At the Smithsonian, big questions are the common denominators that unite their museums, research centers, and programs. And curiosity is contagious. Today's small child who looks in awe at the big dinosaurs that once roamed the earth and wonders, "What happened?" might just be tomorrow's paleontologist. Among this year's stories is a…

Implementing new and advanced technology for instruction and access to the curriculum for the increasingly diverse student populations in schools can be a daunting task for even the most tech-savvy school personnel. This task can be even more challenging when devices, tools, and systems associated with assistive, or adaptive, technology are part…

If trust is born in strong relationships, then first encounters are critical. Parents of students with disabilities undergo a great deal of stress and come to educational professionals for help with vital specialized tasks, including assessment, placement, progress monitoring, and maintenance of their child's ongoing needs. Special education is a…

Purpose: It is well known that people with aphasia have sentence comprehension impairments. The present study investigated whether lexical factors contribute to sentence comprehension impairments in both the auditory and written modalities using online measures of sentence processing. Method: People with aphasia and non brain-damaged controls…

Evidence-based practice (EBP) represents an important approach to educating and treating individuals diagnosed with disabilities or disorders. Understanding research findings is the cornerstone of EBP. The methodology of systematic reviews, which involves carefully analyzing research findings, can result a practice guideline that recommends…

This study investigated the validity of the "Post-School Outcomes Transition Survey" (PSOTS). The PSOTS was designed to ascertain whether individuals who received special education services in secondary school have obtained postschool employment or have enrolled in postsecondary education or training within 1 to 2 years of exiting high school. The…

Assistive technology use in secondary school and postschool has been shown to improve the educational attainment and life outcomes of students with high-incidence disabilities. This study used data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2--collected in the early to mid-2000s--to explore the relationship between receipt of assistive…

Postsecondary American Sign Language (ASL) students are capable of teaching short lessons related to sign language and Deaf culture to gifted students in elementary school. College students who work as "interest-area mentors" benefit gifted students while building their own academic discipline and professional skills. In Part 1 of a 2-part series…

Faculty learning communities (FLCs) are collaborative collegial groups of faculty and other teaching staff who are interested in and committed to the improvement of their teaching to accommodate a diverse student population through group discourse, reflection and goal setting. In this article, we describe our FLC experiences that were supported by…

Children in foster care compose a population of students very vulnerable to school failure. Placement and school instability and lack of collaboration between the school and child welfare agency are some of the barriers that impede their school performance. This study focused on the classroom context and questioned beginning general and special…

The programs and services offered at school libraries will be accessed by K-12 students with a range of physical and cognitive abilities. School librarians must be equipped to address the information-seeking needs of all patrons, including those with special needs. An electronic survey was conducted to collect data from school librarians working…

For well over a century, individuals have sought new and efficient ways to communicate health-related information and provide medical services over distances. Often, this desire has sparked considerable innovation in technology and ushered in improved models of service delivery. Today, modern videoconferencing technology allows practitioners to…

We content analyzed 24 best-selling introductory psychology textbooks to assess the presence and nature of material addressing issues of disability. Content analyses assessed the frequency with which specific impairments are presented, the chapters and topics most likely to contain disability-related material, the context in which people with…

This paper presents a proactive process to include young people with learning disabilities in mainstream counselling in secondary schools in the UK based on the findings of a consequential mixed methods research study. Data were collected from a quantitative and qualitative survey (n = 396) and qualitative semi-structured interviews (n = 15) with…

The aim of this study was to investigate the qualitative differences in children's conceptions of the word "disabled". Two hundred and thirty children, aged 7-12 years of age, were instructed to make a drawing of what came into their minds when they heard the word "disabled". A brief written commentary on their drawing was also…