Abstract Although Capeverdean Americans have been a part of the long multicultural history of the United States, little has been written within the professional literature about the special services needs of this cultural group. Capeverdean children requiring educational assistance represent a growing population within many large urban school settings. The provision of culturally relevant special services to Capeverdean youth and their families needs to be situated within an understanding of the sociocultural history of Cape Verde and the Capeverdean community here in the United States. This article presents some important features of the culture and history of Capeverdeans that are relevant for the provision of culturally sensitive special needs services.
Summary Effective home computer decision-making often requires partnerships between families from different cultures and professionals. This article provides a review of literature related to perceptions of home computers held by various cultural groups. A case is made that families vary in their degree of involvement in working with professionals to make decisions about home computers. A discussion is provided related to expectations that families may have of professionals who work with them during team decision-making processes. Because families also vary markedly with regard to supports needed to ensure effective implementation of home computers, training is described as a primary support required by many families.
Summary A multidimensional framework of collaboration is provided. We review research on e-mail, and discuss implications for practice and research with respect to collaboration in the schools. We devote particular attention to the implications of e-mail in consulting with classroom teachers, the functioning of school-based teams, and collaborating with parents. Barriers to collaboration are discussed, as well as how e-mail might improve collaboration. Ethical issues in using e-mail are considered, and guidelines for protecting confidentiality are presented. Finally, we discuss possible future uses of the Internet and e-mail with respect to special services in the schools. Examples are provided from our research on e-mail consultation and the Global School Psychology Network. Key Words: E-mailcollaborationconsultationcomputers
Summary On-line mentoring is a relatively new way to support students and teachers in the pursuit of ambitious constructivist learning. Using examples from classroom practice, this paper describes such “tele-mentoring” relationships, and how they differ from traditional mentoring, apprenticeship and tutoring. The design and use of a telementored curriculum unit in middle school science is then discussed, and a set of general guidelines is provided to aid teachers and administrators in designing and carrying out their own telementoring initiatives.
Families are in crisis. With an increasing array of problems affecting children in the home, from child abuse to familial alcoholism, schools are facing a vast array of behavioral and emotional concerns affecting childhood behavior. Unfortunately, many negative behaviors are learned at home. Violent and aggressive behaviors, for example, as well as drug and alcohol abuse, are often demonstrated by parents. From a community perspective, schools are in a pivotal position from which to intervene. Yet, many school-based mental health professionals, including school psychologists, school counselors, and school social workers, lack the knowledge to provide direct interventions. This article examines contemporary problems facing families, considers the home-school linkage, and explores interventions for schools and school-based mental health professionals.
Effects of different levels of treatment integrity for a time-out intervention in relation to the aggressive behavior of an 18-month-old were investigated. The time-out intervention was composed of four steps and treatment integrity was systematically varied at 50%, 25%, 75%, and 100%. The results suggest that the 75% and 100% treatment integrity conditions were most effective for decreasing aggressive behavior. Further, there were only minor differences in aggressive behavior between the 25% and 50% treatment integrity conditions. Discussion focuses on the need for assessing optimal and minimum levels of treatment integrity for producing behavior change and the implications for classroom-based interventions.
Noise-induced hearing loss and disorders of the voice are two potentially preventable communication disorders. This study sought to determine if young children's knowledge regarding potentially abusive hearing and voice behaviors can be changed through education. An interactive educational program-“Ears for Listening, Voice for Speaking” (ELVS)-was presented to 66 kindergarten students. A questionnaire, testing the students' knowledge regarding anatomy, abusive behaviors, and conservation practices, was administered pre- and post-ELVS participation. A statistically significant increase was found in the students' knowledge post-ELVS participation. Scores on the voice questions were lower than hearing, and, although the difference was not statistically significant, girls scored higher than boys, both pre- and post-ELVS participation. This study highlights the importance of early intervention through education in preventing noise-induced hearing loss and voice disorders.
Many middle schools have support teams that discuss students who are experiencing academic or behavioral difficulties. However, professional experience suggests that minimal attempts are made to analyze antecedents and consequences of students' behavior, develop and implement sound interventions, and evaluate outcomes of intervention. This article describes a pilot project that extended Instructional Consultation (IC) (Rosenfield, 1987) into the middle school setting. The goal of the project was to develop an approach to training middle school teachers so that they could intervene early and effectively to address students' academic and behavioral needs. The training was based upon principles of systematic problem solving and data-based decision-making. In addition, collaboration between teachers was emphasized, along with considering instructional and environmental variables, when seeking to understand and ameliorate students' academic and behavioral difficulties.
Summary Students learn more when teachers individually tailor student programs using curriculum-based measurement (CBM) to inform instructional planning. Given the demonstrated efficacy of CBM, along with teachers' difficulty in implementing this method, we have developed and researched computer applications to CBM. In this article, we describe these computer applications and provide examples of how the technology has been used; then, we provide an overview of the research we have conducted to examine its utility. We discuss implications for the field of special education. Key Words: Assessmentcurriculum-based measurementcomputers
Fifty-seven general and special education teachers shared their perceptions about inclusion of students with disabilities in large-scale assessment programs during a series of focus group discussions conducted in the state of Oregon. Information shared by teachers is summarized under three categories: Teacher Knowledge, Teacher Decision-Making, and Teacher Attitudes. The majority of teachers interviewed shared their apprehensions about the inclusion of all students in statewide assessment programs, while a few teachers exhibited considerable enthusiasm for the process. Teachers were primarily concerned with the impact of test inclusion on the well-being of students with disabilities. Teachers were also troubled by the high stakes associated with test results, and the reporting of these results in the local media. A detailed discussion of the qualitative methods used in this study is also included.
Abstract Although Capeverdean Americans have been a part of the long multicultural history of the United States, little has been written within the professional literature about the special services needs of this cultural group. Capeverdean children requiring educational assistance represent a growing population within many large urban school settings. The provision of culturally relevant special services to Capeverdean youth and their families needs to be situated within an understanding of the sociocultural history of Cape Verde and the Capeverdean community here in the United States. This article presents some important features of the culture and history of Capeverdeans that are relevant for the provision of culturally sensitive special needs services.
Summary The convergence of theory and research on socially shared cognition represents a promising new direction for understanding how to enhance the intellectual growth of individuals. In this article, we draw upon the metaphor of “apprenticeship” to explain how individual cognitive development of children and adults alike can be enhanced by mentoring relationships within a particular educational “culture.” The view advanced here is that computers and related technologies can be instrumental in creating socially interactive and reflective learning communities. Within these communities there is active transmission of knowledge between individuals as they are guided from the periphery through to the center of the learning enterprise. Examples of communities of learners are provided to illustrate the process of socially shared cognition and development of knowledge networks. Principles for the creation of sustainable learning communities apply equally to traditional educational settings and on-line communities. The concept of the “collective zone of proximal development” is advanced here to explain how cognitive growth progressively occurs for community members who are operating within a socially interactive and reflective learning environment. Finally, principles and recommendations are offered on how to design communities so that all individuals can achieve their optimal functioning level through guided social participation.
Abstract This study examined decision reliability associated with estimates of risk status for 114 first grade students. The study focused on social behaviors as measured by the School Social Behavior Scales (SSBS) and Social Skills Rating System (SSRS). Overall, the decision reliability between the two measures designed to assess social behaviors was moderate when social behaviors were rated by the teacher and low when assessed by alternative raters (i.e., teacher versus parent). Screening practices that include alternative assessment methods (such as interviews and observations) should be considered by special services personnel in addition to traditional standardized procedures.
Summary School-based consultation teams have been implemented in a variety of ways to address students' academic and behavioral difficulties while supporting teachers. Recent research has provided information that may benefit the school-based team consultation process. Computer software offers an effective and efficient means of guiding diverse team members through a comprehensive consultation process, generating intervention scripts, tailoring data collection to student needs, as well as recording and communicating information shared during team consultation.
Summary Instructional uses of technology in special education have evolved considerably over the last two decades. Many researchers have moved away from stand alone uses (e.g., computer assisted instruction) toward an array of different technologies that serve as tools in complex learning environments. A change in thinking about teaching and learning has also occurred, as researchers have moved away from didactic instructional methods to constructivist approaches. Yet constructivism remains problematic for many in the field, in part because of the traditional emphasis on skills in day-to-day instruction. This article describes how skills instruction can be an important feature of constructivism for teaching special education students.
Although special services providers are trained to address a range of behavioral problems, there has been little attention paid to non-traditional training sites which can prepare special service providers for working with seriously delinquent youth with histories of criminal behavior. This article considers the increasingly delinquent behaviors of children and describes an internship training experience for school psychologists assigned to a correctional educational program serving delinquent, incarcerated, youthful offenders.
We conducted a survey of children with autism/pervasive developmental disorder who entered public school education settings following intensive behavioral treatment in a private center-based program. The survey included 27 children that had been discharged from the center to public schools over a nine-year period. Based on parent report, the survey revealed that 92.5% of children were attending public schools and that 96.0% of them were participating in inclusive education (instruction with typically developing peers). Children who were involved in inclusive classrooms required the support of an individual instructor from 0-100% of the time. The amount of time spent in inclusive education and the percent of individual support was unrelated to the years since discharge from the center-based program. Parents were uniformly satisfied with the services their children were receiving in the public schools independent of inclusion status or the provision of individual support. These findings illustrate the use of survey methods as one component of program evaluation for children with autism/pervasive developmental disorder.
Shortages of teachers with specialized skills, coupled with increased difficulty accommodating students with problem behaviors in general education classrooms, create pressures for performance and accountability in schools and with respect to teachers. Matters become increasingly problematic by initiatives that stress high academic competence, high graduation rates, and high performance standards. In addition, heightened cultural and linguistic diversity, diminished public satisfaction, and increased violence and disruptive behavior at school levels suggest a need for effective, easy-to-implement discipline procedures. In this investigation, we describe improvements in classroom ecology after implementation of a school-wide discipline model. These outcomes were positive and provide support for continuing efforts to improve discipline within the schools.
Many educators have limited experience in planning and using testing accommodations for state and/or district testing. Recent changes in federal and state laws have confronted many educators with the requirement of using accommodations for students with disabilities in efforts to include them in assessments. This two-part investigation focused on educators' use of the Assessment Accommodation Checklist (AAC) (Elliott, Kratochwill, & Schulte, 1996) to facilitate selection of assessment accommodations for two hypothetical students with disabilities who are taking either a test featuring multiple-choice items or performance tasks. The volunteer participants in this study included 92 educators from Wisconsin and 26 state-level educational leaders from across the United States. Results suggested that educators do not recommend significantly more accommodations for use with a student with a severe disability than a student with a more mild disability. However, educators recommended significantly more accommodations for use on a performance assessment task than on multiple-choice assessment tasks and rated one of the AAC categories, Providing Assistance During Administration, as more helpful and fair on the performance assessment task than on the multiple-choice tasks. Results also indicated educators rated the AAC as possessing good content validity. Furthermore, the educators implied the AAC is useful for generating ideas and documenting accommodations used for students with disabilities. The results of this study have implications for the participation of students with disabilities in large-scale assessments now required in many states and school districts.
This article provides a contemplative, research-based discussion of classroom management by examining classroom rules. The introduction contains a discussion establishing the importance of effective classroom management strategies. The article also provides a consideration of the literature to gain a better understanding of ineffective and effective rules.
