Video-Based Instruction (VBI) is an evidence-based practice that has been used for teaching new skills to individuals with disabilities for over two decades. VBI involves the use of pre-recorded videos to teach new skills. Benefits of VBI include flexibility in when the instruction is provided to students and allows students to receive instruction while the teacher is working with another person. A multiple baseline across participants design was used to evaluate the impact of the independent variable of VBI, upon the dependent variables of (a) the percentage of steps completed correctly to make novel calendar entries; (b) the timeliness of arriving for scheduled meetings; and (c) timeliness of completing the scheduled tasks (sending text messages). Three female students aged 25 to 31 with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) living at a residential transition program for adults with ASD and Learning Disabilities participated in the study. One of three participants met criteria (80% accuracy) to correctly make novel calendar entries. Two of the three participants needed an additional prompt to meet criteria (80% accuracy) to correctly make novel calendar entries. One of three participants increased and maintained timeliness for arriving for scheduled meetings. Each participant improved the timeliness of completing the scheduled tasks (sending text messages). This study supports the effectiveness of VBI for the instruction of daily living skills to individuals with ASD. Implications for practitioners, limitations and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

A Survival Guide for New Special Educators provides relevant, practical information for new special education teachers across a broad range of topic areas. Drawing on the latest research on special educator effectiveness and retention, this comprehensive, go-to resource addresses the most pressing needs of novice instructors, resource teachers, and inclusion specialists. Offers research-based, classroom-tested strategies for working with a variety of special needs students Covers everything from preparing for the new school year to behavior management, customizing curriculum, creating effective IEPs, and more Billingsley and Brownell are noted experts in special educator training and support This highly practical book is filled with checklists, forms, and tools that special educators can use every day to help ensure that all special needs students get the rich, rewarding education they deserve.

Researchers have shown that the voices of parents of adults with intellectual disabilities can help build supports in the community. Research regarding the perceptions and lived experiences of these parents regarding social inclusion of adults with intellectual disabilities is limited. Guided by positive psychology, the purpose of this interpretive phenomenological study was to examine parents' lived experiences of social inclusion of adults with intellectual disabilities. Research questions were framed to understand and describe the meaning of how parents experience social inclusion with their adult children with intellectual disabilities. Data were elicited through 6 individual interviews with parents of adults with intellectual disabilities from Shelby County, Tennessee. Data was analyzed using a phenomenological and double hermeneutic approach that is consistent with the interpretative phenomenological analysis. The findings from this study were compared with existing literature indicating that parents must facilitate social inclusion for their adult children with intellectual disabilities. Another finding from the study was that parents believe that there is a need to build relationships in the community. Including the voices of parents of adults with intellectual disabilities with those of professionals could influence policy makers in designing supports for parents and families, which could have positive social change implications. Adults with intellectual disabilities may benefit from the study, in that their parents' voices are being heard and the study draws attention to the need for continual support from service providers, policy makers, and the community itself. This study also helps to fill a gap in research regarding parents' lived experiences and perceptions concerning social inclusion of their adult children with intellectual disabilities.

Abstract Sexual autonomy is the right and capacity of each individual to decide and make choices about whom, when, and how they express themselves sexually. Individuals with intellectual disabilities have frequently been marginalized, oppressed, and left out of discussions about sexuality placing them at risk of abuse, unsafe sex practices, and unplanned pregnancies. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the usefulness of person-centered planning techniques in the development of an individual service plan that address the social-sexual needs of individuals with intellectual disabilities. Purposeful sampling was used to select 8 participants for this study. Specific participants were selected because they possessed personal perspectives and experiences regarding person-centered planning techniques. Data collection included semi-structured, open-ended questions with face-to-face interviews and document review. Code development began with systematic organization of narrative data that was thematically analyzed using open-coding. Findings showed the person-centered individual service plan is a tool that can empower and promote social-sexual autonomy for individuals with intellectual disabilities if service and support administrators initiate a conversation about social-sexual activity. Implications for social change include increased advocacy for sexual autonomy, greater social acceptance of relationships, inclusive sexuality programming for individuals with intellectual disabilities and professional development training for service and support administrators.

The purpose of this study was to understand 1) perceptions about transition services of special education teachers who work with students with intellectual disabilities (ID) and 2) dilemmas these teachers have encountered when implementing these services in Korea. I used Qualitative in-depth interviews for providing insight into the Korean special school teachers' perceptions of transition services, dilemmas they encountered in practice, and strategies for solving these dilemmas to improve their performance level for implementing transition services. As a results of this study, I found many challenges or barriers that keep special education teachers for students with ID from effectively implementing transition services. I have used the four dilemmas framework theorized by Windschitl (2010) to further examine why the implementation of transition services is lacking. In place of being critical of educators, it is important to provide them with an environment that allows them to work effectively. Active participation and cooperation by school administrators, parents, government organizations for people with disabilities, and legal services would be most helpful in providing an atmosphere in which special educators could ensure successful transition services for their students. This study also found that teachers had encountered other dilemmas that had not been categorized into the four dilemmas framework. In place of critiquing teachers' low levels of transition implementation, it would be more effective to provide professional development training for these educators and to prepare the educational and social infrastructure to enhance their implementation of transition services for students with ID.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether or not CBVI is an effective method in teaching students with intellectual disabilities the skills of locating grocery items in classroom settings and whether or not the acquired skills in classroom settings generalize to actual grocery stores. Four high school students with intellectual disabilities participated in the study. A multiple probe design across students was used to investigate the effectiveness of CBVI. A CBVI program containing video footages, photographs, and text was developed and used for teaching the skills to the students. Seventeen steps of locating grocery items were used as dependent variables across all conditions. Results indicate that CBVI is an effective and efficient means for teaching the skills of locating grocery items to students with intellectual disabilities and facilitates these students to generalize the acquired skills to actual grocery stores. All students acquired the skills during the CBVI intervention condition and generalized the skill to a grocery store depicted in the CBVI program and to a grocery store did not depicted in the CBVI program. Limitations and suggestions for future research were discussed.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Introduction: Maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy can result to birth defects, which may be developmental, intellectual and physical. Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is a term used to describe an array of disorders related to alcohol consumption during pregnancy. FASD is a severe public health problem globally, with South Africa having the highest prevalence (29 to 290 per 1000 live births). What makes the FASD problem severe in the country is rife of maternal risk factors and widespread binge drinking during pregnancy. There is no policy specifically addressing FASD despite being pervasive in South Africa. Government programmes to prevent and manage FASD remain limited and fragmental across relevant departments. Herein, we aimed to conduct a multi-method study with a modified Delphi approach to developing a guideline to inform the development of a comprehensive and multi-sectoral policy for the prevention and management of FASD. Method and analysis: We used a modified version of the World Health Organization’s approach to guideline development in three phases. In phase 1, we conducted four different studies to design the initial guideline prototype. The studies include an in-depth interview with policymakers and a focus group with relevant service providers on policy requirements for FASD, a document review of policies on FASD and a scoping review of various interventions employed for the prevention and management of FASD. The second phase involved using the initially developed guideline prototype to engage with the local and international experts on FASD for improvement on the content. In the third phase, we refined the prototype using a modified Delphi approach. Framework method and content analysis were used to analyse the qualitative data while the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software was used to analyse the quantitative data.

The experiences of students with special needs attending regular schools, their involvement and achievement within their school setting, and the theoretical underpinnings directing and determining what is best practice and delivery of effective education, have been an area of on-going change and development over the last 30 years. Teaching and learning processes involved in the effective pedagogical practice of special education have been consistently evolving, providing schools with developing options to enhance effective education practice for all students regardless of any academic, social and/or physical differences and subsequent needs. This study researches the experiences of students defined as having an intellectual disability who attend “Aprender”, a special program catering to the students’ special needs within the framework of a regular school setting. These students are eligible to attend a special school due to their individual circumstances, yet they have chosen to attend a regular Catholic school. The study examines the experiences of the students as they participate in the program, by documenting their voice through their school journeys within the social, locational and academic inclusive participation as members of their school community. The research consisted of a longitudinal case study and methods used included interviews, observations, field notes and surveys. The study findings identify the value of relationships as a key element determining the success of inclusive practice within the Aprender program, in particular the peer relations that existed between the participants, their teachers and other students. The study also identified the theme of development, with strong emphasis placed on the examination of academic, social and emotional growth within the experiences of the students. The study illustrates the difficulties that the students with special needs encounter in their educational setting, in particular the social and academic challenges that affects their inclusion. These experiences contributed to determining the success of the approaches structured to support the students’ inclusion in the program. The study found that the program was largely successful in its aims to include SWSN in a regular school setting, though some aspects of a holistic inclusion were less successful, and offers recommendations for further improvement.

This phenomenological study of the meaning of home from the perspectives of people with and without an intellectual disability sought to identify, (a) any common ‘essence’ of meaning held by and, (b) the nature of any differences of perception between, the groups. Purposive samples of 18 people with an intellectual disability and 21 non-disabled people were surveyed using a semi-structured interview to ascertain their experiences of home and 'non-homes'. Inductive analysis of the data revealed a shared understanding of the meaning of home at a fundamental level. This shared meaning of home was found to comprise: the ability to exert control over an area; having a personalised space; feeling content with the living situation; a sense of familiarity with the setting; a set of behaviours and routines usually only enacted when at home; common names and uses for rooms; socialising at home with others; the importance of a positive social atmosphere in the home; and, recognition of places as non-homes because they lacked one or more of these attributes. Further analysis revealed the essence of home is its experience as the place where stress is most reduced or minimised for the individual. The study demonstrates that the concept of stress is superordinate to previously identified concepts considered fundamental to home such as privacy, control and non-homes. Major differences between the two samples were largely differences of degree with people who have an intellectual disability reporting the same fundamental attributes of home as people who do not have an intellectual disability, but in a less elaborated form. Principal among these differences of degree was the notion of control over the home and its derivative elements which encompassed the whole dwelling including its setting for people without an intellectual disability but was very restricted for people with an intellectual disability being largely confined to the person's bedroom. Socialising in or from the home was also very limited for people with an intellectual disability in comparison with that experienced by non-disabled informants with the former group conveying an impression of leading significantly socially isolated lives at home. The major implications of this study are related to the meaning of home per se, to residential service provision to people with an intellectual disability, and to future research.

This study examined the observed effects of horse-riding which took place as an extra-curricula activity within the school day. The three children in the case study were primary aged students from a Canberra primary school who have an intellectual disability requiring high support. The criteria for selection was on the basis of how long they had taken part in the horse-riding programme. The three children were either just about to start or had just started the programme and had no previous experience with horses or horse-riding. The aim of the study was to explore the effects that the horse-riding programme had on the children's behaviour, attitudes and the way they communicated when riding. The children's behaviour was observed in the different settings of the school and the stables environment. Certain individual behaviours were observed and recorded on a weekly basis for an eight week period. Audio-recordings of behaviour took place as well as interviews both before and after the eight week period, from teachers, riding instructors, helpers, and parents. Whilst the case study could not be said to be large enough to be representative of all children with intellectual disabilities attending this horse-riding programme, in general some common themes relating to counselling emerged which corresponded with other studies referred to in the literature. These include positive effects such as a general sense of well-being and a feeling of success whilst being in control of the horse. An emerging empathy and closeness of each child with their particular horse was observed over time, which appeared to lead to increased communication. This took place whilst the children were talking or communicating to the horse or in the presence of the horse.