<p> This research postulated that the cognitive impairments characteristic of students with high-functioning autism can be associated with specific types of reading comprehension difficulties. Descriptive data was collected from two case studies of adolescent students who were diagnosed with high-functioning autism. The researcher employed interactive questioning techniques, based on task-analysis theory, to develop hypotheses on the types of cognitive impairments that might be causing the participants in the study to experience reading comprehension difficulties. Based on these hypothesized associations between cognitive impairments and specific incidences of reading comprehension problems, the researcher selected and employed targeted reading comprehension interventions. Descriptive results suggest that incremental improvements in reading comprehension and expressive language occurred for the case-study participants.</p><p> <b>Keywords:</b> autism, high-functioning autism, reading comprehension, task analysis</p>

<p> This study utilized a qualitative case study interview methodology to explore the transition to postsecondary education and first-year postsecondary educational experiences of four students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). This research provided a comprehensive understanding of the first-year postsecondary educational experience of the students who were enrolled in a private, selective four-year postsecondary educational institution. It explored the ecological factors that impacted the students' first-year postsecondary experiences through analyzing the perspective of the students, the students' parents, and the students' disability resource and service (D/RS) provider. It also investigated how students' prior experience and perception of ASD influenced their first-year postsecondary experience. </p><p> Reviewed literature found that research focusing on postsecondary educational experiences was scarce and mainly consisted of anecdotal accounts of students with ASD and limited research on the experiences of students with ASD after their first year. There was no prior research focusing on the first-year postsecondary experiences of students with ASD. </p><p> The study's findings provide an analysis of each student's prior experience and first-year postsecondary educational experience and then present a cross-case analysis. The study revealed that the students' academic and transition services in high school and parental support were the most notable prior experiences that influenced the students' transition to postsecondary education. It also found that the students experienced academic and social successes and challenges. Internal attributes, including students' persistence and stress impacted their experience. Parental support and D/RS support were perceived to have positively impacted the students' experience. The study also found that the students perceived their diagnosis of ASD as both a positive asset and a hindrance to their experience. </p><p> The discussion provides an analysis of the factors within the postsecondary environment and from the students' prior experience that impacted their first-year and how these four students' experiences related to the previous literature. It also discusses the importance of implementing effective support services. Recommendations for policy, practice, and further research are also provided. </p>

<p> The No Child Left Behind Act requires all students be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014, and students in subgroups to make Adequate Yearly Progress. One of these groups is students with disabilities, who continue to score well below their general education peers. This quantitative study identified scoring differences between disability groups on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) over a 6-year period. The percentages of students who scored at the proficient level in reading, mathematics, and writing in the fourth grade, and reading, mathematics, and science in the fifth grade were used to identify differences in 12 disability groups. All students with disabilities are combined into one category for reporting purposes and assigning school grades. Disaggregation of the special education categories revealed scoring differences between groups in all subjects and both grades. Students with speech impairments had the highest number of students scoring at the proficient level in all subjects, while students with intellectual disabilities had the fewest. The categorical rank order was identical for reading in both grades and similar in the other subjects. Students with specific learning disabilities, who constitute approximately 50% of all students with disabilities in these grades, were in the lowest five categories for both grades in reading and in fourth grade mathematics, and in the lower 50% in fifth grade mathematics and science. Recommendations included the need for alternate measures of student achievement; specifically, modified assessments, in addition to teacher evaluations and the impact on the Florida Flexibility Waiver's achievement goals.</p>

<p> This qualitative study investigates two teachers who attempt to guide self-improvement initiatives in their school setting during and after completing a University based practicum course in special education. Fullan's (1993) framework for change agency was used to help facilitate the participants' self-improvement process. Participants were called to consider and enact self-identified changes they would like to make as teachers and to consider how these changes interact with their teaching selves and schools at large. To better understand how the self-initiated projects were carried out in the school context, two cases were followed for eighteen months after the sixteen-week self-study practicum was completed. </p><p> A case study of each participant was constructed based on observations, interviews, and document analysis. Using a recursive process, data was explored to analyze each participant's sense of identity and how this process related to efforts to foster improvements in their school setting. The critical importance of the participant's life experiences (past and present) emerged as important to the self-study process and as important to their actions beyond the self-study process. The participants in these case studies were engaged in a balancing act between efforts to improve themselves as teachers and efforts to respond to the internal and external expectations they had in their personal lives as mothers and wives. Although this study was initially interested in how a teacher's identity process might lead toward greater critical consciousness about social justice issues in the classroom, these cases do not suggest a strong connection between the enacted self-study process and an emerging critical consciousness in teachers. However an examination of a teacher's life circumstances and prior experience is believed to provide insights that may inform future research on identity development, teacher development and change agency.</p>

<p> The problem that this correlational quantitative survey research study sought to examine was whether perceived secondary school teacher self-efficacy, in terms of collaboration, was related to the level of implementation of inclusion practices within special education classrooms. The purpose of this study was to contribute to researchers' understanding of how collaboration takes place and whether shared leadership theory, as a means of measuring the amount of collaboration that takes place in an organizational environment, can help to explain these processes so that teacher education inclusion programs can be improved. The theoretical framework that guided this study was Bandura's (1977, 1994) self-efficacy theory. The study aimed to examine possible correlations between teachers' self-efficacy and the level of inclusion practices within teaching teams, perceptions of shared leadership in decision making, and perceptions of the level of stress these different teachers face in their jobs. A sample of 100 teachers were surveyed online using three pre-tested and validated quantitative instruments: the Inclusion Climate Scale, the Teacher Efficacy Scale, and the Collaborative Climate Scale. Regression analysis were used to determine if there was a correlation between the variables. Findings showed that there was no correlation between teachers' self-efficacy and the level of inclusion practices within teaching teams, no difference between general and special education teacher perceptions of shared leadership or decision making, no difference between teacher perceptions of positive inclusion practices, and no statistically significant difference between teacher perceptions of the level of stress they face in their job. Based on the findings from the study, it may be assumed that limitations on sample size and geographic scope of the present study were significant. Future research is needed in order to address these limitations and discover whether the results of the current study can be verified through an adaptation of the methodology or its scope. </p>

<p> As the population of English Language Learners (ELLs) continues to grow in schools, so does the concern for their lack of academic progress and the possible inequitable representation of this culturally and linguistically diverse population in special education (Artiles, Rueda, Salazar, &amp; Higareda, 2005; Guiberson, 2009; Mac Swan &amp; Rolstad, 2006; Rinaldi &amp; Samson, 2008). Of particular concern is the increase of ELLs with an eligibility of Specific Learning Disability (SLD), especially when examined at the local level (Klinger, Artiles, &amp; Barletta, 2006). To understand this phenomenon at the local level, this mixed-method study examined ELLs with SLD in a large California urban school district by targeting English language development (ELD) at the macro and micro level. The researcher accomplished this focus by examining the relationship between English language proficiency levels, grade levels, and type of learning disorder among kindergarten through twelfth grade ELLs with SLD. The researcher analyzed cumulative educational records of three eighth grade ELLs with SLD, including Individualized Educational Programs (IEPs), to examine how ELD needs have been addressed. The results of the quantitative portion of this study revealed greater distribution patterns of ELLs with SLD in sixth through ninth grades. The researcher also found ELLs with SLD to be primarily represented in the early stages of ELD (beginning, early intermediate, and intermediate) and identified with an auditory processing disorder. Results of the case studies also revealed that after nine years of ELD instruction, the students had not reclassified as English proficient and documented evidence of ELD instruction and support was minimal.</p>