Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2007. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Sept. 19, 2008). Thesis advisor: Schuyler Huck. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Across grade levels, students with learning disabilities (LD) experience challenges with aspects of their academic learning in terms of reading and writing. In many cases, these challenges can be addressed by utilizing assistive technology (AT) applications as a potential solution. According to the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 2004, AT should be "considered" in the development of the Individualized Education Program (IEP) to meet the requirement of providing a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) and to assist students in accessing the general education curriculum. The law requires IEP teams to consider AT to determine whether AT devices and services are necessary; therefore, IEP team members play an important role for considering AT and how AT should be specified in the IEP (Golden, 1998). The IEP team members include school administrators, teachers, and professionals who are responsible for developing, reviewing, and revising the IEP for students with disabilities. Thus, the IEP team members should have essential knowledge to inform AT decisionmaking (Bowser, 2003). The Technology and Media Division (TAM) of the Council of Exceptional Children (CEC) lists standards and teacher competencies regarding knowledge and skills of AT for practitioners and related professionals to follow. The standards include obtaining knowledge about AT legal foundations, students' characteristics, instructional content, technology applications, and related services for providing technology. In order to know whether IEP team members possess knowledge for considering AT for students with LD, the purpose of this study was to examine IEP team members' knowledge regarding characteristics of students with LD, AT legislation, AT devices, and AT services for considering assistive technology in the IEP development for 3rd grade to 5th grade students who have been identified as having learning disabilities in reading and writing. Participants (N=1050) including school administrators, general education teachers, special education teachers, diagnosticians, and speech/language pathologists from three school districts in a southern state were surveyed. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze the data. The results showed that participants were somewhat knowledgeable about the characteristics of students with LD, AT legislation, AT devices, and AT services when considering AT in the IEP development. Training in terms of quality and quantity was suggested by researchers to provide IEP team members who are serving students with LD better preparing for considering AT in the IEP team meetings. Future research should focus on conducting a similar study with different IEP team members and with different disability groups rather than just learning disability.

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Reading Disability (RD) are among the most common childhood disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) and co-occur significantly more frequently than expected by chance (Dykman & Ackerman, 1991; Semrud-Clikeman et al., 1992). Similar processing deficits are seen in children with ADHD and children with RD, one of which is rapid automatized naming (RAN) (Denckla & Cutting, 1999). These continuous performance tasks require quick naming of visually represented stimuli. Uncertainty about what RAN actually measures, however, makes drawing conclusions about relations to ADHD and RD difficult (Tannock, 1998). By better understanding the cognitive processes involved in RAN, and how those processes relate to ADHD and RD symptoms, the relations among RAN, ADHD, and RD might be better understood. The current study sought to identify variables that would help explain ADHD and RD children’s difficulty with RAN. Five fundamental, neurocognitive skills were hypothesized to be related to RAN performance, ADHD, and reading disability. The effect of children’s phonological awareness, processing speed, working memory, fine-motor speed, and reaction time on their RAN performances was measured. The extent to which these same variables were related to inattention symptoms severity and word-reading ability was also assessed. Finally, the extent to which RAN mediated the effects of neurocognitive skills on inattention symptoms and word-reading ability was measured. By simultaneously measuring the hypothesized relations among variables, the processing deficits responsible for ADHD and RD children’s problems on RAN may be revealed. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze assessment data (i.e., neurocognitive, RAN, and word-reading performance scores; parent-report of inattention symptoms) of 183 children who received neuropsychological evaluations. Results indicated the following significant direct effects: phonological awareness and working memory on word-reading ability, processing speed and working memory on RAN, and RAN on word-reading ability. A possible significant mediation effect of processing speed on word-reading ability through RAN was also shown. Significant effects of study variables on inattention symptoms were not shown, which limited conclusions about RAN’s relation to ADHD. Results are of practical importance in RD assessment because the relation between RAN and word-reading ability was shown to involve processes beyond phonology. / text

Not available / text

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

Previous research has demonstrated that specific instructional contexts, techniques, and service delivery models that provide opportunities for peer interaction and active engagement in instructional activities promote positive social and academic outcomes for students with and without disabilities (Bulgren & Carta, 1993; Fisher et al., 1995; Grenot- Scheyer, 1994; Kamps, Leonard, Dugan, Boland, & Greenwood, 1991; Lee & Odom, 1996; Logan et al., 1998). It has been suggested that Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory provides a framework that includes many of these inclusive pedagogies and techniques (Armstrong, 1994; Hoerr, 1996). The present study was intended to explore the extent to which MI theory and instruction facilitates the inclusion of participants with developmental disabilities. Ten elementary school students (ages 6-12) with developmental disabilities participated in this study. The students were included in two types of general education classrooms: those in which MI pedagogy, instruction, and assessment were implemented, or those in which no specific educational theory or pedagogy was applied. Data were collected using ecobehavioral assessment, which is designed to reveal interrelationships between environmental variables (e.g., instructional activities and groupings) and child behavior (Greenwood, Schulte, Kohler, Dinwiddie, & Carta, 1986). An online version of MS-CISSAR (Greenwood, Carta, Kamps, Terry, & Delquadri, 1994) was used to gather and analyze data regarding students' instructional experiences, engaged behavior, and peer interactions. A matched-subjects design was used to compare the experiences of participants in the two types of classrooms; specifically, the relationships between types of task and instructional groupings and students' social interaction and engaged behaviors were examined. Results suggested that the experiences of the participants in both typical and Mt classrooms were more alike than different. Participants in both types of inclusive classrooms were frequently involved in whole-class or independent seatwork and paper-and-pencil activities. Thus, rates of overall engaged behavior and social interactions were essentially equivalent. However, participants in MI classrooms were more frequently observed to be involved in activities that allowed for multiple methods of responding and in small group structures. In contrast, participants in typical classrooms had high rates of one-to-one, separate activities from those of their typical classmates, as well as relatively high rates of non-instructional time (i.e. "down time" or transition time). Perhaps as a result, participants in MI classes were observed to interact with their typical peers more frequently and to be actively engaged in learning more often, while participants in typical classrooms were observed to interact more with adults and to be more passively engaged. The results are discussed in terms of their educational and research implications, limitations, and suggestions for further research.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of an inservice workshop on the attitudes and perceptions of South Korean educator participants toward community based instruction for students with mental retardation. Thirty South Korean educator participants from EMI, TMI, SMI, and SXI focused on classrooms were asked to respond to a questionnaire containing items that demographics, importance of community based instruction, necessity of community based activities for their students' adult lives, required instructional time for community based activities, satisfaction with their current instructional time for community based activities, and potential barriers to community based instruction. For the treatment procedure, an extensive in-service workshop on community based instruction was given to all educator participants. Results indicated that in general, educator participants expressed overall positive attitudes toward community based instruction and showed strong support for the necessity of community based activities in their students' adult lives. Interestingly, all of the 13 community based activities provided in this questionnaire received at least one rating of "never would be needed" in the adult lives for students with mental retardation. In general, these educator participants appeared to be dissatisfied with the current amount of instructional time allocated for community based activities. In addition, these educator participants perceived limited staff, transportation, scheduling, cost, and administrator reluctance factors as the major potential barriers to community based instruction. Further, differential responses between EMI educator participants and TMI, SMI, and SXI educator participants were noted for the questionnaire items related to necessity of community based activities, and satisfaction with the total amount of instructional time in community based activities. EMI educator participants indicated community based activities were more necessary and more satisfied with current amount of, time allocated in community based instruction than TMI, SMI, and SXI educators. Implication concerning the future prospects for community based instruction in South Korea for students with mental retardation were also presented. / Department of Special Education

Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) have historically been difficult to define and measure which has led to uncertainty and controversy. The current study explored the practices of identifying specific learning disabilities in Kentucky by surveying school psychologist practitioners in the state. Information was obtained about current practices with regard to RTI implementation and methods and data used for SLD identification as well as the roles that school psychologists take in the response to intervention (RTI) process. The sample consisted of 97 current or recently (within the past year) practicing school psychologists from 45 districts across the state. It was predicted that the use of RTI data for SLD identification would be associated with the length of time a district had been implementing RTI. The data did not support such a relationship. The majority of the districts represented by respondents were noted to be beyond an initial implementation of RTI practices. Responses to questions regarding the implementation of core features of RTI were grouped into High Implementation (HI; n = 45) and Low Implementation (LI; n = 41) groups. An independent samples t-test found a significant difference between the HI and LI groups for the quality of implementation. The HI group evidenced higher quality ratings than the LI. The use of RTI data as the most frequent method for SLD determination was noted for 30.9% of respondents as opposed to 0% prior to 2007. However, severe discrepancy was the most preferred method (59.3%) used for determining placement followed by RTI (28.4%) and a pattern of strengths and weaknesses (4.9%). Districts were also not likely to utilize non-preferred types of data if a student transferred into their district with that non-preferred data. Finally, the roles of school psychologists in the RTI process were explored. Great variability was found across practitioners with regard to the roles they actively have in the RTI process; however, practitioners in the HI group generally were more involved in the RTI process than those in the LI group. The findings are discussed with regard to the current national SLD identification practices and the limitations of the current findings.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2009. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Mar. 10, 2010). Thesis advisor: Deborah Ann Wooten. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.