Interventions often require multiple decisions to improve outcomes for every student. Whether the decision to implement a practice, tailor an existing protocol, or change approaches, these decisions should be based on individual variables and outcomes via a sequence of treatment. To develop adaptive interventions that have sufficient evidence to…

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…

Experts laud the potential of educational technology (edtech) to promote reading among students with disabilities, but supporting evidence is lacking. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Lexia® Core5® Reading edtech program (Core5) on the Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP) Growth Reading™ and easyCBM oral reading fluency performance of…

The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 requires the use of evidence in adopting programs, particularly for children with reading disabilities. A quasi-experimental study was conducted to evaluate the effects of a literacy intervention called Helping Early Readers Obtain Excellence in Special Education (HEROES), developed for children ages six to…

This study is a program evaluation of a small, rural school district's special education program's compliance with key processes, including the child study, eligibility, and individual education plan (IEP) processes. The goals of the evaluation were to identify potential weaknesses in the special education program implementation, and to provide…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to investigate the initial feasibility of the Communication Matrix Professional Development Program (CMPDP), an online program created to help educational professionals teaching students with complex communication needs. Method: A one-group pretest-posttest design was employed with 102 educational professionals…

The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in the U.S. Department of Education funded the National Center on Intensive Intervention (NCII, or the Center) in 2011. NCII's mission during the first five years of funding was to build the capacity of local education agencies (LEAs) to support schools, practitioners, and other stakeholders in the…

Parents of young children participating in either Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Part C early intervention or IDEA Part B-619 preschool special education programs were surveyed to obtain a consumer science perspective of the practitioners who were the children's primary service providers. Parents were asked to make judgments of…

The Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for students 16 years of age or above must address specific transition components. Studies to date have focused on the presence and quality of these transition components, yet the alignment of these components and their role in leading the development of the IEP is just as critical. This qualitative…

This article describes an effective model for employing paraprofessionals to provide behavioral support for students in a general education setting. Behavioral health assistants (BHAs) worked under the supervision of school psychologists and counselors and provided behavioral interventions for students with behavioral goals on their individualized…

As a result of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; 1990), public school districts are required to provide appropriate services to preschool students who are at risk or who are experiencing developmental delays. These services are frequently offered in preschool programs for children with disabilities (PPCDs). PPCDs are generally…

Several current approaches to evaluation stress the importance of making explicit the conceptual structure of a program--displaying the hierarchically related transactions which explain the program's movement from a set of "inputs" to a set of desired outcomes. However, individualized programs present particular difficulties in…

The report focuses on the objectives of the Preschool Instruction for the Exceptional (PIE) program, an early intervention program designed to help handicapped children function more effectively and help parents understand their child's special needs. It is explained that the primary goal of PIE is to have each child enter the mainstream of…

The Infant-Parent Training Program is a model program providing day care, therapy-nursery, and home programs for handicapped children from 0 to 3 years old. Upon intake into the program, both parents and children attend four 1-hour diagnostic sessions during which children are assessed in the areas of cognitive functioning, language functioning,…

This monograph, one of a series on youth with disabilities and the juvenile justice system, focuses on best practices for reducing delinquency and preventing recidivism. This essay notes that, because of the connection between disability and delinquency, it is likely that a significant portion of court-involved, disabled youth can be expected to…