The purpose of this study was to assess whether understanding relational terminology (i.e., more, less, and fewer) mediates the effects of intervention on difference word problems. Second-grade teachers who volunteered to participate were assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: schema-broadening word-problem intervention, calculation intervention, or business-as-usual control. Students within the word-problem intervention condition received explicit instruction on the difference problem type, which included a focus on understanding relational terminology within word problems. Analyses, which accounted for the nested structure of the data, indicated that, compared to the active and inactive contrast conditions, word-problem intervention significantly increased performance on difference problems and on understanding relational terminology and that those intervention effects on difference problems were partially mediated by students understanding of relational terminology.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a professional development intervention on teachers implementation of the Teaching Pyramid model. The Teaching Pyramid is a classroom-wide approach for fostering social-emotional development and addressing challenging behavior. The professional development intervention consisted of training and distance coaching. The study had two goals: (a) to examine the differential effects of training and distance coaching versus training alone on teachers implementation of the Teaching Pyramid model, and (b) to examine relations between Teaching Pyramid implementation and child behavior and social skills. Participants were 33 Head Start teachers in nine centers that were assigned randomly to one of two treatment groups. Both groups participated in an interactive 1-day training on the Teaching Pyramid model and created individualized action plans. Following training, the training plus coaching group (n=16) received weekly distance coaching, via electronic mail, on their individualized action plans. The training only group (n=17) created individualized action plans but did not receive follow-up support on those plans. Outcome measures assessed teachers implementation of the Teaching Pyramid model and changes in classroom social climate and teacher-child interactions. In addition, relations between teachers implementation and changes in childrens challenging behavior and social skills were examined. Two types of teacher-response methods (surveys, focus groups) were used to evaluate teachers perspectives about and satisfaction with the professional development intervention. Distance coaching was associated with statistically significant improvements in classroom climate. Teachers who participated in distance coaching sessions more frequently had promising improvements in several outcomes. Implications of study findings for professional development research and practice are discussed.

The purpose of the current study was to extend the literature on decoding by bringing together two lines of research, namely person and word factors that affect decoding, using a crossed random-effects model. The sample was comprised of grade 1 students who were at risk for developing reading difficulties. A researcher-developed pseudoword list was used as the primary outcome measure. Because grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge was treated as person and word specific, we are able to conclude that it is neither necessary nor sufficient for a person to know all grapheme-phoneme correspondences in a word before accurately decoding the word. As predicted, students with lower phonemic awareness and slower rapid naming skill have lower predicted probabilities of correct decoding than their counterparts with superior skills. Results also reveal that words are more difficult if they contain an infrequent as compared to a frequent rime and a complex vowel as compared to a complex consonant. By assessing a person-by-word interaction, we found that students with lower phonemic awareness skills have more difficulty applying knowledge of complex vowel graphemes compared to complex consonant graphemes when decoding unfamiliar words. Implications of this methodology and of the results are discussed in light of early reading instruction and future research.

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of verbal rehearsal and graduated guidance as methods of teaching participants who were blind the chained behavior of street crossing. The participants ranged from 13 years to 20 years and had light perception or less in both eyes. Using a multiple probe design across participants and replicated across settings (intersections) with staggered entry of participants, individuals learned to cross 1 or 2 intersections. Maintenance was assessed. Generalization also was assessed at a third intersection. Additionally, all participants completed psychophysical tests in an anechoic chamber to measure their ability to detect gaps in traffic and align to perpendicular car sounds. Visual analysis of graphed data indicated that verbal rehearsal and graduated guidance were effective for all participants who received instruction. All participants who received instruction maintained at levels substantially above baseline and generalized the majority of skills to the third intersection where they did not receive instruction. All participants performed poorly on the gap detection task in the anechoic chamber; only one participant substantially improved after instruction on the alignment task.

The Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF) subtest of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) has acceptable reliability and moderate validity, but limited diagnostic accuracy when used with kindergarteners. Also, the importance of fluency in the evaluation of sublexical skills is unclear, and recommended PSF scoring rules may affect characterizations of performance. Working with kindergarteners (n = 87), we investigated the role of fluency and scoring rules in phoneme segmentation screening. We also piloted a dynamic assessment (DA) with a subsample of 37 students. Results revealed that although accuracy-based measures and DA did not explain more overall variance than PSF, they did explain significant unique variance. Furthermore, accuracy-based measures and dynamic assessment improved correct classification rates, compared to PSF.

The present study examined cognitive correlates of reading disability (RD) as a function of comorbidity. Students with RD vs. RD+MD (math disability) vs. RD+ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) and RD+MD+ADHD (n = 212), as well as students typical achievement (TA, n =51) were tested on a large cognitive battery. Profile analysis, conducted to examine how the cognitive and reading profiles of these groups were alike and different, cognitive analysis revealed that, across subtypes, students with RD were particularly weak in phonological awareness and oral expression and relatively strong in visuospatial short-term memory relative to peers with TA. Among the RD subtypes, those with RD-only were less impaired on cognitive measures but the subtypes did not have different patterns of strength and weakness.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relative effects of a commenting intervention and a commenting plus trials intervention for teaching preschool children letter naming during play activities. For each intervention, descriptive comments were systematically delivered to expose children repeatedly to targeted letter names in a salient context. The commenting plus trials intervention included the use of a constant time delay instructional procedure to deliver prompted trials. An adapted alternating treatments single-subject experimental design was used to compare the effects and efficiency of each intervention on the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of childrens letter naming. In addition, three measures were used to compare the relative efficiency of the interventions. The findings varied across children. Two children acquired, maintained, and generalized letter naming skills under both interventions. For the other two children, only one intervention was effective, and a different intervention was effective for each child. When the interventions were compared in terms of efficiency, differences were minimal. Across participants, the descriptive commenting intervention required slightly fewer sessions but more letter exposures to reach criterion than the descriptive commenting plus trials intervention. Total time to reach criterion, however, was equivalent across the two interventions. Generalization and maintenance data were similar across the two interventions. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Test accessibility is defined as the extent to which a test and its constituent item set permits the test-taker to demonstrate his or her knowledge of the target construct. The proposed study used a 2 x 4 experimental design to test the effects of testing accommodations and item modifications on math test performance for two groups of students in grade 7: (a) students with IEPs (n = 103); and (b) students without IEPs (n = 329). Results indicated there was no effect of accommodations, but a moderate effect was observed for modifications, with an effect size nearly two times greater for students with IEPs compared to students with no IEPs. Correlational analyses of the relations between accessibility and item discrimination and item difficulty ranged from very small to moderate, with a moderate correlation between item difficulty and word count. The second phase of the study involved a student post-test survey to solicit perceptions of student access, opportunity to learn, cognitive ease, perceived difficulty, and perceived helpfulness of accommodations. For the total sample, students reported increased opportunity to learn the modified items, and reported the items were easier to comprehend, had lower cognitive demand, and students were more confident they responded correctly. Students with IEPs reported lower understanding, lower opportunity to learn the material, lower confidence, and reported the items were more difficult compared to students with no IEPs. Only 7% of students in the accommodated condition utilized any available accommodations; notwithstanding, self-report data indicated accommodations may have contributed to student self-efficacy. The contribution of the current study to an ongoing program of research on test accessibility, the refinement of accessibility theory, and large-scale assessment practices on alternate assessments of modified achievement standards is discussed.

The experiments conducted herein examine: (a) the effect of NAC on the extinction and reinstatement of positively reinforced operant behavior maintained by food and (b) the potential for differential effects of NAC across different schedules of reinforcement within an animal model. Forty-seven C57BL/6J mice were trained in an operant paradigm to respond for access to food on an FR-5 or VR-5 reinforcement schedule. Extinction was then implemented concurrent with injections of NAC or vehicle. Following extinction, cued and reward reinstatement sessions were conducted. Data were collected on lever presses on active and inactive levers and head entries into the dipper throughout all phases. Results revealed an ameliorative effect on response frequency during extinction and reinstatement phases for the NAC group for the FR contingency only. No drug effect was evident for the VR schedule, and when FR and VR groups were compared to each other, no significant differential effect of drug by schedule was noted. The significance of results for the FR contingency parallel those found in the drug relapse/reinstatement literature and may suggest consistency across different types of positive reinforcers. However, these results may be tempered by the lack of significant findings for the VR contingency, which more closely parallels naturally occurring schedules of reinforcement. The ambiguity of these findings combined with the potential for NAC to ameliorate undesirable side effects of extinction warrant continued investigation.

Research indicates that linguistic input from teachers may affect child vocabulary development in preschool and beyond (Dickinson & Tabors, 2001). Currently, there is little research on the relationship between specific teacher language use in individual interactions on child language outcomes for preschool children at risk for academic delays. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of teacher vocabulary input and use of strategies for supporting vocabulary learning on childrens vocabulary outcomes in three measurement contexts (within session, in language samples, on standardized assessments). Secondary analyses explored the relationship between teacher use of complex syntax and African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) and child use of these language features. Thirty-six teachers provided 60 7-10 minute sessions of Enhanced Milieu Teaching (EMT) to one or two target children with low language in their Head Start classrooms. One EMT session for each teacher-child dyad was transcribed and coded for teacher vocabulary and use of strategies to support vocabulary development, child use of vocabulary, teacher use of EMT strategies, and teacher and child use of complex syntax and AAVE. Descriptive data language indicates great variability for both teacher and child language in EMT sessions. Linear mixed models analysis indicated significant relationships between teacher vocabulary use and supports and proximal (within session) and medial (post-test language sample) measures of child vocabulary use. A negative relationship was found between teacher input and child post-test receptive language scores (distal measure).