Special education teachers play a key role in educational assessment practices, including frequently administering norm-referenced tests of academic achievement. This study examined the course on norm-referenced assessment provided in special education training programs. Data regarding course: (1) structure; (2) assignments; (3) test…

The purpose of this study was to further examine the factor structure of the Huber Inventory of Trainee Self-Efficacy (HITS), a measure of school psychology trainee self-efficacy. Lockwood et al. (2017, Psychol. Sch., Vol. 54, pp. 655-670) extant data set, collected from 520 school psychology trainees, was utilized. Four measurement models were…

Early identification of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) provides the best opportunity for children to receive evidence-based early intervention. Research indicates that accurate diagnosis can be made as early as the toddler period when an assessment is completed by experienced clinicians. Typical ASD evaluations involve an assessment of…

Assessment in social skills training often utilizes procedures such as partial-interval recording (PIR) and momentary time sampling (MTS) to estimate changes in duration in social engagements due to intervention. Although previous research suggests PIR to be more inaccurate than MTS in estimating levels of behavior, treatment analysis decisions…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often undergo various assessments and evaluations as part of the diagnostic process, identification and classification for special education eligibility, and continued progress monitoring for skill growth. Such evaluations may include cognitive, social and emotional, behavioral, and speech…

Students with autism have varied support needs, which may impact their safety in an emergency. Schools may want to create individualized emergency support plans for their students with autism, especially given that schools that receive public funding are required to ensure that all people, including those with disabilities, receive the benefit of…

The purpose of the current study was to examine the validity and diagnostic accuracy of the "Intervention Selection Profile--Social Skills" (ISP-SS), a brief social skills assessment tool intended for use with students in need of Tier 2 intervention. Participants included 160 elementary and middle school students who had been identified…

This study examines the agreement across informant pairs of teachers, parents, and students regarding the students' social-emotional learning (SEL) competencies. Two student subsamples representative of the social skills improvement system (SSIS) SEL edition rating forms national standardization sample were examined: first, 168 students (3rd to…

Teacher judgments about students' academic abilities are important for several reasons, including their day-to-day instructional decision making. Not surprisingly, previous studies have investigated the accuracy of teachers' judgments about their students' reading abilities. Previous research, however, has not investigated teachers' judgments…

Children with normal hearing who present with listening difficulties (LiD) are frequently referred for assessment of auditory processing disorder (APD). Complicating diagnosis is the similarities of APD to other neurodevelopmental disorders, especially attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Due to well-documented deficits in executive…

Self-efficacy measures are context-specific assessment tools designed to evaluate students' perceptions of capability to attain specific outcomes on particular tasks. These measures are important because they possess several desirable features typical of progress-monitoring tools (i.e., context specific, free of reactive effects, strong…

Adaptive behavior skills are often delayed in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and these behaviors are significantly associated with poor outcomes in adulthood, especially for autistic individuals that have no cognitive and/or language delays. Therefore, despite having the capacity to be self-sufficient, the vast majority of autistic adults fail to…

Learners with disabilities enter school without the prerequisite numeracy and mathematics skills to perform at or near the level of their typically developing peers. Even simple addition problems require prerequisite skills that are often not taught directly in schools. Identifying and teaching those missing skills would reduce the learning gap…

Empathy is a key component of socioemotional skills and contributes to prosocial responses and relational closeness. There remain challenges to accurately assess children's empathy, particularly given the reliance on external observer reports, and the lack of frameworks for how empathy may manifest differently at various developmental stages. In…

The importance of the preschool period in becoming a skilled reader is highlighted by a significant body of evidence that preschool children's development in the areas of oral language, phonological awareness, and print knowledge is predictive of how well they will learn to read once they are exposed to formal reading instruction in elementary…