A Transdisciplinary Approach to Promoting Self-Determination: Collaboration Between Special Education Teachers and Music Therapists

Self-determination consists of essential skills for students with disabilities because it gives individuals the power to make decisions based on their own needs and desires. Self-determination includes areas such as choice-making, goal setting, and self-directed learning. Music therapy is a service that can be used to enhance self-determination for students within the educational setting. Through intentional collaboration, music therapists and special educators can bring together their expertise to promote self-determination in students with disabilities. As members of students’ Individualized Educational Programs (IEPs), both professionals are working towards the common interest of fulfilling individuals’ goals and needs. The authors of this manuscript outline and describe a three-step process for collaboration between music therapists and special educators to promote self-determination among students while also providing a vignette to demonstrate this practice.

Targeting the Transition Goals of Teens Through Executive Function Support

Executive functions, which begin developing in early childhood, are necessary for the tasks of daily life, such as decision making and planning. Despite their early development, often without teaching, many teens with disabilities need explicit instruction to acquire and apply executive functions each day. Gaps in executive functions directly impact a teens ability to achieve post-secondary success, as executive functions support planning, goal setting, and organization. This article provides instruction on how to support teens with disabilities on three executive functions: (a) building habits that form routines, (b) utilizing sensory reminders to manage time, and (c) applying a planning tool. This article also instructs teachers on embedding executive function instruction within transition planning for individualized education programs.

Microteaching: An Opportunity for Meaningful Professional Development

Microteaching is a way of doing professional development for teachers wanting to incorporate new evidence-based and high-leverage practices into their instructional toolboxes. Given how much work is required in teaching and the limited time professionals have available, microteaching is an accessible process that supports instructional improvement by practicing evidence-based and high leverage strategies. Professionals, working with a small group of peers, engage a four-phase process that includes planning, enactment of a strategy, as well as individual and group reflection. Professionals use the opportunity to explore a teaching strategy that is responsive to student needs in the context of critical friends. Having an opportunity to try it out before introducing it in the classroom can be a valuable way to work out bugs, discover aspects that need development, and build a sense of efficacy. Microteaching is a way to support collegial growth by seeing into each other’s classroom practice.

Empowering Transition-Age Students to Use Self-Determination Assessment to Lead IEP Goal Development

Self-determination is a predictor of positive in- and post-school outcomes, including access to general education, competitive employment, and community participation. Emerging research has focused on promoting self-determination for all students given alignments with college and career readiness frameworks and equity-based education. However, it is also important to enhance self-determination as students participate in the Individualized Education Program (IEP) goal development process. Empowering transition-age students to lead the IEP goal development process with support from school personnel has the potential to enhance the alignment of IEP goals based on students’ strengths, preferences, values, and needs and enhance transition planning and college and career readiness. In this article, we provide an example of how to use a self-determination assessment, the Self-Determination Inventory: Student Report (SDI:SR), and an intervention, the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI), in the IEP goal development and implementation process to enhance transition planning and college and career readiness.

Guidance for the Antiracist Educator: Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies for Disability and Diversity

Racism in the United States has risen to the forefront of public awareness through the national outrage, grief, and terrible injustice and bias that continues to dictate the fates of individuals in our communities of color. Centuries of systemic racism require our organization to publish innovative evidence-based practices for use in a wide variety of educational programs and settings around topics related to racial and cultural practices. This special edition of Teaching Exceptional Children (TEC) emphasizes racially and culturally competent and sustaining practices when working with students with disabilities who also experience another social identity.

Early Intervention to Preschool Transition for Children Who Are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing: A TEAM Approach

Parents, teachers, and administrators report concerns and challenges related to the transition from early intervention (EI) to preschool for children who are deaf/hard-of-hearing. The goal of the current article is to assist teachers, administrators, and specialists involved in the transition of a young child who is deaf/hard-of-hearing from EI into preschool. The TEAM approach involves Transition planning, establishing an Educational team, determining and providing appropriate Accommodations, and Making connections for continued success. Although the TEAM approach may apply to all young children transitioning, the focus of this article is on addressing the unique needs of this particular population. Recommendations and resources are provided.

The Problem Solver: A Behavioral Intervention for Teaching Problem Solving to High-Functioning Students With Autism

Problem-solving is a skill of fundamental importance for populations with developmental delays, and especially for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Training students with ASD to solve ill-defined problems is a challenging objective for educational and therapeutic teams. This is due to the myriad of unpredictable situations presented during the school day and the various responses, socially appropriate or inappropriate, that may be emitted to solve one's problem. The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic clinical behavioral program named the Problem Solver (PS) specifically designed to teach problem-solving to high-functioning students with ASD. The authors detail the three stages of the PS program (i.e., determining a set of problems and solutions for each student, skill acquisition and practice, and implementation of whole-class token economy). The authors conclude with recommendations for successful implementation in school settings.

Lead Exposure in Children: What Special Educators Need to Know

Journalists have reported large-scale lead poisoning affecting children in cities such as Flint, Michigan. Unfortunately, children’s exposure to lead is not isolated and occurs throughout the country in both urban and rural settings. The effects of lead exposure can cause children to develop disabilities, potentially requiring special education services to address their academic and behavioral difficulties. In this paper, we detail three areas where special education has a major role in addressing the lead crisis: special education identification; intervention; and advocacy, awareness, and prevention. For each area, we provide concrete suggestions for special educators to implement in order to ensure children exposed to lead receive the special education services they need.

Helping Teachers Understand and Mitigate Trauma in Their Classrooms

Nine-year old Eliza is a student at Meadows Elementary School where she receives special education services for her diagnosis of Emotional Disturbance. Her teachers are working together to try to bring Eliza back into the classroom after weeks of time spent in the office with no contact with her peers. Mr. Jimenez and Ms. Landon are collaborating to incorporate trauma-informed practices into their classrooms in an attempt to address the absence of secure attachments and feelings of safety in Eliza’s life, as well as her inability to control her emotional responses. Creating a trauma-informed classroom benefits everyone but especially students with disabilities who have experienced trauma. In this paper we discuss the need for trauma-informed practices and strategies for making classroom environments more trauma-informed.