Purpose: An important role of social communication assessment is to support intervention planning as adolescents with disabilities transition to workplaces and other adult settings. Adoption of evidence-based assessment practices would align professionals with legal and ethical mandates for schools and other settings. There is, however, limited…

Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) may engage in challenging behavior. These behaviors present challenges to support staff who often lack training in effective behavior management procedures. Behavioral skills training (BST) is an empirically supported method of staff training and has been used to teach support staff a…

There is limited research on sexuality education for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The present study examined special education teachers' feelings of self-efficacy to teach sexuality education to students with IDD. Using a 36-item Attitudes and Beliefs Instrument and a 13-item Self Efficacy Survey, this study…

Current research has identified poor post-school outcomes for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities; in fact, poorer than any other disability group. Employment support, such as vocational skill training, can improve outcomes and increase opportunities for paid employment. With recent advances in technology, a myriad of…

Developmental aspects of auditory cognition were investigated in 5-to-10-year-old children (n = 100). Musical and verbal short-term memory (STM) were assessed by means of delayed matching-to-sample tasks (DMST) (comparison of two four-item sequences separated by a silent retention delay), with two levels of difficulty. For musical and verbal…

Interactive digital art can be a beneficial therapeutic intervention for a variety of populations, but specifically for the population of intellectual and developmental disabilities. Interactive digital art uses the engagement of the participant to create a digital form of art. The purpose of this literature review is to explore the effects that…

Effective training programs for individuals with disabilities often involve the use of positive reinforcement. Social interactions have many benefits over other forms of reinforcement, but more research is needed to determine how to identify social interactions that serve as reinforcers. In the first experiment, we evaluated the use of two…

Background: In the United States, approximately seven million students are chronically absent from school each year. Students with disabilities are more likely to be chronically absent than students without a disability. Using the bioecological systems theory, this study examined the impact of individual developmental disabilities and disability…

Written text production remains a relatively under-explored area in the child development literature, not only for typically developing (TD) children, but also for children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), despite its important role for academic performance and life success. The present study attempts the combined investigation of…

Abundant behavioral studies have demonstrated high comorbidity of reading and handwriting difficulties in developmental dyslexia (DD), a neurological condition characterized by unexpectedly low reading ability despite adequate nonverbal intelligence and typical schooling. The neural correlates of handwriting deficits remain largely unknown;…

Background and aims: Developmental disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and Developmental Dyslexia (DD) are reported to have more visual problems, oral language difficulties, and diminished reading skills in addition to their different diagnostic features. Moreover, these conditions…

Purpose: Today, an ever-increasing number of technological advancements are becoming mainstream. As the availability of technological innovations increases, so do opportunities for evaluating any benefits of those innovations in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) research for individuals with developmental disabilities. One…

Purpose: This study examined working memory in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). The overarching goal of this work was to integrate three primary processing-based hypotheses of DLD, (a) limited verbal working memory, (b) slowed processing speed, and (c) inefficient inhibition of interference, by using the…

Children develop within the context of caregiver--child relationships, each presenting with their own unique strengths, areas of growth, and compatibility of fit. Instead of the traditional viewpoint that child symptoms are generalizable across contexts and would emerge across relationships, the DC:0--5™: Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health…

Collaboration among different teacher profiles is one of the most important factors in meeting the needs of pupils with special needs. In a study of 138 teachers from different regions of Slovenia (57 special education teachers and 85 visual art teachers), we investigated how they collaborate when working with pupils with severe specific learning…