People with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDDs) face lifelong challenges in areas such as self-care, learning and socializing abilities. Having such individuals at home brings family caregivers extra stress, especially when support is insufficient. Because of the inadequacy of professional support available globally, the need to…

Background/Context: This paper explores how intersectionality and DisCrit can be used as analytic tools to scaffold preservice teachers' ability to see the ways in which referrals to and services within special education reproduce inequities as a function of race and perceptions of ability that are rooted in White, middle-class, able-bodied norms.…

Currently most special education teachers, including those who teach students with significant disabilities, are evaluated using observation systems designed for general educators. Because the roles and effective teaching practices of special educators differ from general educators, we propose that a more appropriate observation tool is necessary,…

Research on racial and linguistic disparities in disability identification must be grounded on the dual nature of disability as an object of protection and a tool of stratification. This dual nature requires a situated research approach to understand the stratifying power of disability--Who is targeted? Where? How? By whom and to what…

Students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are incredibly vulnerable to poor post-school outcomes. Two mandates, the Higher Education Opportunity Act and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, have emerged that may provide avenues to counter the discrepancy between the desire for career and college paths and actualization…

Background: In U.S. contexts, the language of "quality" early childhood education is widely invoked to evaluate the "goodness" of teaching and learning and is often leveraged in attempts to ameliorate inequities. Likewise, efforts to define and achieve generalizable conceptualizations of early childhood quality often guide what…

This scoping review provides a comprehensive overview of available experimental research on writing interventions for K-12 students with learning disabilities (LD). After conducting a systematic search across multiple databases, journals, and previous meta-analyses, we located a total of 194 studies. Each study included in this review met the…

The problem addressed in this study is how a College Success course might reverse the trend of lower graduation rates for students with learning disabilities (LDs) who attend a Colorado institution of higher education. Students with LDs graduate at lower rates than the general population, but it is unclear how a College Success course contributes…

This collective case study focused on leadership strategies and self-determination in college students with learning disabilities by examining a small but significant segment of public institutions in the Southern region of the land-grant system. Social justice issues in America have evolved since the civil rights movement from race and gender to…

To help ensure that assessments are properly administered, states have developed policies about who can administer or proctor assessments, and the training they must have. This report presents the findings of our analysis of states' 2021 policies on the qualifications and requirements for test administrators, proctors, and accommodations providers…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how elementary teachers and their respective administrators from rural Southwestern US school districts perceive the influence of general education curricular access--a dimension of UDL--on academic progress for students with significant cognitive disabilities. Universal Design for…

The skill of collaboration is fundamental for every student as a future participant of a global society. Students with learning disabilities feel excluded amongst peers in a traditional classroom setting, specifically elementary students with learning disabilities in the area of collaboration. The overall purpose of this basic qualitative study…

In this dissertation, I describe patterns of educational placement for students with disabilities, test the degree to which placement is impacted by student and school variables, and offer practical guidance for how schools can promote the principle of least restrictive environment (LRE) to promote access to general education classrooms to the…

A mixed-methods research design was employed to explore the attitudes of typically developing elementary grade students toward people with disabilities. Person-centered videos depicting successful and positive people with disabilities accomplishing life tasks were shown during one week of school assemblies in an elementary school. Discussions…

The problem addressed by this qualitative case study is the lack of effective training for paraprofessionals to deliver systematic prompting to students with moderate-to-severe disabilities in the community setting. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the perceptions of paraprofessionals, families, and community-based…