Dr. Denise A Soares

More students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) than ever before spend most of their time in general education. To increase their academic and behavioral success, students with EBD need access to empirically supported interventions and services. The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to evaluate strategy effectiveness for students with EBD in K-12 inclusive settings. Identified studies were assessed with two approaches for evaluating methodological quality and multiple methods for assessing intervention effects. Results indicated that there is a dearth of empirical support for strategies implemented in general education classrooms for students with EBD though most of the studied reviewed were of high quality with moderate-to-large effects. In addition to the practical findings, the research team compared review methods with findings indicating agreement between expert visual analysis and more structured approaches for visual analysis. For the quantitative metrics, results indicated variable agreement across methods. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Research Findings: A social validity measure was used to examine 56 bilingual preschool teachers' perceptions and acceptability of an interactive shared book reading vocabulary intervention implemented in English with Spanish-speaking preschool children (N = 334) in a dual language program model. Social validity outcomes indicated that bilingual teachers believed the shared book reading vocabulary approach was effective and could be feasibly managed to expand preschool dual language learners' (DLLs) content vocabulary knowledge by building deep knowledge networks around the worlds of science and social studies even as students' English abilities were still developing. Researchers also found a significant positive association between teachers' social validity outcomes and DLLs' English vocabulary outcomes of taught words, warranting further research in this area. Practice or Policy: Teacher perceptions of intervention effectiveness and usability are important and may serve as a barometer for whether teachers may be willing to both adopt and persist with intensive practices when there is a benefit for young children acquiring academic content in a second language. Results suggest, however, that customized and more responsive PD may be especially important to support teachers' ability to facilitate analytical discussions using academic words when DLLs are in the beginning stage of English language production.

Middle school students with ADHD often experience negative academic outcomes. To intervene, schools frequently provide services through special education or section 504. These services include strategies, such as breaks, prompting, and sensory proprioception to remove the impact of construct-irrelevant variance. Student plans rarely include strategies, such as selfmanagement, designed to teach students skills to increase independent functioning. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of four strategies on engagement, disruptive behavior, and time to initiate tasks. Fifteen sixth and seventh grade students were randomized daily to one of four conditions. Results indicated large statistically significant differences. Social validity data indicated that students found prompting and self-management helpful, but preferred breaks and sensory proprioception. This study builds on a growing empirical base that supports the prioritization of strategies to teach skills over strategies to remove the impact of ADHD on performance.

School administrators are instructional leaders responsible for ensuring high quality inclusive education for all students including those with disabilities. In this article, the authors review legal mandates, discuss inclusion of students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) in practice, and obstacles to effectiveness. Recommendations are provided to assist administrators in maintaining high quality inclusive education for students with EBD by addressing the following barriers: (a) administrator preparation and training; (b) prioritization; (c) common philosophy, vision, and mission; (d) funding and resources; (e) teacher training and coaching, (f) effective practices and (g) effective co-teaching. While experts continue to debate the inclusion of students with EBD, school administrators have moved on and are leading inclusive practices in schools. Barriers must be addressed prior to instating a fully inclusive model or face loss of staff and failure of students with EBD. As such, the authors propose a model of practice to research, in which strategies are recommended for current practice to overcome the identified barriers with available research. With implementation of the recommendations in this article, it is highly probable that students with EBD can be successful in inclusive settings.

Inclusion of students with disabilities in general education settings has been an international focus for over two decades. In the US, federal laws [e.g. Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA). 2004. H.R. 1350, 108th Congress] mandate access to the general education curriculum for all students, including those with disabilities. These mandates codify a philosophical orientation of least restrictive environment, within a free appropriate public education, while explicitly requiring evidence-based practices. The policies support and protect inclusive practices for individuals with emotional and behavioural disabilities, yet the state of the empirical literature is unknown. A review is needed to provide an overview of the research and reveal the breadth of the literature. To this end, scoping review methodology was used to map the state of the literature. This particular approach is recommended for topics with myriad and complex definitions and issues, as is the case with inclusive education. Results map six themes (professional and student experience, strategy effectiveness, policy and programmes, perception of influencing factors, teacher training, teacher knowledge) and reveal several gaps in the literature. Recommendations are made for systematic review, meta-analyses, and individual studies to address the gaps in the literature.

Students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) experience symptoms of inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity that often manifest as academic impairment. As such, teachers must select interventions to increase the probability of success for students with ADHD in their classes. Prior meta-analyses have evaluated school-based intervention effects; however, no systematic review meta-analysis has evaluated the effectiveness of interventions implemented in classrooms with students with ADHD. Additionally, classroom-based studies are frequently conducted through single-case design methodology, and recent advances in meta-analytic techniques provide the opportunity to explore intervention effectiveness as evaluated through quality research. Therefore, to inform selection of evidence-based interventions to be implemented in classroom settings, the current systematic review with meta-analysis of single-case design studies was conducted to evaluate intervention effectiveness, evidence-based status, and moderators of effects for four intervention types (behavioral, instructional, self-management, and environmental) when implemented with students with ADHD in classroom settings. The analysis included 27 articles published from 1971 to 2018. Overall and specific to each intervention type, the results indicate that classroom-based interventions for students with ADHD were moderately effective. Instructional and self-management interventions were deemed evidence based by What Works Clearinghouse standards and potentially evidence based by Council for Exceptional Children standards. Behavioral interventions were found to be potentially evidence based by Council for Exceptional Children criteria and were most effective when selected through functional behavior analysis and implemented by researchers in secondary settings. Instructional interventions were more effective when implemented in special education settings targeting academic outcomes. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Research Findings: This study investigated the association between Mexican American maternal education and socioeconomic status (SES) and child vocabulary as mediated by parental reading beliefs, home literacy environment (HLE), and parent-child shared reading frequency. As part of a larger study, maternal reports of education level, SES, HLE, and reading beliefs along with child expressive and receptive vocabulary were collected for 252 mothers and their preschool children from 2 demographically similar school districts in 1 county. Correlations were moderate and positive, with higher levels of maternal education related to family income, HLE, book availability, and children's expressive and receptive vocabulary. Consistent with long-standing evidence, maternal education and SES were predictors of children's vocabulary, albeit indirectly through maternal reading beliefs, HLE, and reading frequency. Practice or Policy: Findings extend current knowledge about specific pathways through which social class variables impact children's language. Policy implications, directions for future research, and study limitations are noted.

The need for improved teacher training arises from the limitations of current teacher training programs. In many universities, general and special education programs continue to operate under separate models. Research shows teacher preparation programs failed to prepare general educators for the challenges of inclusion and collaborative teaching environments. The purpose of this report is to discuss the impetus for the program redesign by describing the outcomes of the joint venture between faculty in the Elementary, Secondary, and Special Education programs. A thorough description of the program (e.g. admissions, course sequence, action labs, and field experiences) as well as critical components will be discussed.

Recent meta-analyses of the effectiveness of token economies (TEs) report insufficient quality in the research or mixed effects in the results. This study examines the contemporary (post-Public Law 94-142) peer-reviewed published single-case research evaluating the effectiveness of TEs. The results are stratified across quality of demonstrated functional relationship using a nonparametric effect size (ES) that controls for undesirable baseline trends in the analysis. In addition, moderators (i.e.,classroom setting, age of participant, outcomes, use of response cost, and use of verbal cueing) were analyzed. Eighty-eight AB phase contrasts were calculated from 28 studies (1980-2014) representing 90 participants and produced a weighted mean ES of 0.82 (SE= 0.03, 95% CI[0.77, 0.88]). Strong quality produced a combined weighted mean ES of 0.85 (SE=0.642, 95% CI [0.74, 0.97]). Moderator analyses revealed that a TE was slightly more effective for youth between the ages of 6 and 15 years than for children between the ages of 3 and 5 years or when used with behavioral goals in comparison to academic goals. However, no difference was found when implemented in general or special education settings or with the inclusion of response cost or verbal cueing.