This volume focuses on divergent perspectives and innovative interventions known to maximize the fullest potential of people with exceptionalities. Emphasizing that intervention strategy objectives must always be to meet individual learners unique needs, contributions reflect where we are and where we are going in the field of special education.

This volume focuses on divergent perspectives and innovative interventions known to maximize the fullest potential of people with exceptionalities. Emphasizing that intervention strategy objectives must always be to meet individual learners unique needs, contributions reflect where we are and where we are going in the field of special education.

"I wish I had this book when I started teaching! Every teacher starts out with an empty bag of tricks; it is nice to peek into someone′s bag!" —Nicole Guyon, Special Education Teacher Westerly School Department, Cranston, RI Classroom-tested strategies that help students with learning disabilities succeed! Teachers are often challenged to help students with learning disabilities reach their full academic potential. Written with humor and empathy, this engaging book offers a straightforward approach to skillful teaching of students with learning disabilities. Developed for K–12 general and special education classrooms, this resource draws on the author′s 30 years of teaching experience to help teachers gain a greater understanding of students′ learning differences and meet individual needs. Strategies are organized by skills—including reading, writing, math, organization, attention, and test-taking—helping teachers quickly identify the best techniques for assisting each student and encouraging independent learning. Readers will find: More than 100 practical strategies, interventions, and activities that build students′ academic abilities Recommendations on appropriate accommodations, assessment techniques, and family communication Support for complying with recent federal mandates related to learning disabilities, including the ADA, Section 504, and the reauthorization of IDEA 2004 Helpful guidance and stories from the author′s own classroom experiences Ready-to-use tools, forms, and guides Discover innovative, easy-to-implement teaching methods that overcome barriers to learning and help students with special needs thrive in your classroom.

"This interdisciplinary book critically examines the research on the effectiveness of communication interventions for individuals with severe disabilities. This volume provides the reader with a synthesis of the complex issues related to communication intervention and severe disabilities"--

Learning disabilities are among the most common disabilities experienced in childhood and adulthood. Although identifying learning disabilities in a school setting is a complex process, it is particularly challenging in low- and middle-income countries that lack the appropriate resources, tools, and supports. This guide provides an introduction to learning disabilities and describes the processes and practices that are necessary for the identification process. It also describes a phased approach that countries can use to assess their current screening and evaluation services, as well as determine the steps needed to develop, strengthen, and build systems that support students with learning disabilities. This guide also provides intervention recommendations that teachers and school administrators can implement at each phase of system development. Although this guide primarily addresses learning disabilities, the practices, processes, and systems described may be also used to improve the identification of other disabilities commonly encountered in schools.

This volume focuses on divergent perspectives and innovative interventions known to maximize the fullest potential of people with exceptionalities. Emphasizing that intervention strategy objectives must always be to meet individual learners unique needs, contributions reflect where we are and where we are going in the field of special education.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

This book assembles into one volume summaries of school-based intervention research that relates to those who deal on a regular basis with the growing body of students having high-incidence learning disabilities and/or behavior disorders: special educators, school psychologists, and clinical child psychologists. Chapter authors begin with an overview of their topic followed by a brief section on historical perspectives before moving on to the main section – a critical discussion of empirically based intervention procedures. In those instances where evidence-based prescriptions can legitimately be made, authors discuss best practices and the conditions (e.g., classroom environment, teacher expertise) under which these practices are most effective. A final section deals with policy issues.

Learning disabilities are conditions that are associated with difficulties in knowledge and skill acquisition to the level expected of same-age peers. The current book is an international examination of assessment methods, preventative measures, intervention, and research with those individuals with learning disabilities obtained from authors in the United States of America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Identification of Learning Disabilities: Research to Practice is the remarkable product of a learning disabilities summit conference convened by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in August 2001 and the activities following that summit. Both the conference and this book were seen as important preludes to congressional reauthorization of the historic Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) scheduled for 2002 and subsequent decision making surrounding implementation. The OSEP conference brought together people with different perspectives on LD (parents, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers) and resulted in this book, which examines the research on nine key issues concerning the identification of children with learning disabilities. Coverage includes alternative responses to treatment, classification approaches, processing deficit models, and approaches to decision making. Chapter Structure-- Each of the first nine chapters is organized around a lengthy, issue-oriented paper, which presents the most current research on that topic. These primary papers are then followed by four respondent papers that reflect a variety of viewpoints on the topic. Summarizing Chapter -- A small group of researchers (listed in the final chapter) dedicated an enormous amount of time to summarizing the research and developing key consensus statements regarding the identification of children with learning disabilities. Their work is sure to have a tremendous impact on future discussions in this area. Expertise-- The following well-known scholars have helped summarize the vast amount of research presented in this book as well as the consensus statements derived therefrom: Lynne Cook, Don Deshler, Doug Fuchs, Jack M. Fletcher, Frank Gresham, Dan Hallahan, Joseph Jenkins, Kenneth Kavale, Barbara Keogh, Margo Mastopieri, Cecil Mercer, Dan Reschley, Rune Simeonsson, Joe Torgesen, Sharon Vaughn, and Barbara Wise.