftedness in a way that both reflects best thinking in the field and moves beyond a focus on identification criteria to a deeper understanding of the complex nature of giftedness and the multi-faceted approach to services required to appropriately serve…

In this interview, Maggie MacDonnell, recipient of the 2017 Global Teacher Prize, discusses how growing up near a First Nations reserve in Nova Scotia opened her eyes to inequalities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada. She talks about the influence of Moses Coady, who instilled in her an appreciation for co-operative…

This reflection paper argues that the design and development of digital games teach essential 21st century skills. Intrinsic to application and game development is design thinking. Design thinking requires iterative development, which demands creativity, critical thinking and problem solving. Students are engaged through learning by doing in both…

Adam Wright, Michael A. Gottfried, and Vi-Nhuan Le demonstrate empirically that minority teachers have a positive impact on the "social-emotional development" of American minority kindergarten children. Their analyses of 2010-2011 data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study focus on measurable effects in four social and affective…