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No description available.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University.

No description available.

This study is an exploratory evaluation of a multi-support peer mentoring process for young people with disabilities. Peer mentors, who were 4 young adults with a range of disabilities, made weekly phone calls to 12 young adults with disabilities as part of the Project TEAM intervention. The peer mentors had two primary methods of support: 1) a script with verbatim instructions of what to say, and 2) a supporter, who provided one on one support during the process. In total, there were 82 phone calls between 12 mentor trainee dyads. The audio for these calls was independently coded by 2 raters for the following criteria: mentor achieving objectives, mentor using the script, mentor using the supporter and trainee demonstrating engagement. The frequency of each code was transformed to a percentage to allow for comparisons between mentors. The evaluation found that mentors achieved a high percentage of objectives, that trainees in the program were consistently engaged, and that each peer mentor used supports in a unique way. A chi square found that there is a significant relationship between using supports and achieving objectives. The significance appears to be driven by a larger than expected number of peer mentors who did not meet objectives when not utilizing supports. Overall, the evaluation found that young people a range of disabilities can serve successfully as peer mentors when given support and that young people with disabilities can engage in a phone based mentoring process. This study can help inform future revisions to the peer mentoring program by tailoring the types of supports to each mentors individual preferences.

Cognitive and academic assessment are fundamental to learning disability diagnosis in children and adults. This study sought to evaluate the relationships between cognitive abilities and reading skills in a sample of referred postsecondary students. It was hypothesized that the relationship between cognitive ability and reading skills may change at different points in the ability distribution, such that the relationship between the two variables is strong and linear up until a certain point and then the relationship weakens or becomes non-significant. The study assessed relationships between four empirically supported indices of cognitive ability and eight measures of reading skills (a total of 32 combinations of relationships). First, linear relationships were analyzed. Strong linear relationships were found for each of the variable combinations, consistent with prior research on non-referred and referred child samples. Next, curvilinear regression was used to see if data were better fit using a curved line (evidence of a threshold effect). There were generally null effects for added variance, though there may be some evidence for a curvilinear relationship between cognitive ability and the specific skill of decoding. These regressions were also re-run while controlling for demographic variables, and again a third time when individuals with possible response bias (i.e., low effort or malingering) were removed; the results did not change. Finally, linear correlations were calculated separately for students in different parts of the distribution of cognitive ability. Again, results indicated that the relationships remain linear across the distribution of cognitive ability. While our primary hypothesis was not supported, this study extended previous research to better understand the linear nature of cognitive-achievement relationships among referred adults. Implications for practice are nuanced and depend on which model of learning disability diagnosis is used.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.