Recent legislative and school reform efforts require schools to evaluate and improve educational practices for students with severe disabilities. The authors developed the "Program Quality Measurement Tool" (PQMT) to enable administrators and educators to evaluate the educational programming provided to students with severe disabilities against…

We asked teachers and parents to assess the self-determination prospects of 135 youth with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities. Teachers typically reported that youth evidenced limited knowledge about self-determined behavior, ability to perform these behaviors, and confidence regarding the efficacy of their self-determination…

This article examines expenditures for a random sample of 1,421 adult Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) and Intermediate Care Facility/Mental Retardation (ICF/MR) recipients in 4 states. The article documents variations in expenditures for individuals with different characteristics and service needs and, controlling for individual…

This article reviews research related to intensive interventions within a Response to Intervention framework. We review the research from studies that provided different levels of intensity of intervention with the goal of establishing a case that movement through less intensive tiers of intervention may not be an effective and responsible…

This article reports on the first year of an Esmee Fairbairn Foundation-funded research project into the design and evaluation of an original "framework" for mapping the behaviour and development in, and through, music for children with complex needs, specifically those with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD). An initial…

Earlier research has suggested a link between epileptiform activity in the electroencephalogram (EEG) and developmental speech-language disorder (DSLD). This study investigated the strength of this association by comparing the frequency of EEG abnormalities in 45 language-normal children (29 males, 16 females; mean age 6y 11mo, SD 1y 10mo, range…

The purpose of this article is to propose a conceptual foundation for early literacy instruction for students with severe developmental disabilities. The two primary outcomes in the conceptual model are (a) enhanced quality of life through shared literature and (b) increased independence as a reader. Guidelines are offered for promoting shared…

Mandates such as No Child Left Behind (2001) and Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004) shifted the emphasis of instruction to include skills that access the general curriculum for students with moderate to severe intellectual disability. The purpose of this study was to describe changes in literacy instruction of teachers…

Students with significant cognitive disabilities may participate in states' alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS). A growing number of students with significant cognitive disabilities are also English learners (ELs) whose family may use another language in the home. They may only be exposed to English in a school…

To evaluate the clinical benefit of prokinetic therapy in aspiration pneumonia in patients with developmental disabilities, we conducted a retrospective study; records of 22 tube-fed patients were reviewed from December 1990 to October 1998 for a mean of 22.7 months before and 38.9 months during Cisapride therapy. Numbers of hospital admissions…

The purpose of this preliminary study was to explore the residual barriers and facilitators for a selected group of individuals with severe physical disabilities who had been afforded a comprehensive set of strategies and services aimed at meeting their basic personal as well as academic needs. Their perceptions of both barriers and facilitators,…

Roughly 54 million people with disabilities live in the U.S., and there are many more millions of people with disabilities around the world. Not surprisingly, differences among and between people with disabilities are often as notable as differences between people with and without disabilities. While the lack of homogeneity among people with…

The call for practice on the basis of evidence is slowly impacting the link between research and practice. Accompanying the call for evidence-based practice, concerns have been raised about constructing research questions that address the reality of applied settings, as well as arguments for including additional measures to ensure the internal and…

Providing comprehensive services to students with significant support needs is a complex and challenging endeavor because of the uniqueness of a wide range of conditions and variables that impact one or more of the functioning capacities of these students. Along with this complexity, it is necessary to fully integrate culturally responsive…

This study examined the relationships between parents of students with significant disabilities and paraeducators who supported the students in inclusive educational settings to gain an understanding from several perspectives on the role paraeducator-parent relationships played in education of students with significant support needs. The study…