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An analysis was conducted of the quality and curriculum content of the individualized education programs (IEPs) written by 11 teachers for 22 students with severe disabilities who attended a special class program (two students per teacher). Differences were then analyzed between this first set of IEPs and subsequent IEPs written by the same teachers for the same 22 students following a change of placement from special classes to full-time membership in general education classrooms. IEP quality was evaluated on the basis of the degree to which educational objectives included seven components identified as indicators of best practices. Curriculum content areas included communication, social, motor, vocational, domestic, community, recreation/leisure, and academic. No difference was found in the curriculum content of the IEPs written for the students when they attended a special versus a general education class; however, there was a difference found in the quality of the IEP objectives, with higher scores for IEPs written for the students when they were full-time members of general education classes.

The emergence of the standards-based reform movement has raised a number of issues related to the design of educational programs for students with severe disabilities, and a debate has arisen that presents an "either/or" choice between the general education curriculum and an ecological curricular framework that has traditionally guided curriculum development. In this paper, the authors propose that, to adequately meet the needs of students with moderate to severe disabilities, an ecological approach focusing on quality of life outcomes must be reconciled with the development and implementation of standards-based academic curricula. To accomplish this reconciliation, the authors recommend that individualized education plan teams engage in a process that allows them to work within an ecological curricular framework to develop standards-based goals that reflect meaningful knowledge and skills that are tailored to students' individual needs and applicable to their everyday lives. They propose that quality of life goals expand beyond home, friendships, community participation, and work to include academic goals that are life enriching and promote lifelong learning that can be linked to a broader range of subject area domains in the core curriculum. In addition, they suggest instructional approaches that promote effective instruction and generalized outcomes for both academic and functional skills. Finally, they outline a number of issues that require additional reflection, discussion, and research.

Three students with severe disabilities were taught to independently initiate a conversation and participate in conversation turntaking throughout a 10-min session across a variety of school and community settings with at least four nondisabled peers as partners. Inappropriate social interaction behaviors that were present at high rates during baseline sessions were observed to decrease as conversation skills were acquired. This finding is discussed in terms of the hypothesis that inappropriate behaviors can serve a variety of communicative functions and may be reduced as functionally equivalent, socially acceptable communication means are acquired.

Individualized education programs (IEPs) written for students with severe disabilities who attended either integrated or segregated educational sites were evaluated on the basis of the degree to which they included seven components identified as indicators of best practices. These seven indicators fall into three categories: age-appropriateness, functionality, and potential for generalization to a variety of environments. Teacher training and expertise were held constant. A difference was found between the groups on the overall quality of IEP objectives, with higher scores on those IEPs written for students who were integrated into regular school campuses. Opportunities available in integrated programs that may enhance IEP quality are discussed.

Three elementary-aged students with multiple severe disabilities acquired basic communication and motor skills within cooperative learning activities conducted in their general education classrooms. With gradually fading assistance from the instructor, the members without disabilities of the cooperative learning groups provided cues, prompts, and consequences to promote the learning of the member with disabilities. The results showed that the three students with disabilities not only independently demonstrated targeted basic skills within cooperative academic activities, but also generalized those skills during follow-up sessions to activities with other members of a newly formed cooperative learning group. In addition, tests of achievement of targeted academic objectives by the members without disabilities in their cooperative learning groups indicated that they performed as well as members of a control group within the classroom that did not include a child with severe disabilities and that members of both the target group and the control group significantly increased their knowledge in targeted academic areas.

Three high school students with severe disabilities were taught to initiate and maintain a conversation independently through a 4-min session with a communication book adaptation. Instruction occurred across a variety of school settings with several regular education students serving as communication partners. For each of the three students, an analysis of the generalized effect of conversation training revealed that conversation initiation and "turntaking" skills generalized to "conversation opportunities" in settings and with partners not included in instructional sessions. Additionally, increases in conversation skills and component behaviors (greeting and commenting) were accompanied by decreases in inappropriate social interaction behaviors.

Three students with severe disabilities were taught to request items or events within interrupted behavior chain contexts. The interrupted behavior chain strategy involved inserting a typical instructional trial into the midst of an ongoing predictable sequence of behaviors such as getting a jacket and going outside or obtaining and operating a simple toy. Additionally, generalization probes were conducted in a variety of nontraining settings to determine whether responses taught within interrupted routines would generalize to "out-of-routine" contexts in which the child requested items to begin, rather than to resume, an activity. The results demonstrated that for each of the three students the responses acquired within interrupted chains of behavior generalized to a variety of naturally occurring, out-of-routine contexts and are discussed in relation to teaching self-initiated communicative behaviors.

Three students with severe disabilities were taught to request items or events within four interrupted behavior chain contexts. When interrupted behavior chain procedures were in effect, a typical operant instructional trial for teaching communication responses was inserted into the middle of an ongoing predictable sequence of behaviors such as brushing teeth or playing ball. Throughout the baseline and intervention phases, generalization probes were conducted to determine whether the newly acquired responses would be performed within behavior chains not yet used for instruction. The results demonstrated that for each of the three students the communicative function and the response form acquired within one behavior chain context generalized without further instruction to at least two chains in which training had not yet occurred. Moreover, for two of the students the picture discrimination skills required for selection of the appropriate content for each communication response generalized to nontraining contexts.

This investigation analyzed the effectiveness of an intervention designed to facilitate the social inclusion of three students who experienced significant physical and intellectual challenges and, for two students, dual sensory impairments. The children were full-time members of two first-grade and one fourth-grade classrooms. The individualized intervention package included three major components: (a) provision of ongoing information to classmates about the communication system, adaptive equipment, and educational activities of the students with disabilities in the context of naturally occurring interactions between the students and their classmates or during "club" meetings; (b) identification and utilization of various media that could serve as the basis for interactive exchanges between the focus students and others; and (c) ongoing facilitation by educational staff of social exchanges between students and their classmates through the establishment of a "buddy" system, arrangement of interactive activities across the day, and prompting and interpreting communicative exchanges when necessary. All aspects of intervention were implemented by educational staff including general education and inclusion support teachers, paraprofessionals, and related service personnel. An analysis of the interactive patterns between the focus students and others indicated that when the intervention was fully implemented, there were increases in (a) reciprocal interactions with peers, (b) focus student-initiated interactions, and (c) focus student-initiated interactions that were comments (with no increase in requests or protests). In addition, there were decreases in assistive interactions with paraprofessionals. The social validity of changes in interactive patterns between the focus students and their classmates was established through interviews with the students' friends and their teachers.

We conducted a program evaluation of a multi-component intervention using general education/special education collaborative teaming to increase the academic achievement and social participation of students with and without disabilities. A team of general, special, and bilingual educators, parents, and an outreach consultant developed Unified Plans of Support (UPS) for three students whose academic performance was substantially below grade level and whose social participation was limited. Effectiveness of the support plans was evaluated through multiple data sources including behavioral observations, team interviews, and analyses of student work samples. Evaluation outcomes suggested that consistent implementation of the plans of academic and social support by members of the UPS Team was associated with increases in academic skies, self-confidence and assertiveness, social interactions with classmates, and demonstrations of pride in academic accomplishments. The implications of across-program and across-school collaboration are discussed, as well as the need for future research on models of resource reallocation to meet the needs of all students in general education classrooms.

This program evaluation study was designed to investigate the effects of the placement of students with severe disabilities in general education versus special education classes. Sixteen elementary education programs in California participated. Eight represented the "full inclusion" model of integration, and eight represented the special class model. Two students were selected from each program, with one of the students experiencing more disability and the other student experiencing less disability. A number of key program quality and student outcome variables were measured and, except for an analysis of the individualized education plans (IEPs) of participating students, all measures were based on observations of students in their school programs. The data were analyzed within disability levels. The results indicated that there were differences for the students who were fully included and those who attended special education programs on measures of IEP quality and in the emphasis given to various curricular areas addressed by the educational objectives. In addition, there were differences in their levels of engagement in the activities of the school day, the type of activities in which they were engaged, the type and level of participation in integrated school environments, and the degree to which they initiated and engaged in social interactions with peers and adults.

An analysis was conducted of the effectiveness of a multicomponent intervention designed to increase the social inclusion of three elementary-aged students with disabilities who were full-time members of general education classrooms. The intervention package included: (a) provision of information to classmates about the communication system and adapted curriculum and materials of the student with disabilities during natural opportunities, and regularly scheduled class meetings; (b) identification and utilization of various media (including "conversation books") that could serve as the basis for interactive exchanges between the focus students and others; and (c) facilitation by educational staff of social exchanges between students and their classmates through the establishment of "partner systems," arrangement of interactive activities across the day, and prompting and interpreting communicative exchanges when necessary. All aspects of the intervention, with the exception of the weekly class meetings, were implemented by educational staff including the general education teachers, inclusion support teachers, and instructional assistants. Analyses of the interaction patterns between the focus students and others suggsted that implementation of the social support package facilitated increased exchanges with peers that were more "balanced," with the focus students more often initiating the interactions and providing information, rather than receiving communication or assistance. In addition comparisons of the interactions between the focus students and their peers with those of selected classmates revealed closer approximations to typical student-student exchanges during the intervention versus baseline condition. Finally, the social validity of changes in interaction patterns between the focus students and their classmates was evaluated.