The attainment of basic early literacy skills at an early age is one way to ensure children become proficient readers as adults. Word recognition is an important basic early literacy skill that is related to reading fluency and overall reading competency. Incremental rehearsal (IR) is a flashcard technique that has produced strong outcomes for a…

This dissertation will focus on the processing and learning of abstract, phrasal argument structure constructions. Chapter 1 provides the theoretical framework for abstract constructions, and illustrates the importance of such representations in speakers' linguistic knowledge. Chapter 2 reviews the evidence for meaning being associated with…

The purpose of this study was to expand the literature on student persistence in community colleges through three research innovations. First, the literature on student persistence in community colleges was expanded by applying theory to the identification and testing of predictors. Second, it was expanded by validating retention prediction…

Student teachers in classrooms for students with moderate-severe disabilities used self-monitoring to increase their use of effective teaching strategies. In the first study, the participant videotaped daily instructional sessions and collected data on her use of varied praise statements and the number of opportunities to respond in a multiple…

Educators are in need of appropriate interventions for teaching individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A widely used (Bellini & Akullian, 2007; Delano, 2007) and evidence-based (Horner et al., 2005) instructional intervention for individuals with ASD is video modeling. Video modeling involves the learner viewing a video…

Schools today are faced with a growing number of students who fail to acquire basic early literacy skills. To effectively meet the needs of all students, schools must utilize strategies and interventions that are both effective and efficient. One strategy that schools may use to meet the needs of all students is implementation of a multi-tiered…

The importance of understanding the various uses of the literal symbol in algebra, and in particular the idea of generalised number, is well documented in the literature. Many research findings have also reported student difficulties with this vital and central concept. This research study examines the use of a combination of historical and…

The purpose of this study was to extend prior flashcard drill and practice research by holding instructional time constant and allowing learning trials to vary. Specifically, the authors aimed to determine whether an incremental rehearsal method or a traditional drill and practice method was most efficient in helping 5 first-grade children read,…

A skill essential for successful inclusion in general education settings is the ability to learn by observing others. Research, however, has documented children with autism display significant deficits in the fundamental skills necessary for observational learning. This article outlines the skills essential for observational learning from an…

In the context of competitive classroom settings and relativistic assessment schedules, some groups of students may particularly benefit from an emphasis on personal progress and personal growth approaches to their academic development. Building on recent promising results from general samples of high school students (undifferentiated by…

Impairments in social competence are core deficits for individuals with high-functioning autism and Asperger's Syndrome (HFA/AS). As the incidence rate for these disorders continues to increase so does the urgency to identify evidence-based interventions that can remediate core deficits in order to provide these individuals with independence as…

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a behavioral skills training package on task engagement in six young adults with high-functioning ASD who worked in a regular job-training setting. Experimental sessions were implemented in a small-group training format in a therapy room using unknown tasks. Data were collected on participant's off-task…

The purpose of the study was to examine effectiveness of the Cafe' Waiter Education Program by providing the least prompting to three adult subjects with intellectual disability in a real-life setting. A multiple probe research design across subjects was used. Cafe' waiter skills included five main tasks incorporating 125 skill steps. Task…

The internal/external frame of reference (I/E) model and dimensional comparison theory posit paradoxical relations between achievement (ACH) and self-concept (SC) in mathematics (M) and verbal (V) domains; ACH in each domain positively affects SC in the matching domain (e.g., MACH to MSC) but negatively in the nonmatching domain (e.g., MACH to…

In this thesis, our aim is the study the Vanishing of Maps of Tor Conjecture of Hochster and Huneke. We mainly focus on an equivalent characterization called the Strong Direct Summand Conjecture, due to N. Ranganathan. Our results are separated into three chapters. In Chapter 3, we prove special cases of the Strong Direct Summand Conjecture in…