Interpreters are some of the most important people in the lives of our deaf and hard of hearing students, yet hiring and retention requirements are weak, variable, or nonexistent. Despite this, many school interpreters have become skillful and effective professionals driven by their desire for competence and sense of integrity. State employment…

Children with mild bilateral and unilateral hearing loss are now commonly identified early through newborn hearing screening initiatives. There remains considerable uncertainty about how to support parents and about which services to provide for children with mild bilateral and unilateral hearing loss. The goal of this study was to learn about…

More than 40 years after passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), some special education teacher preparation programs offer limited coursework on parent involvement, advocacy, or home-school collaboration. For pre-service special education teachers and/or novice special education teachers working with students with…

Many parents struggle to advocate for their children with disabilities to obtain services at school. Subsequently, parents may turn to special education advocates to help ensure that their children receive appropriate services. However, it is unclear how special education advocates support families and secure services for children with…

More students with disabilities are accessing the tertiary sector with many disabilities not easily observed (or hidden), because there are no physical indicators. These "hidden" disabilities affect a variety of cognitive processes and may be developmental or acquired. To ensure students with hidden disabilities can enrol, engage in and…

The aim of this article is to give an account of a self-help "bottom-up" continuing professional development (CPD) facility for SENCos which has been built up over the last 16 years. This CPD was originally intended to supplement any substantive training that might have been provided by local authorities (LAs) and by further and higher…

Access to learning disability services in England is often governed by eligibility criteria. A semistructured questionnaire was completed by clinical psychologists in the north-west of England about service eligibility criteria and psychologists' role within the referral process to learning disability services. The survey highlighted both…

A Green Paper, "Support and aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability," was published by the Department for Education in March 2011. The Green Paper, styled as a response to the frustrations of children and young people, their families, and the professionals who work with them, sets out the government's…

The purpose of this review was to examine the literature on parent training for parents of children with autism. Families with a child diagnosed with autism often face a discrepancy between their need for services and the availability of services either because they live in geographically distant areas or because they are on a long wait list for…

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate the extent to which care managers in learning disability services understand the role of the Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA) service, and the difference between the newly created statutory IMCA and existing general advocacy (GA) services. Method: There were 22 participants from three…

Several factors undoubtedly influenced the development of listening and spoken language options for children with hearing loss in Canada. The concept of providing auditory-based rehabilitation was popularized in Canada in the 1960s through the work of Drs. Daniel Ling and Agnes Ling in Montreal. The Lings founded the McGill University Project for…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the support that exists for deaf students in the transition between further education and school into higher education in the UK. Deaf students make applications to higher education from a variety of educational institutions, such as Specialist Colleges for the Deaf, hearing impaired units within…

In a study that examined transition services for students with disabilities aged 18-21 years in the state of Wisconsin, respondents completed and returned 231 surveys. Survey data indicated that 50% of respondents lived in rural communities. The authors analyzed data for participant perspectives on components of transition planning in the areas of…

The 2004 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act introduced the concept of Response to Intervention (RTI). In part, this is an educational prevention approach to maximize student academic achievement and minimize behaviors that interfere with school success. It consists of assessment and intervention practices on multiple…

There has been a growing debate during an increasingly poststructural era that has paved the way for open discussions regarding the interplay between impairment, disability and society. Some of these discussions have led to the conclusion that modernity is responsible for the production, construction and/or sustenance of impairment. The purpose of…