The Federal law mandates that free appropriate public education is available to eligible children with disabilities throughout the United States through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). It ensures that special education and related services are provided in the least restrictive environment. A transition plan is also required to be established for all students with an Individualized Education Program (IEP) before they turn 16. For students with high-incidence disabilities, the transition plan focuses primarily on academic access and accommodations and successful movement into postsecondary education. Other postsecondary areas also include competitive employment, independent living, and community participation. However, students with high-incidence disabilities continue to exhibit poor postsecondary outcomes compared to their peers despite having the potential to be successful and receiving the current level of support available. These youths need help in functional performance areas such as life skills which are not addressed in the school-based setting and significantly impact the transition to adulthood from an employment and independence perspective. Studies have also shown that students with disabilities continue to have significantly less involvement than their peers in areas related to employment, independent living, and community inclusion. Occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs) have the skills and knowledge that may contribute to improved postsecondary outcomes for these students, yet the majority of school-based OTs do not work with transition age-youth or address goals related to transition planning. The role of occupational therapy in the transition team is not well-defined and limited by the guidelines of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and significantly decreases as the youths in the high-incidence category get older and closer to graduating from high school. Furthermore, there is the misconception that OTPs are limited to being providers of adaptive equipment, handwriting/fine motor activities, or sensory integration. Following a literature review of the potential role of occupational therapy in transition, this paper proposes a model for an OT-led community-based intervention transition program focusing on life skills training. Skills for Exceptional Adult Life (SEAL) is an interprofessional collaboration program designed for high-incidence youths with developmental disabilities who do not receive comprehensive interventions that address life skills, vocational skills, and self-perceived confidence. According to the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Practice, 4th edition (AOTA, 2020), areas of occupation include activities of daily living, instrumental activities of daily living, rest and sleep, education, work, play, leisure, and social participation.

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In the U.S. students in public schools with disabilities are protected via special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2004). As part of these regulations, schools are required to provide students aged 16 years and older with transition services to prepare them for life as adults. Research shows that there are links between participation, social engagement, work and well-being (Cacioppo, et al., 2014; Gilson, et al., 2022; Holt-Lunstad, 2018; Macdonald, et al., 2018) as well as a link between social isolation and increased mortality and morbidity (Snyder-Mackler, et al., 2020; Yang, et al., 2016), and yet parents of individuals with moderate to severe/profound, complex, or low-incidence disabilities do not always have transition experiences they feel set their child up for success in real-life situations (Lee & Kim, 2021; Snell-Rood, et al., 2020). This research study used a mixed methods structure to obtain research regarding parent perspectives on specific areas schools need to address to create strong and meaningful transition plans for their students who have more involved disabilities and may require more support. A literature review, a web-based parent survey, 6 one-to-one interviews, and a focus group of 4 interview participants were conducted to drive development of an online, self-paced instructional course comprised of five modules designed to be implemented with school administrators and IEP team members (including, but not limited to teachers, related service providers, psychologists, support staff, parents and students) highlighting immediately implementable strategies to strengthen the IEP transition process in which they participate. Results compiled from all sources support five main areas or themes for creating meaningful transition: collaboration/team/relationships, community based/real-life instruction, presumed competence/mindset, knowledge, and skills (of the parent and school team members), and individualizing the IEP. Additional research supports the use of specific team members (e.g. vocational rehab transition specialist (Plotner & Dyamond, 2017)) and a case is made for ensuring transition teams for students with moderate to severe/profound, complex or low-incidence disabilities include occupational therapists who are trained in the value of using meaningful participation to improve quality of life for their clients (AOTA, 2020). / Temple University. College of Public Health / Health and Rehabilitation Sciences

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Abstract Interrupted behavior chain procedures have been shown to be an effective way to teach individuals with intellectual disabilities and autism to mand for missing objects and information concerning missing objects. Research has shown that an interrupted behavior chain procedure is more effective than traditional mand teach trials, which occur at the onset of a behavior chain or in a massed trial format. However, there is a lack of research evaluating the use of interrupted behavior chain procedures to teach vocal mands for missing items and the possible generalization effects thereof. This study evaluated the acquisition of vocal mands for missing items using interrupted behavior chain procedures, as well as participants' generalization of learned mands to novel behavior chains when said chains were interrupted. Each participant exhibited some form of generalization to a novel chain suggesting that interrupted behavior chains may be an efficient means to teach mands to children with autism. However, the extent to which a mand generalized across topographically distinct chains was different for each participant, suggesting that an individual's verbal repertoire could be a factor influencing generalization.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has mandated that all public school students will be reading at grade level by the 2013-2014 school year. Florida has embarked on an agenda to ensure that the kindergarten through high school student population is reading at or above grade level by 2014. Many of Florida's low-performing student population, including middle school students with high incidence disabilities, are reading below grade level. Using a multiple baseline across subjects design, this study examined the impact of computer-assisted repeated readings on the reading performance of three middle school students with mild intellectual disabilities over the course of 67 days. Results showed an improvement in reading fluency rate using instructional level text. The study was evaluated using quality indicators of single-subject research in special education. Future research is advocated to replicate this study across different grades and exceptionalities.

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The presence of challenging and violent behaviors that pose risks to the overall safety and the educational learning experience in the public education setting have been on the rise in recent years. Traditional reactive, coercive, and punitive measures to address these behaviors have been futile. Congress responded to the national increase in violent behaviors by implementing several acts, including zero tolerance policies, in an effort to diminish the rise in violent behaviors. Of significance to this study was the inclusion of Functional Behavior Assessment in the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1997. Unfortunately, FBA has the least legal grounding of all the disciplinary provisions of IDEA and has been questioned by experts in the field if sufficient empirical support exists for the generalization of the technology to all students and whether or not school personnel have the skills required to conduct FBA with integrity (Drasgow, Yell, Bradley, & Shriner 1999; Quinn, 2000; Scott et al., 2005; Skiba, 2002). The purpose of this research study was to obtain and analyze information regarding the perceptions of special education teachers in the Commonwealth of Virginia on the use of Functional Behavior Assessment with students with high incidence disabilities in public schools. A nonexperimental survey design using an online self-report survey was conducted with special education teachers in the eight superintendent regions in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The study examined the behaviors that most frequently prompt a FBA, if a relationship exists between the type and frequency of training and the perceived effectiveness of FBA, the relationship between teacher attributes of beliefs and self-efficacy and the overall perceived effectiveness of FBA, and how teachers perceive the overall FBA/BIP process in public schools. The survey was distributed electronically to special education teachers through the office of the special education director in each of the 132 school divisions in Virginia. A total of 373 special education teachers responded to the survey. Respondents perceive the extent to which FBA contributes to the effectiveness of interventions that reduce challenging behaviors of students and the effectiveness of current FBA methods in increasing positive replacement behaviors and improving learning/academic achievement in public schools moderately effective. Congruent with the literature, special education teachers reported that chronic problem behaviors and physically aggressive behaviors were most likely to prompt an FBA. Respondents indicated their knowledge base, training experiences, and background in FBA. Overall, the majority of special education teachers reported that the training that they have received in FBA was moderately to very effective. Respondents indicated that further training in all areas of FBA was needed using a dynamic team based process with post training support. The most frequently reported area of FBA that requires more training was developing function-based interventions while the least reported area of need was developing hypotheses about the functions of the behavior. Teacher beliefs and self-efficacy were examined to determine if these attributes predict a special educator’s perceived effectiveness of FBA. High levels of teacher self-efficacy were associated with increased views of perceived effectiveness of FBA in public schools. Two belief items were found to correlate with the perceived effectiveness of FBA. The results of this study have important implications for personnel development and training for future and current special educators as well as information that can be applied to the exploration of a standardized process for conducting FBA in public schools in Virginia.

This exploratory study assessed the effectiveness of a cross-age tutoring intervention on adaptive behavior goals of three PreKindergarten/Kindergarten-aged students with labels of autism spectrum disorder. Data were collected in an inclusive environment; the school library. Three fourth grade general education cross-age tutors were trained to use a simple, naturalistic least-to-most prompting strategy to support the young students with individualized adaptive behavior goals while in the library. A mixed method design was utilized in this study; a quantitative single case multiple baseline across participants design to show performance outcomes of the young students as a result of the tutoring intervention, and a constant comparison analysis of qualitative data gathered from observations of students, students' written work, and a research journal. Quantitative results indicated all three young students performed the target behavior in the library with support from their cross-age tutors and this behavior maintained one month after intervention ended as evident through a maintenance probe; all three students made progress on the achievement of adaptive behavior goals in an inclusive environment from this intervention. Qualitative results indicated the cross-age tutoring experience was positive and powerful for all six participants involved as evident through the construction of six themes that emerged from the qualitative data.