Analysis of three focus groups of educators who advocate for special education students found that educators: (1) believe there are personal and professional risks associated with advocacy; (2) want training in the areas of special education law, communication skills, collaboration and conflict resolution, and teacher advocacy; and (3) need…

Coping strategies of parents (n=89) of children with disabilities in special education classes were assessed on the Family Assessment Device-General Functioning Scale and the Family Crisis Oriented Personal Evaluation Scales. Results indicate that less frequent use of passive appraisal and more frequent use of reframing are associated with family…

In this study, self-reports of 34 individuals with developmental disabilities (DD) were compared with proxy ratings from family and providers. Correlations between the ratings of individuals with DD and the proxy raters were low, as were the correlations between family members and providers. In all scales except "cognition," the individual with DD…

The 1987 attitudes of high school students toward individuals with mental retardation were compared with attitudes in 1998. Results indicate that positive shifts in attitude were small, occurred slowly, and were related to specific dimensions of attitudes. In both years, females had generally more positive attitudes than males, although male…

A review of empirical investigations of effects of goal setting on task performance of persons with mental retardation found that use of goal setting strategies, in conjunction with other instructional strategies, was associated with increased rate or accuracy of performance of both children and adults with mild to severe mental retardation.…

This study investigated whether four students with moderate to severe cognitive disabilities would acquire related and unrelated instructive feedback stimuli embedded in the prompt and consequent event using a constant time delay to teach three food preparation skills. Analysis found the intervention effective with three students who also acquired…

A sequence of choice levels was implemented using constant time delay to teach choice making to five children with severe intellectual disabilities. Evaluation indicated that both the specific sequence of choice levels and constant time delay were effective in teaching these students to make choices. It also found that individual preferences…

This study examined the effectiveness of a simultaneous prompting teaching procedure to teach different tasks simultaneously to each of four high school students with functioning levels from typically developing to moderate disabilities. Results support the procedure's effectiveness and all students met criterion on each set after the simultaneous…

A review of applications of motion study in developmental disabilities identifies two eras of research focus in the 1990s: (1) studies establishing the effectiveness and efficiency of tasks designed with motion study principles and (2) studies examining the interaction between motion study-based task designs and other variables such as choice,…

A survey of 84 Iowa teachers certified in severe disabilities examined opinions relating to access to the general curriculum. Most respondents felt that such access is not appropriate for students with severe disabilities and students should not be held to the same performance standards as typical peers. Also, almost half of teachers' districts…

Analysis of placement and exit data on students with mental retardation (MR) found in annual reports on implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act indicated an upward trend in educating students with mental retardation in general education classrooms, a decline in graduation rates with a diploma or certificate, and a greater…

Comparison of instructional versus non-instructional roles on the interactions of general education high school students and their peers with disabilities found that during the non-instructional role condition, students engaged in more social-related than activity-related interactions, discussed a greater variety of conversational topics, and…

Three middle school students with mild/moderate mental retardation utilized three self-management interventions varying in amount of external assistance to increase time-on-task behaviors. Although the more externally assisted procedures resulted in the greatest improvement, the less intrusive procedures produced only slightly reduced effect,…

This study assessed use of five computerized analogy problems as a measure of mental speed with 62 children (ages 3-13) with mild/moderate mental retardation. Results found medium to high correlation between scores on the tasks and other cognitive measures and the adaptive behavior scale. The value of assessing cognitive speed in the cognitive…

This study evaluated attitudinal discrepancies among non-disabled community members regarding the acceptability of socio-sexual expression for persons with and without mental retardation. Overall, discrepancies between adults with and without mental retardation primarily concern attitudes toward marriage and parenthood. Older adults, both…