Health systems often fail to tap the expertise of the developmental disabilities community support and service system. In this 9-month pilot health system-level quality improvement project, a multi-disciplinary team of physician, pharmacist, and disabilities advocate reviewed electronic records of patients with Down syndrome in advance of…

Background: Australian disability services must comply with quality standards defined by federal government. Standards are abstract, focus on paperwork and rarely describe what good service quality looks like in practice. This research explored frontline day service staff's perceptions of good service quality to identify ways that it may be better…

Background: The use of eHealth in support for daily functioning of service users with intellectual disability (ID) is a rather unexplored domain. Therefore, the current study identified the a) level of familiarity, b) advantages/disadvantages, and c) facilitating/impeding factors for the use of eHealth in support for daily functioning of people…

Many researchers and practitioners cite concerns with maintenance and generalization as a serious issue for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), although few studies explicitly target performance of behaviors outside training environments. After an initial intervention failed to produce robust generalization outcomes, the present…

Many students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience substantial difficulties with socialization and independence, and college campuses often lack appropriate support services in these areas. Residential advisors (RAs), who are trained to support all students living on campus, could be uniquely prepared to positively contribute to the…

All students, no matter their ability or disability deserve equal opportunities, equity in programming and practices, and opportunity to reach their full potential. No child should be held back from achieving their goals due to lack of appropriate programs and services provided by schools. Unfortunately, this is not often the case. What is…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have deficits in communication and engage in restrictive and repetitive behaviors that may impede their ability to learn, particularly in school environments. Evidence-based practices such as visual supports and video modeling have been used to support individuals with ASD. Activity schedules, a type…

A single-subject research design was utilized to study the effects of noise-cancelling headphones on students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the classroom. Academic success has long been linked to students' time spent on-task in the classroom. Interventions to maintain time spent on-task have been studied and researched but many, currently…

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) often exhibit disruptive behaviors in classroom, including out-of-seat behaviors, which have been found to negatively affect their overall academic achievement and social interactions and relationships with parents, typically developing peers and teachers, and increase the likelihood of being…

Effectively managing a classroom is crucial in promoting positive student outcomes. Behavior-specific praise is an empirically supported strategy to reinforce desirable student behaviors. Following a review of the literature, we identified tactile prompting and self-monitoring as effective methods to increase teachers' use of behavior-specific…

In this three-year qualitative study we investigated the experiences and perspectives of university undergraduate students who were peer mentors for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (ID/DD) in a postsecondary education certificate program at a public university in the northeastern United States. The findings were…

This study is an overview of the technologies used by students with learning disorder (LD) and has the purpose of investigating how and the conditions on which digital technology can be an integral part of a motivating and barrierless learning environment also for students with special educational needs. Classrooms of the 21st century could be…

Background: There are approximately 1 billion people in the world with some form of disability. This corresponds to approximately 15% of the world's population (World Report on Disability, 2011). The majority of people with disabilities (80%) live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where disability has been shown to disproportionately…

Residential Immersive Life Skills (RILS) programs are unique programs for youth with disabilities. Situated, experiential, psychoeducational and strengths-based learning approaches expose youth to opportunities and experiences that can facilitate the development of adaptive behaviours. This study examined the pedagogy of RILS programs to…

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of culturally appropriate problem-solving instruction (CAPSI) for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Intervention elements incorporated within CAPSI included schema instruction, video modeling, a task analysis, and vocabulary instruction. Information from a culture and…