<p> Co-teaching has been utilized as a method of academic intervention used in K-12 classrooms over the past fifteen or more years. This method has consistently involved the pairing of a special educator with a general educator through a variety of co-teaching models. Co-teaching is meant to be used in inclusive environments, where students with and without disabilities are taught together. Co-teaching is a commitment from both educators who participate voluntarily, develop a professional relationship with one another, allow time for planning of classroom objectives, and obtain sufficient training. Multiple benefits to carefully implemented co-teaching in the K-12 environment have been documented in research studies. However, few studies contain information about co-teaching in higher education, particularly in the field of education. This research hopes to gain an understanding of how the pairing of a K-12 special educator and special education professor can bridge educational theory and practice to, hopefully, produce pre-service educators that have more competence about the realities of the teaching world. Results under analysis include measuring attitudes about special education inclusion and overall academic growth for pre-service educators after exposure to knowledge from two working professionals in a co-teaching and traditionally taught classroom environment. </p>

This study surveyed the perceptions of educators in Korean special schools regarding the current status and issues in eight components of the special education system. The eight components of a special education system selected were: philosophy and fundamental practices, identification and evaluation, instruction and related services, personnel, parents and the public, organization, funding, and facilities. A survey instrument was used to obtain information from 70 principals and 192 teachers, with a response rate of 58 (83%) and 156 (81%), respectively. A mean score of responses to each questionnaire item in each component of the special education system was calculated to rate the perceptions of all subjects. The perceptions of special educators were negative toward the status of special education in many items of eight components of the system. The ratings were compared using a t-test or analysis of variance to analyze statistical differences by such variables as position of special educator (principal and teacher), foundation of special school (public and private), and disability areas of special educator (visual, hearing, mental, and physical impairments). The ratings of special educators on the eight system components were statistically significant in four components, according to the foundation of the special schools. As a whole, the perceptions of special educators did not reveal many significant differences by the variables of position and disability specialty areas. Critical issues to be resolved in the future were identified and discussed. Recommendations were made for future development of special education in Korea.

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No description available.

Although the policies and practices of special education are openly constructed around a premise of mobility and opportunity, students from low income backgrounds (‘at risk’ youth) are twice as likely to be labeled “special.” Moreover, of all the special educational categories, learning disabilities (a diagnosis deeply contested) account for the largest group of special educational students who are ‘at risk’ learners. This project is hinged on addressing how those students who are apparent beneficiaries of special educational policies and programs (evidenced by post-secondary enrolment) make meaning of their prior and current educational experiences in relation to special educational policies, services and programs. The author begins by theorizing that such disabilities may medicalize social problems while still preserving a veneer of equality. However, since not all labels have universal meanings when applied to specific social agents, they may both hinder and help some in gaining access to post secondary education. With the support of a group of four enrolled post secondary students located in the Canadian urban west-coast, who identify as learning disabled and the recipients of related interventions, this thesis provides a complex reading of the everyday that draws upon how the students’ specific cultural and material locations inform their understanding of education, ability, disability, meritocracy and normalcy. Collecting data through semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted during the Spring and Fall of 2007, the students actively engage and challenge the author’s original theoretical and methodological assumptions. Anticipating critiques of special education, the author is surprised by the students’ support of such programs. Expecting responses to interview questions to be based on a reading of meritocracy as normalcy and disability as deficit, these students weave understandings of meritocracy and normalcy to articulate their abilities without rejecting their disability labels. In terms of policy where the emphasis is placed on disability as deficit, the findings imply that policy-makers neglect the energy and labour students invest in emphasizing their abilities. For educators, this reveals an important pedagogy of inclusion by inverting assumptions that special educational students are ‘at risk’ of educational failure without unfolding the complex ways in which they actively demonstrate their abilities.

<p> Despite the vast research on students with disabilities, little is known about the perspectives of faculty in higher education. According to the literature reviewed, the overall experience of students with disabilities inside the classroom in higher education is negative due to faculty knowledge, awareness, and perceptions. Institutions of higher education are seeing an increase in the number of students with disabilities who are attending college. Students with disabilities have needs inside of the classroom that exceed a typical student in higher education. Faculty provides the support inside of the classroom necessary to meet both the university standards and the standards addressed in the Americans with Disabilities Act. The purpose of this study was to assess faculty knowledge, awareness and perceptions as they relate to students with disabilities and the regulations that mandate accessibility in higher education. </p><p> A survey was administered to 162 faculty members at a large four-year university in the southeastern United States. The findings from this study identified that faculty at the university had significant differences across gender, knowledge, awareness, and perceptions. No significant group differences were found in faculty based on years teaching and their knowledge, awareness, and perceptions. Findings could serve as the foundation for future research on faculty knowledge, awareness, and perceptions. In addition the findings add to the existing literature and provide data to offices for students with disabilities to further understand faculty knowledge, awareness and perceptions as well as possible justification for faculty development. Suggestions and implications for practice are also addressed.</p>

<p> Previous literature suggests that academic achievement and self-concept among adolescents in the general education population are positively related (e.g., Huang, 2011). For students with disabilities, however, the correlation between academic achievement and self-concept is sometimes negative and non-significant (Daniel &amp; King, 1995; Feiwell, 1997; Houck &amp; Houck, 1976; Young, 1990). Limited research has investigated the relations between academic achievement and self-concept of students with disabilities and few studies consider this relation over time. This study design included four features to address the gaps in the literature: 1) methods appropriate for complex data sets; 2) use of latent constructs; and investigation of differences 3) between genders and 4) among the categories of disability. </p><p> Three questions were investigated: What are the relations between self-concept and academic achievement over time among adolescent students with disabilities? What are the differences in these relations among male and female adolescents with disabilities? What are the differences in these relations among adolescent students with emotional disturbance (ED), intellectual disabilities (ID), and learning disabilities (LD)? </p><p> In a secondary analysis of the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study (SEELS) database, cross-lagged longitudinal panel path analyses were used to explore the relations among the overall sample of 14-year-olds as well as of males-only, females-only, ED-only, ID-only, and LD-only subgroups. Additional procedures were used to account for issues due to missing data, non-normality of distributions, and clustered, stratified, and disproportionate sampling. </p><p> Results of the study suggested that the relations between academic achievement and self-concept were complex. In the overall sample, no significant relations were found. When split by gender, the data indicated nearly equal but opposite path coefficients from self-concept at Time 1 to academic achievement at Time 2. The paths from academic achievement at Time 1 to self-concept at Time 2 obtained statistical significance among the ED-only (positive) and LD-only (negative) groups. The subgroup differences in the relations between academic achievement and self-concept suggested that more subgroup analyses need to occur. None of the study's hypotheses were fully supported by the data. The recommendations for practice, policy, and research are presented.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of listening to music as an intervention to improve disruptive behavior in middle school age children with emotional/behavioral disabilities. Five middle-school students participated in a single-subject design, which involved a multiple baseline across subjects and settings. Students listened to an eight-minute recording of classical music on an iPod before engaging in an independent math or reading assignment while seated at their desk. The researcher used fixed rate recording to collect data over a five-minute session. No significant differences were found between pre-treatment and post-treatment for the targeted behaviors observed during the study. The small sample size of the study is cited as the possible reason for the negative results. Limitations as well as directions for future research are also discussed.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of timbre and pitch-pattern difficulty on perceptions of same-difference between paired pitch patterns, altered and unaltered by timbre and pattern difficulty, among elementary-aged users of cochlear implants. Three null hypotheses were tested to determine the significant effects of these variables and their interaction on the pitch perceptions of children aged five through twelve, who used cochlear implants (p &le; .05). Secondary purposes of the study included the examination of the relationships, if any, among age, age at implantation, and pitch perceptions, and of significant differences between participants' speech processor and pitch perceptions (p &le; .05). </p><p> The Adapted Musical Background Questionnaire was completed by each participant/parent/guardian and used to collect information about each participant's hearing history and musical experiences. The Pitch Discrimination Test (PDT) was a researcher-developed, 36-item data collection instrument used to measure pitch perceptions of participants. Three timbres were used as stimuli, including the soprano voice, piano, and violin. Thirteen participant responses to the PDT were recorded individually. Results were analyzed using IBM^&copy; SPSS^&copy; Statistics Version 22. </p><p> Results of the study revealed no effect of timbre (p = .511), or pitch-pattern difficulty (p = .971) on pitch perceptions. A significant interaction between timbre and pitch-pattern difficulty, however, was found (p = .046). Additional analyses revealed that there were significant differences between mean scores of PDT test items presented by violin and soprano voice for difficult patterns (p = .041), and items presented by soprano and piano for patterns with moderate difficulty (p = .041). The participants discriminated difficult patterns more accurately when the PDT items were presented by soprano voice than piano, but participants discriminated moderate patterns more accurately when the PDT items were presented piano than by soprano voice. </p><p> There were no significant positive or negative correlations between age or age at implantation and PDT scores (p > .05). Additionally, there were no significant differences between participant scores on the PDT and the type of speech processor used (p > .05). Participants who used Cochlear&trade; devices, however, had higher average scores than participants who used MED-EL&reg; devices. Recommendations were suggested for future research and instruction of children who use cochlear implants in elementary general music classrooms. </p>

The purpose of this study was to determine if the type of recommendations made by the school psychologist on the psychological report affected teacher perception of the school psychologist and if the type of recommendations influenced the frequency of utilization of the report. An attempt was made in this study to make the recommendations of the report more useful to special education teachers. Since their training included knowledge of methods and materials to use with children with problems, areas typically covered in the recommendations of a psychological report, these areas were deleted. In this study the recommendations were made which directed the teachers to prewritten goals which could be used in writing a student's individual educational plan (IEP). As a requirement of the Education for Handicapped Children Act, 1975, an IEP with long and short-range goals must be written for each child in special education. An assumption was made that by lessening the teacher's work in writing the IEP, the school psychologist might be perceived as more useful. An end result might be a more positive attitude toward the school psychologist as well as an increased utilization of the report. The pre-written IEP goals used in the study were the 2,400 "identifying behaviors" of the Behavioral Characteristics Progression published by the Vort Corporation. These field-tested behaviors were developmentally sequenced into 59 goal areas.The subjects included all of the Coweta county (Georgia) special education teachers (N = 32) whose students were required to have a psychoeducational evaluation before entrance into those teachers' respective programs. All the teachers were licensed by the state of Georgia as certified or provisionally certified special education teachers.The posttest only control group design was used. The subjects were randomly assigned to groups Table of Random Numbers. Each group, control and experimental, had an N of 16. A six-month duration was set. Both groups received the exact treatment exception of the independent variable, the type of recommendations made in the written psychological report. All the subjects in both groups were asked to mark a tracking sheet which had been attached to each psychological report. The tracking sheet listed eight instances for which a psychological report could be used. The subjects were to mark the appropriate instance each time the report was used. The tracking sheet was developed by the researcher for this study. At the end of six' months the tracking sheets were collected and a semantic differential using 15 pairs of bipolar factor analyzed evaluation-loaded adjectives derived from C. E. Osgood's work was administered to all subjects. The semantic differential was used to measure attitude toward the school psychologist. The tracking sheets were used to determine frequency of utilization of the psychological reports.A t-test for independent samples was performed using the mean scores from the semantic differentials and yielded an insignificant difference (at the .05 level of confidence) in attitude toward the school psychologist as a result of the treatment of recommendations. One dimensional chi square statistical procedures were applied to determine if the frequency of utilization of the reports was significant between the two groups. The frequency of utilization was significantly greater (at the .05 level of confidence) as a result the treatment of the recommendations.Based upon analysis of the data the following conclusions were made:1. No significant difference in attitude toward the school psychologist existed between two groups of special education teachers as a result of the treatment of recommendations in the psychological report.2. As a result of the treatment of the recommendations in the psychological report, the frequency of utilization of the report significantly increased.