The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of a co-curricular program on the behavior of seriously emotionally disturbed (SED) middle school students. Co-curricular activities are any school-based activities that give students an opportunity to blend the various aspects of their academic learning with personal actions. This was an action research study conducted in a middle school special education program. The participants were 10 middle school students identified as seriously emotionally disturbed. These students participated in the planning and evaluation of their involvement in co-curricular activities during this year long study. Participant observations, interviews, student and staff journals, and documentary evidence provided data for the development of case records. The study generated the following results: Participation in co-curricular activities increased the sense of belonging for these students at this middle school. Seriously emotionally disturbed students reported that adult mentors significantly influenced their level of success. Seriously emotionally disturbed students had higher grade point averages and better attendance and fewer disciplinary issues during this study. During co-curricular activities, these students demonstrated leadership, thinking, communication, and cooperative learning skills that were not apparent in the regular classroom settings. Seriously emotionally disturbed students responded favorably to a solution-focused model of education. Parents reported that their students engaged in more leisure activities involving peers outside school, and were easier to live with at home. Students identified the privilege of participating in co-curricular activities as motivating them to minimize their past use of counter-productive social strategies during interactions with peers and adults. Latino students found it difficult to participate in activities with Anglos if other Latinos did not view the activity as acceptable. The primary implication of this research for schools is that co-curricular programs appeared to increase the sense of belonging for middle school SED students which influenced more positive social and academic behaviors. / Graduation date: 1999

This study investigated the efficacy of three different modes of teaching elementary school students identified as severely mentally handicapped. The modes of instruction used were one-to-one instruction, sequential group instruction, and combination concurrent/sequential. The skills trained with these methods were the operation of three recreation and leisure skills: a Spiromatic, a hand held pin ball game, and a radio. The modes of instruction were then compared on the basis of effectiveness, efficiency, and situational generalization.Three children, ages 7 to 11, from an elementary school classroom for students identified as severely and profoundly mentally handicapped were employed as subjects. Each of the three leisure skills were task analyzed and taught with a forward chaining procedure and a least-to-most intrusive form of prompting in the classroom setting.An alternating treatment design was used. The design consisted of three phases: baseline phase, experimental treatment phase, and application phase. During the experimental treatment phase the three treatment conditions were run in a counterbalanced order. The application phase involved applying the most effective training condition to teach the remainder of the three tasks to the participants.Both visual and statistical analyses were used to examine the data obtained. The split middle approach was employed to conduct the visual analysis. Repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance was used for the statistical analysis.Results of the analyses generally suggest that one-to -one instruction was superior in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. This was true for all subjects with the exception of one subject for whom one-to-one and sequential instruction were found to be equivalent in terms of effectiveness. However, the degree to which this method was better did vary among subjects. Situational generalization occurred equally with all three modes examined. / Department of Special Education

This project explores and justifies using the local environment as an effective educational strategy for teachers of special education students.

The purpose of the study is to discover whether exposure to domestic violence leads to higher rates of special education placement. The problem of concern is the effect of domestic violence exposure to children, which results in psychological and behavioral problems that may lead to school difficulties and placement in special education programs.