Functional Behavioral Assessment and Behavior Intervention Plans

                The article I chose for this week’s blog is entitled An Effective Approach to Developing Function-Based Interventions in Early Childhood Classrooms.  I chose this article because I recently did a functional behavior analysis (FBA) in a kindergarten classroom.  I was very interested to read about the strategies that this article would suggest.  I will briefly summarize this article, make connections to our classroom work, and give a critique. 

                The article follows a 5 year old boy in a preK class.  He is acting out and very disruptive (hitting, shouting, making loud noises, and not staying in his seat).  His teacher is ready to refer him for special education services.  The article relates how the burnout and job satisfaction rates of early childhood teachers is directly linked to whether teachers have adequate access to help with children who display challenging behaviors.  Many early childhood facilities are not set up to handle, and adequately train, their staff to develop appropriate behavior intervention plans.  The lack of this support leads to teacher turn-over, students who are expelled from the program, and sets up children for peer rejection and school failure.

                “Functional behavioral assessment (FBA) and function-based interventions have been recognized as effective practices for identifying and treating problem behavior in early childhood environments” (Wood, B.K. & Ferro, J.B., 2014).  The article clearly states the differences between interventions which address why the behavior occurs versus what the behavior looks like.  It is the reasons behind the behavior that need to be understood in order to make the proper intervention plan to change the behavior.

 “The purpose of this article is to provide examples and a step-by-step description of an effective and practical approach for conducting an FBA and developing function-based interventions using the Decision Model developed by Umbreit and colleagues.  The Decision Model (Figure 1) systematically guides practitioners through a process in which they collect FBA data and identify why the challenging behavior occurs (Step 1), ask and answer key questions that lead to the selection of an intervention method (Step 2), and develop intervention strategies that correspond to the FBA data and method selected (Step 3).” (Wood, B.K. & Ferro, J.B., 2014)

                The article goes on to list the steps it takes to develop an appropriate behavior intervention strategy with more in-depth examples and description.  The article also lists several charts, graphs, and checklists that teachers can use to help evaluate the challenging behavior, and lead them in the right direction to change.  It gives links to further assistance that is directly related to early childhood educators.  It ends with a solid description of how the educator should collect data so that interventions can be evaluated and measured for change.  If the interventions cannot be measured, there will be no way to prove whether the behavior intervention is effective in changing the challenging behaviors.  The implementation of the interventions should be monitored so that the plan can be maintained in the future and adjustments made when necessary. 

                This article is extremely helpful and very practical.  I think that most teachers would be able to read through this article and begin implementing the strategies within their own classes.  The materials covered in this article relate directly to the strategies presented in class.  They actually correlate well with the assessment class that we are currently taking.  I would recommend this to my classmates and colleagues.  This is a must read for any teacher who deals with challenging behaviors, has a child in need of identification for a behavioral intervention, or even a parent who is interested in behavioral changes for their child.  It is very understandable and practical.  I plan to refer back to this article often.  It is going in my toolbox.   

Reference:

Wood, B.D. & Ferro, J.B. (2014).  An effective approach to developing function-based interventions in early childhood classrooms. Young Exceptional Children, 17(1), 3-20.  http://yec.sagepub.com TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE

Transition Planning for students with High-Incidence Disabilities

              The article I chose for this week’s blog is entitled Characteristics of Transition Planning and Services for Students with High-Incidence Disabilities.  This article was recently published, 2015, and discusses the changes that transition planning has taken in the past 30 years.  I will briefly summarize the article, make connections to our course, and give a critique.

                This article was published this past fall, and looks at how transition planning has changed and developed over the past 30 years.  This model has included the areas of assessment, planning, and instruction.  While we have made strides within these years to decrease the dropout rate of students with disabilities, we have also increased the rate of students who enroll in post-secondary education.  The LD, ED, and ADHD population has also seen an increase in their work related experiences, however, this population is still experiencing more negative outcomes in the workplace than their peers without disabilities.

                The article went into great depth about the percentages of increase/decrease in the LD, ED, and ADHD/OHI populations since transition planning was first made mandatory in 1990.  They compared the rates of increase in the ADHD/OHI population and noted how the trend for LD/ED remained consistent.    They compared the entrance to post-secondary education in college, vocational schools, and training programs of students with high incidence disabilities, from 1990 statistics to the current studies.  The article also noted the rate to which these students are employed in meaningful jobs which bring them independence, financial stability, and happiness/fulfillment with their lives.

                The results of this article showed that the students with the most positive results were those who were actively involved in the planning of their transition meetings, who had family support, and who were taught life skills and financial management techniques so that they could live independently.  This clearly is supported by our text and module exercises on transition planning.  “Planning involves identifying measurable post-secondary goals based on students’ strengths, interests, and preferences identified through age-appropriate transition assessments.  Furthermore, students’ courses of study must align with these goals and be documented on the IEP.” (Trainor, Morningstar, & Murray, 2015)  When the student’s involvement in their transition planning was weak, so was the outcome of their post-secondary success.

                This article was very elaborate and complete.  It listed the downfalls and the areas for further research.  I would recommend this article, but it more as a backup to our text.  The article really restated everything which we were learning in this module about transition planning.  The greatest outcomes are going to go to the students who put the most into planning for their future.  The skills that they are taught in secondary education, when properly aligned to their future goals, provide the greatest predictors for a successful outcome.  This is a wonderful service to provide to students with high-incidence disabilities.  I wish that more students with LD, ED, and ADHD were actively involved in this process.

Resource:

Trainor, A.A., Morningstar, M.E., & Murray, A. (2015).  Characteristics of transition planning and services for students with high-incidence disabilities. Learning Disabilities Quarterly, 1-12.  Idq.sagepub.com at TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE

Adolescents with High Incidence Disabilities

                This week’s article review is entitled Teaching Adolescent Students with Learning Disabilities to Self-Advocate for Accommodations.  Although there were many articles from which to choose, and after reading several, this one captured my attention.  I will briefly summarize and critique the article, make connections to our classroom reading, and provide personal connections. 

                The article begins by stating that students with learning disabilities (LD) are spending more time within the general education classroom then they have in previous decades.  The general education teachers have been left to be accountable for making accommodations and remediation within the classroom to help these students succeed with the general education standards, without changing the actual content or difficulty level of the class.  Students with disabilities have been left to the mercy of the general education teacher.  The article sets out to support the theory that if students were taught to advocate for their own accommodations, they would meet with more academic success within the general education classroom.

                In order to accomplish self-advocacy, the high school students were directly taught how to identify their strengths and weaknesses, which accommodations were available to them, and how to ask for them in an appropriate way.  These areas were taught independently in four lessons, with lots of role-playing practice, before they were used in the actual general education classrooms.  Lesson one included direct instruction on self-advocacy and accommodations, lesson two identified strengths and weaknesses, lesson three taught the steps in how to ask for an accommodation, and lesson four allowed for practice in putting it all together.  Charts and checklists were used to help the students identify their strengths and areas of need, to identify eight different accommodations available to them and which they might need when, a skill inventory survey, and a role-play checklist. 

                This study followed four of the high school students into the general education classroom to evaluate how this method was applied.  The results were conclusive; teaching students with disabilities to self-advocate for accommodations increased their academic performance across the board.  The students and the general education teachers were surveyed to evaluate the strategy.  Every teacher agreed that the students with LD who advocated for their own accommodations met with greater success.  They also thought that all students could benefit from self-advocacy.  They believed that this was due to greater amounts of accountability and initiative shown and felt by the students.  The students also agreed with these findings.  One stated “that he thought he could do better in his general education classes if his teachers had a better understanding of how and when to help students.” (Prater, Redman, Anderson & Gibb, 2014) 

                Although only four students were actually followed into the general education classroom for evaluation, others were excluded for various reasons, and the teachers did comment on students who were self-advocating but not followed.  The article recognized several previous studies on self-advocacy and noted that their research came to the same conclusions.  I thought that they really gave a good description of the strategy and how to go about implementing it.  If you wanted to start it within your own school, this article gives you all of the tools, charts, and graphs you’d need.  It also provided a nice section at the end with “suggestions for teachers”.  It should probably be noted that the special education teacher made sure to inform all of the general education teachers who were going to be asked about accommodations by the students, what was being taught and applied to the students with LD.  Therefore, I’m not sure that all teachers would react the same to accommodation requests, had they no prior knowledge of this strategy. 

                I can’t help but think about my own children.  I don’t know that their request for accommodations would be met with “open arms”.  They are often met with a bit of push-back.  I don’t think that all general education teachers are equipped to make accommodations for students with LD or other disabilities.  This is not to say that all teachers are this way, but I do think that many lack the knowledge and understanding of what LD is and how they can modify the learning environment for these students.  The second situation that I thought of was when I was recently teaching in middle school.  The students expressed that they were not comfortable talking with teachers about how they felt, especially how they felt about something going on in the classroom.  They overwhelmingly expressed how they feared that a teacher would react negatively to their feelings and that they may even punish them for having a different opinion or feeling about something in the classroom. 

                After reading in our textbook this week about the high social needs of acceptance and the autonomy that students feel at this age, these comments really struck me.  We, as adults/teachers, do make most of the decisions regarding our students.  We make their lesson plans, accommodation, seating charts, behavior expectations, and schedules.  In doing these things, we take away a lot of accountability and interest in the school experience away from the individual student.  While I don’t know that we can, or should, change all of these things; giving them the ability to understand their own learning style, strengths, and needs is beneficial to them.  Teaching students with LD, and all students, to become self-advocates will help them become involved in their own education and in their adult lives.  They will be active participants within their classroom, which in turn promotes performance and participation.  Instead of just coasting through school, the students have a new purpose and reason to do well.  And, I can’t argue with that.

Reference:

Prater, M. A., Redman, A. S., Anderson, D., and Gibb, G. S. (2014).  Teaching adolescent students with learning disabilities to self-advocate for accommodations. Intervention in School and Clinic, 49(5), 298-305.

                

Journal Article Review on Communication Disorders and OHI

                This week’s article review is going to cover two articles which were written in conjunction with each other.  The first is entitled Communication Disorders in the School: Perspectives on Academic and Social Success an Introduction and a follow up article entitled Professionals’ Perceptions of the Role of Literacy in Early Intervention Services.  The journal Psychology in the Schools dedicated an entire issue to discussing the multidisciplinary approach to interventions for children with communication disorders.  As I read through the first article, it became apparent that the real “meat” that I was looking for was going to be found in the various articles that were contained in this issue.  Therefore, I chose a secondary article from this journal issue to discuss at greater length.   Both articles will be briefly summarized, critiqued, and applied to our classroom learning.

                The article containing the introduction clearly set the stage by stating “The critical role of communication in schools cannot be understated.  Communication skills are a necessity both in the academic and social atmosphere of the school environment.” (Thatcher, Fletcher, & Decker, 2008)  More than 6 million children ages 3-21 were being serviced under the IDEA in 2002, with more than 21% of those receiving interventions for speech and language disorders. (ASHA, 2008)  Children who had communication disorders secondary to other disorders were excluded from these numbers.  This is a significant percentage of the special education population. 

                In the past, therapies would isolate the issues being addressed, but more recent approaches are looking at all of the effects a child may experience because of the disorder.  The authors of the articles pose that all professionals need to work together to understand and meet the needs of the child at academic, social, and psychological levels that coexist with communication disorders.  The introductory article also stated the importance of early literacy for developing lifelong success in school and life, as well as proficient speech/language development.  The article argues that students with speech and language disorders also often struggle with reading and writing.  The second article probes this area on a deeper level, arguing that Early Intervention (EI) level literacy-related activities, used across the disciplines, can help children with developmental delays achieve more positive results across the board. 

                In the second article, 168 therapy providers were surveyed.  The focus was on very young children who were receiving interventions through EI in the areas of speech, developmental, occupational, and physical therapies.  The participation was voluntary (possibly skewing results) and the findings showed more literacy being used regularly by the speech and developmental therapists.  The physical and occupational therapist thought literacy to be important, but did not feel trained to adequately integrate it into therapy practices.  Parents who had children with diagnosed disabilities felt that literacy was not of top priority.  They had more basic needs to deal with, such as physical and mental health issues, and basic areas of self-care.  The article noted that the more educated the parents had, the more likely they were to value and integrate literacy into their children’s lives at an early age.  And, children attending Head Start and regular preschool programs received literacy activities, but their special education preschool peers were less likely to receive literacy activities being sent home. 

                                The exposure and access to literacy is not only critical for children with

                                special needs, but has significant lifelong implications.  For example,

                                literate adults with special needs are more accepted by their peers

                                (Donahue & Prescott, 1988), have increased vocational options

                                (Richardson, Koller, & Katz, 1988), and perhaps more critically,

                                increased expectations and opportunities for adults with special

                                needs (Erickson, Koppenhaver, & Yoder, 1994) (2008).

               

                All indications point to the fact that the earlier literacy is introduced to children, regardless of ability, the more positive the outcome was in language development.   While there might be barriers of economics, education, lack of interest, or time constraints; the goal to integrate literacy across the multidisciplinary team is of vital importance to communication and success later in life.  We continuously hear about the need for the various educational professionals to collaborate together.  It reminds me of the “whole child” movement of the 90s.  The idea was to interconnect the content the children were studying between the subject areas, and use groups to accomplish the tasks. Isn't that what we are asking of the education professionals?

                While we can see the benefits of working together as professionals, finding the time to logistically do this properly can be difficult.  It requires great communication, planning, and educational time to develop strategies that will bring about effective results.  It also requires frequent assessments, evaluations, and tweaking of the plan to adapt it for the specific needs of each child.  The example schools of our textbook seem to manage this quite well.  I’m sure it took a lot of trial and error along the way.  I would imagine that the staff would need open communication, honesty, clarity, and a lot of forgiveness and grace.  I don’t think something like this is going to happen overnight, but we should be working toward a common goal.  Getting the EI team and parents of children, regardless of ability, on board early is essential to the success of a program like this. 

                It is also important to note that with America becoming such a “melting pot” of various cultures and languages, it is important to provide materials and interventions that can manage these obstacles.  A “one size fits most” approach is no longer appropriate for most schools, especially in more urban settings.  We need to be able to make a distinction between a communication disorder and a communication difference.  Since communication is such a necessary skill, both in school and society, finding ways to help children with communication disorders become successful in navigating the activities they will encounter in the school and social setting is imperative.  And since we know that the foundation for early communication begins long before children are of school age, the earlier we get started the better.   

References:

Thatcher, K. L., Fletcher, K., & Decker, B. (2008).  Communication disorders in the school: Perspectives on academic and social success an introduction.  Psychology In The Schools, 45(&), 579-581.

Thatcher, K., &Fletcher, K. (2008).  Professionals’ perceptions of the role of literacy in early intervention services.  Psychology In The Schools, 45(7), 600-608.

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Journal Article Review on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

              There is a lot of research and information about Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).  Today I chose to review a journal article entitled Misbehavior or Missed Opportunity?  Challenges in Interpreting the Behavior of Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.  I will give a brief summary of the article, the connections I made through the reading materials, personal experiences, and some final thoughts about the article.  It is an intriguing topic to discuss in our society today. 

                The article is very reader friendly, and an interesting perspective.  Students with ASD are being diagnosed in increasing numbers each year, and dramatically over the last decade (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011).    Everyone seems to be talking about autism.  They each have an opinion about ASD and what is to blame for its rapid growth. This article looks at the perceptions of children with ASD in the classroom and challenges our thoughts on whether the behaviors exhibited are misbehavior or missed social opportunities. 

                They do this by observing a young girl with ASD in a typical kindergarten classroom.  The child is working on a math paper with a para.  The child starts to interact with another boy in the classroom, mimicking the teacher by asking the boy questions using an alphabet book.  Although it is obvious that the para feels the child is “off-task” and tries to redirect the child back to the math page, the child repeatedly tries to go back to the interaction with the boy.  The boy engages the girl appropriately, but the behavior is redirected by both the teacher and the para.  In the end, the girl finishes the math paper with no assistance, and re-engages the boy in the teacher/student role playing they were doing.

                The question was then posed whether the behavior was misbehavior or an attempt by the young girl to engage socially with her classmate.  Since the math page was of no academic concern, the article questions whether the interaction should have been encouraged rather than redirected.  If the goal of the student with ASD is to be able to help them integrate appropriate social behaviors with their peers, then we need to take a further look into how to go about encouraging that when it happens.  What we are currently interpreting as “misbehavior” might actually be a missed learning opportunity.  Thus, the para missed reinforcing a critical instructional goal for the girl. 

                The 2004 IDEA mandates that teachers implement evidence-based practices.  However, there are challenges with accomplishing this mandate in the classroom.  Teachers may not know how to go about implementing these practices due to a lack of adequate training and clear descriptions. 

Many early childhood settings include not only children with ASD, but also children with other developmental disabilities, students at-risk, and/or typically developing peers.  A number of evidence-based practices identified for young children with ASD have not yet been applied to children with other disabilities or their typically developing peers (Stahmer, 2007) (Hart & Whalon, 2013).

Teachers need to realize if they want to change the behaviors of the student, they need to change something that they are doing first.  Or, they need to change the way that they are looking at and interpreting the child’s behavior.  This presents a challenge for teachers to find opportunities within the school day to encourage natural social communication for children with ASD.  Children in the early childhood years are at a critical point in their development for learning social communication skills.  If we don’t learn how to promote these skills early on, the child with ASD is at a real disadvantage.  The article concludes that peer-mediated instruction, scripts, and providing choices for students with ASD are all strong evidence-based practices that encourage social communication skills in young children with ASD.   

                My personal experience with children with ASD would definitely concur with the need for appropriate social communication skills development.  The child I had in kindergarten, with no para, was on the spectrum.  She would yell, run away, kick, and spit almost daily.  It was very difficult to deal with her behaviors while still attending to the needs of the rest of the class.  I don’t think that proper integration of children with ASD in the general education classroom can take place without the help of a para.  I do feel that the communication barriers, and the ways that she was trying to communicate with me, were likely misunderstood to some extent.  On the other hand, the young man in middle school who I tutored, was not as non-compliant as my kindergarten student.  Adam was very bright, but the hormonal changes of adolescence were hard to control and he was therefore unable to attend school.  He would hide when he felt overwhelmed by a situation.  Teaching him one-on-one made his behavior easier to manage, but practicing his social skills was obviously limited.  

                In conclusion, this article brings up a valid point about the way we interpret behavior.  Children with ASD may not be misbehaving as we would first perceive.  It may be their unique way of handling a desire to interact with their classmates or teachers.  Therefore, we need to seek opportunities in which to encourage these spontaneous social interactions and navigate them in appropriate ways.  It is important to have clear goals, and make sure that all the educational professionals are on the same page.  I like how the article ended, so I leave you with this quote.  “Strategies such as using peer-mediated interventions, scripts, and choice can provide educators with practical tools that can positively impact the social communication skills of children with ASD while also promoting the academic learning of all children.” (Hart & Whalon, 2013)

References:

Hart, J., & Whalon, K. (2013).  Misbehavior or missed opportunity?  Challenges in 

          interpreting the behavior of young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. 

          Early Childhood Education Journal, 41(4), 257-263.

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Journal Article Review on Behavioral Disorders

The purpose of this article review is to discuss the outcome of Check-in, Check-out (CICO) interventions for students who are at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders.  The article review will start with an overview of the research, a summary of the findings, and the limits that the article addresses.  Discussion about connections to our classroom textbooks, personal experiences, and a general critique of the article will follow.

            The article was a systematic review of previous research done on the CICO intervention strategy.  In the final analysis, it looked at 28 different studies; 8 of which were group design and 20 single subject design.  All of the studies they looked at had to meet the same seven criteria:

·         CICO was implemented school-wide

·         Included a DPR or similar to record daily progress monitoring of students

·         Use of data for decision making and evaluating the success of the intervention

·         Students had to check-in with a staff member every morning

·         Students had to check-out with the same staff member at the end of the day

·         The intervention had to provide multiple feedback opportunities throughout the day on the behavior being monitored

·         Experimental control had to be demonstrated

In a typical school setting, most students would be able to handle a Tier I behavior management structure.  Approximately, 5-15% of the students would need a Tier II intervention model, while 5-7% of the student body would need a Tier III intervention.  This article focused on the Tier II students using the CICO behavior intervention.  For those unfamiliar with the CICO model, the general method consists of having a student, who is at risk for emotional or behavioral disorders, check in with a staff member each morning.  This staff member would make sure that the student had the Daily Progress Report (DPR) from the day before, homework, pencils, paper, and other supplies needed for the day.  The student would be given a new DPR with the behavioral expectations clearly listed, which the student would use to check in with each teacher throughout the day.  The different content teachers would provide feedback regarding the child’s behavior.  At the close of each day, the child would return to the designated staff person and would check out.  The points would be tallied for the day and recorded on an electronic charting system, and the DPR would be sent home with the child for the parents to review and sign.  At the check-out, if the student met the daily goals, a small reward would be given to the student.

“CICO is one of the most widely implemented Tier II interventions” (Hawken, 2014) used in schools today.  Out of the 28 studies, 64% were conducted in grades K-5, while 36% were conducted in grades 6-12.  The article found that there was some level of success using the CICO procedures, especially in group settings.  21 out of 28 studies favored the use of CICO as an intervention for at risk students.  It was a little less effective when based on single subject participants.  It was also noted that the elementary students found greater success using this method than their secondary student counterparts.  The article questioned whether this was due to the steps used in the CICO procedure and the social implications to the secondary students.  It also notes that “CICO was designed to be a Tier II, targeted intervention, rather than an intensive, individualized intervention” (Hawken, 2014).  While some problem behaviors are reduced using CICO, some students may need more intervention that what this model allows. 

As noted in our textbook reading in Chapter 6, the students who would likely be considered at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders, and receiving a plan such as CICO, are those exhibiting externalization of their problems.  A CICO plan would not be effective for students with internalization issues.   However, I think that the benefit of having a consistent person to check in/out with each day, clearly stated expectations, and frequent feedback would definitely benefit a child exhibiting emotional and behavioral disorder problems. 

The person carrying out the CICO should make sure to be fully engaged in the child’s schedule, and make sure that their case load is not overloaded with students.  Although this article did not focus on studies where the classroom teacher was performing the CICO, it might be more beneficial at the elementary level for the general education teacher to fulfill this role.  I can also understand the need for modification and more research to be done using CICO at the secondary level.  The needs of the students and their development may not be a great fit for this method, unless it is modified to be more socially discreet.  Overall, the article was informative, but very difficult to understand in parts due to the extensive charts and wording of research terminology. 

Reference:

Hawken, L.S., Bundock, K., Kladis, K., O’Keeffe, B., & Barrett, C.A. (2014) Systematic 

       review of the check-in, check-out intervention of students at risk for emotional and 

       behavioral disorders.  Education & Treatment of Children, 37(4), 635658.

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Review of Journal Article on Intellectual Disabilities (ID)

Today I would like to review a journal article regarding children with intellectual disabilities (ID) and their impact in general education classrooms.  This article specifically looks at the academic performance of children with and without inclusion of a child with intellectual disabilities.  The article contains a lot of previously noted research regarding academic outcomes, much of which is limited and is varied in description.  The outcomes of previous studies indicate that there is predominately no negative effects to the academic achievements of general education students without disabilities when they are educated in the same classroom with a child with intellectual disabilities. 

The research that this article is citing was done in Switzerland; “one of the least inclusive countries in Western Europe (EADSNE ,2010)” (Dessemontet & Bless, 2013, p.23).  They used two groups of student pairs; 202 students from the second and third grades in each group, half boys/half girls, and classroom size of 18-23 students.  The noted difference was that one of these groups of 202 students contained one student per classroom who was identified with mild to moderate intellectual disability.  No students with multiple or physical disabilities were allowed in the control groups.  Pre- and post- academic testing was done in the areas of literacy and math, and indications of low-, normal-, and high-achievers were identified.  The research also accounted for social and economic similarities and differences within the groups.  Each of the children identified with ID spent at least 70% of their school day in the general education classroom.

The findings of the research by Dessemontet & Bless ( 2013) “indicate that there was no statistically significant difference between the progress of low-, average-, and high-achieving pupils in classrooms with or without inclusion (p.27).  These results seem to support previous research done, indicating that inclusion does not necessarily have a negative effect on the academic performance of classmates without disabilities.  Therefore, supporting inclusion for students with mild to moderate ID in the general education classroom.

 However, the researchers admit that several variables should be noted about this situation.  The quality of the teachers, the number of students with other disabilities other an ID were neither indicated nor followed, there was only one child with ID per classroom, and these studies were all conducted at the primary level.  It is hard to say what type of outcomes you may have if some of these conditions were to change; such as, more severe ID students or students with physical disabilities, a higher number of inclusion students per classroom, limited or poor quality instructors or paraprofessionals, or behavioral disorders.  Since the variables were closely controlled for this study, it is difficult to say what other research may find if you were to broaden the scope. 

There is also limited research in the secondary education setting.  As students age, the expectations of the students become more complex and independent.  It is unclear whether students with multiple disabilities, or more severe ID, would affect the academic performance of their peers in these settings.  I’m also curious about the impact that behavior would have across the school years. 

The article spoke briefly of the negative effects that general education students without disabilities had when they were grouped with peers with disabilities.  There was a negative outcome for non-disabled students when placed in a more cooperative learning setting where students with disabilities were included.  Also, the influence of support within the classroom and school were noted briefly.  General education classroom teachers who collaborated often with special educators, and who were given quality and quantity in support were much more successful.

This was a very thorough article.  It was well explained and thought out.  The research and finding could be a bit cumbersome to get through, but the background, methods, results and conclusions were complete.  The article also did a great job in identifying the limitations within the article.  It did not account for all situations that arise within the classroom, as described above, but were quick to note such things.  Much more research needs to be done to find out the impact of inclusion on all types of students, but variables are difficult to predict and control.

References

Sermier Dessemontet, R., & Bless, G. (2013). The impact of including children with intellectual disability in general education classrooms on the academic achievement of their low-, average-, and high-achieving peers. Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability, 38(1), 23-30. 

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