When it comes to education, parental involvement and building relationships with the school are key to success. Students with special education needs especially need the support of their parents. The Educational Diagnosticians of the Capital School District helped provide data on the parental involvement in the Individualized Education Program…

Although twice exceptional students are gradually receiving more recognition and intervention, they are still a grossly underserved segment of the school population. "A Call to Action: Identification and Intervention for Twice and Thrice Exceptional Students" begins with basic information about twice exceptional students--students who…

Special education teachers must have the skills to design and deliver intensive interventions for students with severe and persistent learning and behavioral needs. To ensure effective instruction for these students, preservice preparation programs must provide their teacher candidates with opportunities to learn, apply, and practice intensive…

This paper reports on the implications of participation in an Australian Award Short Course Awards programme for inclusive educators from South Asia. Seventeen educators from Nepal, three from Bangladesh, and one from Sri Lanka participated in the short course in Brisbane, Australia with a follow up component in Kathmandu, Nepal. The aim of the…

In this article, we describe the evolution of a statewide alternative teacher preparation program for teachers of students with disabilities and explain current processes to revise and expand the program to increase accessibility to teacher candidates in rural schools. We will identify important features of the program including (a) significant…

Background: Internationally, it has been recognised that parents need to advocate for their children with disabilities to receive services. However, many parents find advocacy difficult because of systemic and logistical barriers. As such, parents of children with disabilities may seek a special education advocate to help them understand their…

For more than 20 years, distance education has provided an option for prospective special education teachers to achieve licensure and a graduate degree. The program began as a two-way interactive television endeavor located at area community college sites. Over time, the program evolved to include online coursework with synchronous class meetings.…

Recent years have brought many changes to the ways in which schools in the United States address learning disabilities in their students. In an attempt to provide all students with appropriate reading instruction and to identify struggling students in a more timely manner, the 2004 revision of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act…

The importance of principal preparation in special education has increased since the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed in 1975. There are significant financial reasons for preparing principals in the area of special education. Recent research also shows that all children learn better in an inclusive environment. Principals who…

Along with the development of global consciousness, the campaign for an inclusive society is gaining momentum. An inclusive society based on social justice ensures individual rights and social welfare for each and everybody. On the contrary, the conventional disability paradigm categorizes people with many different labels which exclude people…

This case focuses on a novice principal who advocates for a student who was assigned to the first grade for 3 consecutive years. As the instructional leader of the school, the novice principal is troubled by ethics and social justice issues involved to make the decision to assign the student to his age-appropriate grade. The student was placed in…

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 boosted the rights of parents of children with additional support needs (ASN) by improving access to information, instituting a Code of Practice and establishing new redress mechanisms such as the ASN Tribunal and independent mediation. More than a decade later, Scottish…

Transition planning is conceptually and empirically linked to successful postschool outcomes for adolescents with disabilities and has been legally mandated for more than two decades. Unfortunately, young adults with high-incidence disabilities, including learning disabilities (LD), emotional disabilities (ED), and attention-deficit/hyperactivity…

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is a prevalent neurodevelopmental disability with significant implications for learning and behaviour. International research suggests that the prevalence of FASD in school-aged children is 2.3-6.3%. In this paper, we address the questions: (1) what is FASD; (2) what is the prevalence of FASD in schools; (3)…

Federal legislation allows local education agencies to use a student's response to scientific research-based interventions as a method of identifying specific learning disabilities. As a result, educational leadership is challenged to implement response to intervention (RTI). Despite increased literature addressing RTI, no consensus on…