Promoting the self-determination of adolescents with disabilities has become best practice in secondary education and transition services, but to date there have been no studies establishing a causal relationship between efforts to promote self-determination and enhancement of the self-determination of youth with disabilities. This article reports…

The Response to Intervention (RTI) framework, a preventive model of universal screening, tiered interventions, and ongoing progress monitoring, poses an interesting consideration for identification and service delivery for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Upon examination of the existing literature, paucity exists regarding how RTI…

The least restrictive environment (LRE) mandate provides a preference for educating students with disabilities in general education classrooms while allowing separate class services as necessary to meet student needs. This study investigated changes in national LRE placement trends for students with disabilities from 1990-1991 through 2007-2008.…

Underidentification of students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD; emotional disturbance or ED in federal language) is a critical issue, perhaps explainable in part by causal attributions of problem behavior associated with conservatism. Conservatism in 58 counties in the state of California was measured by finding the percentage of…

For decades, youths with disabilities have had consistently poor postschool engagement outcomes in terms of employment and postsecondary education and training. Student-, school-, and district-level factors have impacted these outcomes in varying degrees. Using three years of postschool outcome data from the South Carolina Department of Education…

This article discusses how a neurodiversity perspective can help educators create learning environments in which all students flourish. The basic premise of neurodiversity is that there is no "typical" mental capacity--no "normal" brain to which all other brains are compared--and because this is the case, educators should look at students with…

Hidden disabilities (HD) are those disabilities not readily apparent to the naked eye including specific learning disabilities, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, emotional behavioral disorders, mild intellectual disabilities, and speech or language disabilities. Young athletes with HD may have difficulty listening to and following…

Little research has been conducted regarding the disproportionate representation of minority learners in programs for students with Emotional/Behavioral Disorders (E/BD). To date, the majority of the disproportionality literature examines multiple eligibility categories, most frequently the high incidence disabilities of Mild Intellectual…

Over the years, the benefits of categorically identifying and labeling students with disabilities have been debated on many grounds, particularly when it comes to labeling African-American children who many argue are over-labeled or disproportionately represented in selected categories such as learning disabilities. In this article, the authors…

Chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) has emerged as a powerful new tool to identify genomic abnormalities associated with a wide range of developmental disabilities including congenital malformations, cognitive impairment, and behavioral abnormalities. CMA includes array comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) and single nucleotide polymorphism…

Students with high-incidence disabilities, including emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD), learning disabilities (LD), and mild intellectual disabilities (MID), demonstrate academic, social, and behavioral deficits to varying degrees, which places them at risk for school failure. Because students with E/BD face dire consequences, it is…

To enhance the positive adjustment of youths with high incidence disabilities, a better understanding of the factors that influence their use of effective responses in challenging situations is needed. In this qualitative study, adolescents described individual and peer factors that would influence their use of effective nonviolent or aggressive…

By looking at the positive strengths of your students with special needs, you can help those students flourish, ensure their success, and align their instruction to Common Core State Standards. One of our most popular authors, Thomas Armstrong, shows you the steps you need to take to establish a more favorable, productive learning environment for…

Although summer offers a natural context for adolescents to gain community-based work experience, little is known about the extent to which youth with disabilities are accessing these transition-related opportunities. We examined the summer employment experiences of 220 youth with high-incidence disabilities at two time points. Although more than…

In this article, students with challenging behaviors (SWCB) in a classroom may include those with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD), intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities, and those at risk of these disabilities. These students may present…