Research indicates that one in five students nationwide struggles with a learning difficulty or disability that affects the student's ability to learn (Galiatsos et al., 2019). Nationwide, Christian schools are enrolling students with disabilities (SWDs), but it is difficult to determine the specific number of SWDs enrolled in Christian schools…

This dissertation explores teacher and paraeducator training with a specific focus on generalization of training outcomes and social validity. Chapter 1 presents brief background information to introduce the research questions posed in Chapters 2, 3, and 4. Chapter 2 presents a systematic literature review of educator training studies that…

There exists a huge chasm between child care options available to families whose children are typically developing and those whose children have identified disabilities or developmental delays. The intersecting identities of race, disability status, and socioeconomic status compound to make the current child care options inadequate to meet the…

Background: Adults with intellectual disabilities experience higher rates of exploitative intimate relationships. Parents of these adults play important roles in their lives. This study examined the role of parents in the intimate relationship experiences of adults with intellectual disabilities. Method: A mixed methods design was utilised.…

Background and Aims: Self-determination related skills are central for achieving a life of quality for people with intellectual disability and develop as the person interacts with his/her contexts, such as home. As such, families are crucial agents in supporting the self-determination of their children with intellectual disability, although to…

Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) were created to provide students with disabilities with equitable accommodation within American Public Classrooms. Simultaneously, there was a problem that when parents' trust for the Exceptional Student Education program and the IEP team was not developed with a staffing specialist, then students with…

The regulations of the Individuals with Disabilities Act and the New York State Part 200 Procedural Safeguards mandate that parents of students with disabilities be afforded an opportunity to attend their child's Committee on Special Education (CSE) meeting to discuss needs and services. Historically, CSE meetings have been held in school…

Taking 22 children with mild and moderate autism as subjects and using the TobiiX 120 eye-tracker to record their eye movements in visual search of images in picture books, the characteristics of the process of autistic children viewing picture books were explored. Two measures, fixation counts and gaze duration, were used alongside attention…

Students with disabilities are often given accommodations in testing situations (e.g., extended testing time). However, for many students with high-incidence disabilities, interventions can reduce the need for these accommodations or serve as a helpful supplement to accommodations. Applied behavior analysis provides a framework for understanding…

The primary purpose of this study was to synthesise the current research related to special education teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Inclusion and exclusion criteria yielded a total of 13 studies, six of those using a qualitative approach and seven of those using a quantitative approach, and all the studies were from research…

Vocabulary is a prominent contributor to reading comprehension. However, little is known about how students with disabilities with lower vocabulary performance respond to Tier 1 instruction, or how their vocabulary knowledge relates to their content acquisition. To examine the differential impact of Tier 1 instruction for U.S. middle school…

The purpose of this study was to understand the factors which are influencing the low number of students living with autism spectrum disorders who graduate from four-year, degree-granting colleges and universities within six years of enrollment. This instrumental case study investigated the higher education experience for 13 students who…

Day habilitation provides informal and non-formal adult education programming for individuals with disabilities, who often go unrecognized by the adult education field because of infantilization that precludes them from common perceptions of "adults," contributing to a dearth of information about day hab access and programming in adult…

The study was aimed to define swallowing related problems of toddlers with Down syndrome (DS) by comparing toddlers with typically developing children (TDC). A total of 127 children (96 DS, 31 TDC), and their mothers included in the study. The presence of chewing disorders, food selectivity, drooling, coughing during swallowing was scored as…

As state and federal governments place an increasing emphasis on academic outcomes, should they be used to determine adequate funding for students with disabilities (SWD)? Although adequacy is determined through a political process, it requires an understanding of cost -- the expenditure required to reach a specific outcome. Therefore, with the…