Autistic transition age youth struggle with obtaining employment, and interviewing is a critical barrier to getting a job. We adapted an efficacious virtual reality job interview intervention to meet the needs of autistic transition age youth, called the Virtual Interview Training for Transition Age Youth. This study evaluated whether Virtual…

Despite broad consensus that a research-to-practice gap exists in the education of students with autism, the extent of this gap has not been well studied. We surveyed 99 teachers in Ohio about their highest priority goals for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), their approach for addressing these goals, the degree to which students had…

STEM-related educational outreach offers students enriching opportunities to become more familiar with science, in terms of how it relates to their daily lives and with respect to possible career paths that they might want to follow. At the same time, graduate student trainees providing that outreach act as important resources for elementary and…

This study characterized psychotropic medication use among Medicaid-enrolled children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders by examining trends over time, including length of treatment and polypharmacy using 4 years of administrative claims data from 41 state Medicaid programs (2000-2003). The data set included nearly 3 million children…

Families and individuals with developmental disabilities are leading the way in establishing innovative housing options. They are creating homes with supportive services more tailored to specific individual needs. They are developing homes with physical environments that feel more like home, or are more therapeutic. And they are taking steps…

A farmstead community in Northwest Ohio, called Bittersweet Farms, serves as a habilitation program for autistic adults, involving 20 residents ranging from profoundly retarded to high functioning and 15 developmentally delayed adults who are part of an agricultural day program. The community is designated as an Intermediate Care Facility for the…

A program for children with communication disorders (autistic-like behaviors) has been developed by the Kent (Ohio) Public Schools' Special Education program and is intended to eventually integrate the children served into other special education classrooms and, ultimately, into the home school special education program. Among the program's…

Adam Coolidge lives with his parents in the Riverdale Local School District, which is in rural northwestern Ohio. In spring 1996, prior to enrolling Adam in kindergarten, his parents met with district representatives to discuss moving him from an early intervention program under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). His…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…