Moderate Severe Disabilities Research Articles

Self-Monitoring as a Strategy to Increase Student Teachers' Use of Effective Teaching Practices

Student teachers in classrooms for students with moderate-severe disabilities used self-monitoring to increase their use of effective teaching strategies. In the first study, the participant videotaped daily instructional sessions and collected data on her use of varied praise statements and the number of opportunities to respond in a multiple baseline across behaviors design. Next, a student teaching assignment targeting self-monitoring is reported as a series of case studies in which student teachers monitored a self-selected teaching behavior. Research with student teachers, use of videotaping for such research, and implications for use with teachers in rural areas are discussed.

1055 Neuroimaging Prognostic Categorization in Newborns with Symptomatic Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection (SCCI)

Background and AimsIn SCCI, Noyola’s neuroimaging prognostic categorization is restricted to destructive abnormalities.ObjectiveTo ascertain the predictive ability of a classification including destructive, developmental abnormalities and white matter signal changes on...

Commentary on Classic Articles from Issue One of RSEQ's 30-Year Retrospective

While my association with ACRES does not span the entire 30 years (I attended my first ACRES conference as a graduate student in 2002), my association with rural education began when I entered kindergarten in a K-6 elementary school with a grand total of seven classrooms. At some point during my elementary years they added a special education classroom. I clearly remember some of the students in that classroom because even though there was no inclusion, or even mainstreaming for any classes, we all had lunch and recess together. Based on what I now know, the students in this classroom had moderate and severe disabilities, and the interactions we had at lunch and recess likely had some influence on my future career decisions. After elementary school, we joined with neighboring towns for middle and high school, resulting in my graduating class having 96 students. After college, I taught in rural communities for several years. When I taught special education in Moab, UT, the occupational therapist traveled from Grand Junction, CO (115 miles, one-way), so she provided services only once/month. Clearly, we used a different model than I used when I taught in a larger district and the occupational therapist was in my building every day to help with lunch. Currently, I work with student teachers in an alternate route to certification program, and most of these students are in rural school districts in Kentucky. Given this long association (from various perspectives) with rural education, I enjoyed reading the Classic RSEQ Articles. Issues addressed in these articles include attracting and retaining teachers in rural areas, preservice and inservice training for teachers in rural schools, and the use of technology in these endeavors. Most of these issues are still pressing, but not to have resolved them is not to say we have not made progress. Filling special education positions continues to be a challenge in rural schools, with 27% of rural schools reporting that filling such positions is very difficult and 4% reporting that they could not fill special education vacancies ( Provasnik et al., 2007). While these statistics are troubling, they are reflective of the field in general, with city, suburban, and town districts reporting similar difficulty with special education positions. As noted by the authors of these Classic Articles, however, even when the issues are the same, effective strategies for addressing them may vary across rural, suburban, and urban districts. In the case of filling special education positions in rural areas, programs that incorporate distant education to train individuals who already live in these areas and wish to remain in them, may resolve the issue. Our Alternate Certificate in Moderate-Severe Disabilities (MSD) program at the University of Kentucky almost exclusively trains teachers in rural areas. Part of the requirement of this 3-year program is that the students obtain employment as a teacher in a classroom for students with MSD. Thus, by the end of the program, these individuals have been employed for three years in their school (in many cases, in the town in which they have lived for some time); this connection to the community may make it more likely they will stay. …

Inclusive Education: What Makes it a Good Education for Students with Moderate to Severe Disabilities?

Parents, teachers, and paraeducators at three inclusive schools were interviewed as part of a qualitative study to investigate perceptions regarding a quality educational program for students with moderate–severe disabilities. Instead of looking at schools engaged in a systematic change process from separate to inclusive education for students with severe disabilities, a major premise of this study was that all students, regardless of ability or disability, were educated together in chronologically age appropriate general education classrooms (preschool through 8th grade). The intent of this study was to determine what key stakeholders (parents, teachers, and paraeducators) felt was a good educational program for students with moderate–severe disabilities after an inclusive placement was a given. Fifty-eight participants were interviewed (18 parents, 23 teachers, and 17 paraeducators) representing four preschool children, nine elementary students, and five middle school students all having moderate–severe and multiple disabilities. A constant comparison methodology was used to analyze the data across both age of target child and role of stakeholder. Findings revealed 12 themes that highlighted the benefits of inclusive education for all students, specific components that needed to be in place to ensure a quality education, and typical goals for the future. Implications for the field were discussed.

Training Rural Educators in Kentucky through Distance Learning: Impact with Follow-up Data

The Training Rural Educators in Kentucky (TREK) projects have been providing distance education courses to graduate students in moderate/severe disabilities (MSD) and early childhood special education (ECSE) since 1989. This paper provides the results of a survey conducted at the end of the third 3-year-cycle of federal funding for a TREK project, Training Rural Educators in Kentucky through Distance Learning (TREK-DL). Project staff collected data on students' satisfaction with the content and delivery of distance education courses offered through the TREK projects. In addition, they collected impact data on the degree with which students used best practices for children with disabilities that were emphasized in TREK coursework. The results of the survey show that students were satisfied with the coursework they were receiving and, with the exception of technology malfunctions and communication/interaction difficulties imposed by the technology, they were satisfied with all formats of course delivery (i.e., on site, satellite, and interactive video). In addition, the results show that students are implementing best practices with children who have disabilities and sharing those practices with other adults with whom they work. As well, students indicate that their involvement with the TREK projects has resulted in systemic changes at their places of employment.