Supporting beginning teachers continues to be problematic for education systems across the nation. Issues concerning recruitment and retention have long plagued the profession. The onset of the global pandemic exacerbated these issues, particularly, across rural communities. Researchers continue to advocate for the need to provide beginning teachers with supports such as professional development, mentoring, and consultation to help improve retention and overall school/professional outcomes. The delivery of these supports must go beyond traditional methods of implementation, especially considering the lack of resources that schools encounter. This article is a program description of a regional approach for providing instructional coaching, professional development, and professional learning networks for beginning teachers, with a specific focus on its impact on special educators in rural communities.

In this special section of Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities ( RPSD), the intersection of race, ethnicity, culture, and language influences schooling (i.e., what is taught, how, and where) for students of color with significant cognitive disabilities is explored. Contemporary issues facing people of color with severe disabilities are introduced with attention paid to a call for a “way forward.”

ABSTRACT Historically, students who are English learners and students with disabilities have experienced inequitable schooling opportunities. These inequities are heightened when considering those individuals who are not only English learners but also have a significant cognitive disability. This particular dually classified group, while not large in number, is likely one of the most understudied and underserved school populations. Recently, researchers have begun trying to better identify these students for alternate assessment purposes. Despite more recent attention, educational research is still evolving and substantial gaps within the literature still exist. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief overview of contemporary educational issues while simultaneously providing recommendations for future researchers to enhance effective practices for this population. We attempt to define this group, which currently has no federal definition; describe their complex language needs; advocate for the use of appropriate blended educational frameworks; advocate for the need of inclusion in research studies; and, finally, argue for increased interdisciplinary research efforts.

Forty-one states and 928 teacher preparation programs across the United States are using the Teaching Performance Assessment (edTPA) as an evaluation tool to determine teacher readiness and/or meet licensure requirements. Nationwide, pre-service special education teachers struggle to demonstrate proficiency in specific areas of the edTPA (i.e., plan assessments to monitor and support student learning, analyze teaching effectiveness, and incorporate learner feedback into future learning goals). A commonality across these areas is the incorporation of self-determination skills (e.g., self-regulation) into student learning. Assisting pre-service special education teachers to help students become more self-determined may increase these lower scores on the edTPA. More importantly, increasing self-determination is particularly important for students with disabilities in rural areas who often face challenges related to poverty, decreased opportunities for post-school employment, and underemployment due to geographic location and isolation. This article provides a description of how a special education department sought to assist pre-service special educators in embedding self-regulatory behaviors within lesson plans to better promote self-determination for their students in rural communities across eastern North Carolina.

Over the past decade, there has been an increase in postsecondary programs seeking to meet the needs of students with high incidence disabilities (e.g., learning disability, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]). Many of these students experience difficulties with executive functioning, that is, effectively applying problem-based strategies to set and obtain goals. There is limited research to enhance academic performance and retain this population throughout their college experience. This study investigated the use of a task analysis and goal setting intervention for improving the study skills and overall task completion by three college students with executive functioning challenges. Results demonstrated a functional relation between the intervention and dependent variables. Suggestions for future research and implications for practice are discussed.

Encouraging engagement and collaboration amongst students can sometimes be difficult in university classrooms. Merging current technologies as a platform to incorporate collaborative practices and increasing desired student behaviors could be beneficial. The purpose of this manuscript is to share how a Web application, ClassDojo (2018 ClassDojo. 2018. Retrieved from https://www.classdojo.com/ [Google Scholar]), was used as a digital token economy to encourage participation, engagement, and collaboration in a university classroom. Steps and considerations for using ClassDojo and setting up a digital token economy are described.

Emergent Bilinguals (EB), particularly those of Latino descent, who have a moderate intellectual disability (ID) are arguably one of the most underserved and under researched populations. Although there has been an increase of evidence-based practices for both EBs and students with ID, there are still a limited number of empirical studies of EBs with moderate ID. The purpose of this literature review was to investigate current research-based strategies for teaching academic and/or functional skills to EB students with moderate ID, as well as make suggestions for future research in regards to this special population of students. Implications and findings will be discussed.

This article provides six fundamental steps for using a task analysis to teach emergent literacy skills to young learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Compared to general education peers, students with ASD score lower on reading measures and often have difficulty acquiring literacy skills via the instruction methods used in typical classrooms. An effective instructional technique for many students with ASD is systematic instruction via task analysis. Task analysis may be a useful tool for teachers of students with ASD to build literacy skills by aligning instruction in missing skills to the curriculum standards. The steps to consider when using a task analysis include what emergent literacy skills will be taught, defining expected steps and correct responses, the instructional method to be used, systematic prompting techniques, piloting and updating the task analysis, and teaching and collecting data. Considerations for implementation for practice are provided.

In 2008, Browder and colleagues published a meta-analysis on mathematics instruction for learners with significant cognitive disabilities and found that most skills taught to these students were only from two of the five strands recommended by the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (i.e., Number and Operations, and Measurement). A review of the literature since Browder et al. yielded an additional 29 studies. When results from both reviews were compared, a greater percentage of studies taught skills from three strands (i.e., Number and Operations, Geometry, and Algebra), whereas the percentage teaching skills from the Measurement strand decreased and the percentage teaching skills from the Data Analysis and Probability strand was unchanged. In addition, a systematic evaluation of the studies’ instructional components found evidence to support the use of systematic instruction, in vivo instruction, system of least prompts strategy, constant time delay strategy, and task-analytic instruction as evidence-based practices for teaching mathematics to learners with significant cognitive disabilities. Implications for practice include the use of systematic instruction and in vivo procedures, the need for practitioners to have a deep understanding of mathematics, and the importance of relevancy when teaching a variety of mathematics skills.

With the increased use of iPads in classrooms, special education teachers need methods for preparing students with developmental disabilities to access and use this technology for a variety of academic purposes. This study used a multiple probe design to examine a multicomponent multimedia shared story (MSS) intervention via an iPad to teach science vocabulary to three elementary students with developmental disabilities. The shared stories, delivered via an iPad, included photographs, text, and videos to purposefully support generalization of vocabulary. Furthermore, pre and post measures were taken to determine student gains in digital literacy skills through modeling without explicit instructions. Results demonstrated that all three students met the criterion for identifying picture vocabulary and maintained and generalized their vocabulary knowledge across other stimuli. Students also showed mastery of digital literacy skills. Implications for future research are discussed.

ABSTRACT The current research investigated the effects of an avoidance contingency on the curriculum-based measures of three university students. Contemporary teaching practices in higher education promote the development of higher order skills, which are often contrasted with memorization. However, there is little empirical evidence to support educational practices at the university level. Three students in an introductory applied behavior analysis course participated in this project. Each class day throughout the semester, the participants took part in both a 1-min fluency drill and a daily quiz over the assigned readings. During baseline, these activities were independent of each other. The intervention consisted of making the quiz contingent on each student’s fluency score. The number of vocabulary words identified by each participant increased after the avoidance contingency was applied, indicating that the prevention of daily quizzes served as a negative reinforcer to increase studying. Implications for the use and frequency of assessments in higher education are discussed.

Students with behavioral and emotional disabilities spend less time on academic instruction due to their behavioral disruptions, contributing to the academic difficulties these students face. Classroom management strategies, in the form of positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS), incorporate principles of applied behavior analysis to shape student behaviors through the use of motivation and positively reinforce good behaviors. A strategy often used in PBIS systems is a token economy. This column provides practitioners with a strategy for implementing a token economy using ClassDojo, a web-based classroom management program available for computers and mobile devices.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a computer-based video intervention, using Apple iBooks on an iPad, for teaching literacy skills to a student with moderate intellectual disability. The intervention, which combined rich multimedia features and explicit instruction sought to teach picture vocabulary, sight word recognition, and the definitions of targeted vocabulary. A multiple-probe design across conditions was used to determine the effectiveness of the intervention. Results demonstrated a functional relation between the presentation of the intervention and the number of correct picture vocabulary words learned. Additionally, pre and post measures indicated that the participant was able to generalize picture vocabulary, in addition to acquiring sight words and vocabulary definitions as a result of the multimedia video instruction. Suggestions for future research and implications for practice are provided.

191 Vol. 21, No. 4, December 2018 YOUNG EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN Mrs. Torres is a first-year teacher in a self-contained setting serving early elementary (i.e., K-2) students with significant developmental disabilities (DD). This year she will have eight students in her class with a wide range of abilities and needs. Some students have autism, others have developmental delays, and one student has a minor physical impairment (e.g., difficulty grasping items). Mrs. Torres’ students have vast differences in language abilities. For example, five students are verbal and three are at a presymbolic level of communication. All students are developing their emergent literacy skills (e.g., print awareness, alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, vocabulary). Although her past practicum and intern experiences have prepared her well, she feels somewhat overwhelmed starting a school year independently for the first time. She is having some difficulty determining ways to set up a literacy-rich classroom that will meet the many and varied needs of her students. There are members of a first-year teacher support team who are willing to provide her with the materials necessary for setting up the classroom. Mrs. Torres feels well supported, but she still needs some guidance in setting up a literacy-rich environment capable of meeting the needs of her diverse class. 674330 YECXXX10.1177/1096250616674330Young Exceptional ChildrenLiteracy Rich / Stone et al. research-article2016

Over the past few years an increasing number of schools and community organizations have developed transformative learning spaces referred to as ΓC£MakerSpacesΓC¥ for research and training purposes. MakerSpaces are organizations in which members sharing similar interests in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) gather to work on self-selected projects. Proponents of MakerSpaces highlight the implicit benefits arising from participantsΓCO increased engagement with complex technical content in a voluntary, authentic context. We extend the MakerSpace concept to applications of training special education teachers to address the needs of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Applied behavior analysis (ABA) has vast empirical support for treating ASD. We believe the MakerSpace model provides a platform for developing a new generation of special education teachers. However, rather than making novel products, the focus is on shaping the behavior-analytic repertoires of special education teachers. In the field of ABA, the term ΓC£shapingΓC¥ describes the differential reinforcement of successive approximations to a target behavior. Accordingly, we propose the name ShaperSpace to describe a novel clinical training approach to developing special education teachers who employ research-validated interventions for individuals with ASD. The supervision model described in this article is provided, not as a recommendation, but as an exemplar that has developed over four yearsΓCO contingency shaping and continues to be refined. We appeal to the reader to consider the ShaperSpace as a starting point from which skills developed through free-operant field experiences will ultimately be shaped and selected by the naturally occurring contingencies of the environment.

Glass, designed by Google, is a fairly new wearable and mobile technology that projects an image into a glass prism above the eye and is currently in beta testing. A touch pad on the side of Glass allows users to engage with the device through swiping gestures and voice control to perform several functions similar to mobile devices. This initial study used a multiple probe across participants design to investigate the effects of direct systematic instruction (model-lead-test [MLT]) to teach three individuals with intellectual disability (ID) to operate Glass. To date, no study has been conducted using Glass with individuals with ID. Results demonstrated a functional relation between the direct systematic instruction and student performance with Glass orientation across all participants. Additionally, participants indicated positive experiences using this wearable/mobile technology based on social validity measures collected at the end of the study. Limitations, future research, and implications for practice are also discussed.