Background: This paper seeks to explore the opportunities and challenges generated by current policy, guidance and legislation in England relating to older people, in terms of the practical implications for older people with learning disabilities. Methods: Using the broad themes housing, employment, social inclusion and isolation, care and…

Background: Increased life expectancy has led to an increase in diagnoses of chronic illness in people with an intellectual disability; despite this increase, research about the psychological impact is rare. This review explored the psychosocial experiences of chronic illness in adults with an intellectual disability, revealing potential…

In a dominant Western tradition that reveres cerebral learning, embodied learning approaches have received limited research attention--and less in education than other disciplines. This paper draws on previously reported empirical data from a five-year Creative Partnerships study to argue that psycho-physical theatre practice can promote embodied…

This praxis article outlines an ongoing inclusive "Music and Movement in Education" two-credit undergraduate course initiated and facilitated by the author in 2012. It includes step-by-step strategies and suggestions to implement and advocate for an inclusion model in pre-service education or special education courses. The exploratory…

Many teachers who educate students with significant intellectual disabilities struggle with the requirements for teaching academics linked to the Extended Common Core State Standards (ECCSS, 2010) while also balancing the need to teach functional skills. This article provides a practical way of creating thematic units that focuses on functional…

All states have alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS) for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. For accountability purposes, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) allows up to 1% of students to be counted as proficient with this assessment option. In 2011 the U.S. Department of…

One of the major goals in the education and training of individuals with special needs is to prepare them for independence. However, in the Malaysian context, parents who have special adolescents are in doubt as to what would be the future of their children soon after they have finished the vocational training. This case study explores the…

The article aims to study ways of achieving human rights by offering everyone a voice, a communicational tool which will allow accessibility and access to quality education for all, regardless of the degree of disability. The main objective of the present study was to describe the profile of communication and study the use of verbal and nonverbal…

What are the boundaries between traditional and new media, between ability and disability, and between the artist and the processes for making art? This article reports findings from a study of tablet devices as media for self-expression and visual storytelling by adults with intellectual disabilities and examined whether or not art-making…

The publication of A Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) have created a need for new alternate content standards and alternate assessments in science that are linked to the new general education science standards. This article describes how a…

Children with disability continue to experience disadvantage in their school lives; thus, the question of what makes up an optimal school life, and whether this is different for children with disability, becomes critical. This paper reports on research into parental views about an optimal school life and the usefulness of Social Role Valorization…

Federal special education law (Individuals With Disabilities Education Act) guarantees, but does not define, access to the general education curriculum for all students with disabilities. In-depth qualitative telephone interviews were conducted with special educators (n = 33) about their academic decision making for students with significant…

Teachers' interpersonal style is a new field of research in the study of students with intellectual disabilities and challenging behaviors in school context. In the present study, we investigate emotions and causal attributions of three basic types of challenging behaviors: aggression, stereotypy, and self-injury, in relation to teachers'…

This longitudinal study, spanning from 1995 through 2012, followed vulnerable youth from upper secondary school (T1) as they made the transition to their early twenties (T2), late twenties (T3) and mid-thirties (T4). We investigated their social network relationships in different phases of adult life, focusing mainly on factors that explain…

Although most of the students with intellectual and developmental disabilities have access to and some even have completed secondary education in Spain, there are few studies that deepen on the students' views about their educational experience. The research team consisted of university researchers and professionals from a non-governmental…