Intervention in School and Clinic

Students with high-incidence disabilities (e.g., learning disabilities, emotional behavior disorders, and autism spectrum disorders) often receive most of their education in general education classrooms. Once in these classrooms, students with disabilities are expected to learn from the general education curriculum. For students with disabilities participating in general education and inclusion classrooms, technology offers an opportunity for them to be active participants in classroom activities and to make meaningful progress in the general education curriculum. The articles presented in this special issue illustrate how technology can help students with disabilities to become active participants in general education classrooms. The technologies described in the articles were developed as research-to-practice pieces so that practitioners can integrate the technology into their classrooms. This issue focuses on two themes: (a) technology to support student learning in inclusive or general education classrooms and (b) technology to promote student engagement and enhance performance feedback of teachers.

Teachers’ use of video modeling has been established as an evidence-based practice for teaching students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Augmented reality (AR) applications can be used as tools to provide trigger-based, video-modeled instructional supports to students with ASD. The use of AR in this way may help teachers implement evidence-based reading skills practice such as video modeling and provide more independent practice opportunities. It also provides more options for student engagement and concept representation. This article describes ideas for how to use a particular AR application to (a) teach phonics and word identification, (b) support reading fluency, (c) embed videos into texts as cues for reading comprehension, (d) teach content area vocabulary words, and (e) use video models during transition planning.

Many students with learning disabilities (LD) and emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD) struggle with the writing process. Technology has shown to be effective in supporting prewriting, drafting, revising, proofreading, and publishing of written products. This article explains the use of one technology-based graphic organizer with embedded self-regulated learning strategies as well as universal design for learning (UDL) features that can be used to enhance the writing process for students with LD and EBD. Such technology categories as technology-based graphic organizers, word prediction, speech recognition, talking word processors, as well as multimedia and digital storytelling programs are discussed. All these technologies can improve the quantity and/or quality of student writing.

For students with learning disabilities (LD), note taking during lectures and discussions is a difficult task. Many students have difficulties with listening comprehension and written expression, two important skills vital for successful note taking during teacher lectures. Note taking is a cognitively demanding task whereby students must temporarily hold/rehearse incoming verbal lecture information, quickly construct representations into meaningful bits of information that can be recorded, and then transcribe the bits of meaningful information onto paper before the information is lost and before processing any new incoming information. Despite the difficulty of this task, smartpen technology can aid students during note taking by storing verbal lecture information and then syncing it up when students amend their partial notes. This article provides an overview of a smartpen strategy and a guide for teachers to implement this assistive technology in their classroom and improve the note taking of students with LD.

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) often struggle with behavior and can display academically challenging behavior in the classroom. Therefore, teachers should consider implementing evidence-based strategies that promote desirable behavioral and academic outcomes. This article focuses on how general and special educators can use technology to deliver two evidence-based classroom management practices: (a) opportunities to respond and (b) behavior-specific praise.

Effective professional development (PD) for teachers should be directly and intricately linked to their teaching practice. One way to link PD to practice is for administrators or coaches to provide performance feedback based on classroom observations, accompanied by reflection and coaching. This type of PD can be time-consuming and difficult to manage in practice, but technology offers ways to facilitate performance feedback. This article highlights a multimedia observation tool capable of documenting teachers’ instructional moves in real time with the intent of providing a teacher with unbiased, descriptive data used to fuel coaching conversations. Additional multimedia options are provided for observing instruction and providing critical performance feedback with the intent of improving student learning outcomes.

Students with severe and persistent academic or behavioral challenges may benefit from data-based individualization (DBI). Starting with an evidence-based standard protocol and systematic progress monitoring, teachers can evaluate growth and implement individualized interventions to meet students’ needs. Specifically, this article addresses the systematic use of student data to determine content and pacing for intensive reading instruction. Insights from implementing this approach with struggling first grade readers in Tier 3 of an RTI framework are provided. Evidence-based standard protocols, strategic data collection and management, and team collaboration are crucial elements for successful implementation.

Classrooms are increasingly more diverse, and student success can be enhanced through family engagement, especially for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students with disabilities. Too often teachers are stymied by how to engage CLD families of children with disabilities. Common practices of parent involvement are ineffective and fail to appreciate families as members of the educational team. Family engagement seeks to establish and maintain authentic family-school partnerships based on mutual respect and shared agency for student academic and social success. This column provides specific family engagement strategies that teachers and schools can implement in an effort to provide reciprocal collaboration.

Dr. Vern Jones shares his reflections on a career that focused on providing avenues for encouragement for youth and teachers who daily face challenges. His career is marked by an unflagging work ethic regardless of the role in which he was placed. Vern’s work in enhancing the field of classroom management has resulted in approaches that have improved the daily classroom experiences for numerous teachers and students. Vern shares his reflection on his past experiences and his perspective on where the field is headed.