Making the transition from high school to college poses challenges for most students. Moving from a secure, regulated world of secondary education into an unfamiliar environment requiring greater independence can be a destabilizing experience. For students with learning disabilities (LD) and/or Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), managing this…

Adolescents with learning disabilities need explicit supports to improve their written expression, but those structures and supports are best utilized in an environment that promotes authentic writing resembling the writing students will produce in adult life and work. Classroom blogs may offer special educators an authentic context for writing…

Many adolescents, especially those with learning disabilities, lack basic word identification skills. Finding motivating instructional techniques to improve word-level reading skills is increasingly difficult as students move through the grades. One technique that holds promise in motivating adolescents involves using song lyrics from their…

With the last reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, also known as No Child Left Behind or NCLB), special education research exerted a major influence on general education. Even so, the academic outcomes of students with learning disabilities (LD), who are the…

Building the capacity of education professionals to make effective assistive technology (AT) decisions requires varying supports. One effective approach used in Central Illinois is to develop and maintain user groups comprising skilled practitioners and those interested in developing new AT skill sets. Over the past several years, AT user groups…

"Kevin" is a 16-year-old student identified by an unnamed School District ("the District") as a student with a learning disability; he is also eligible for a Section 504 plan as a student with ADHD. He currently attends his local high school. He and his friends were in the hall of his high school when Kevin, on a dare from his…

Literacy is an increasingly important factor as schools focus on improving student achievement. Literacy skills in reading and writing are critical components needed for both access to the general curriculum and for successful academic achievement. A key component of reading and writing is word identification, a skill deficit for many adolescent…

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a term that encompasses the various neurodevelopmental disorders experienced by individuals with prenatal alcohol exposure. FASD incorporates the terms Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE), and Alcohol-Related Neurodevelopmental Disorder (ARND). Early studies showed that students with…

A college professor relates his experiences of being diagnosed with learning disabilities while in high school, which affected his education, eventually making possible doctoral degree attainment. As a special education teacher and school psychologist, he cites the challenge of meeting post-secondary obstacles in transition planning for students…

Students with disabilities often have difficulty understanding expository history texts in high school. This article presents an integrated curriculum/instruction/assessment approach to teaching history that increases content comprehension and problem-solving skills of students with learning disabilities in inclusive classrooms. Concept-based…