The effects of UPGRADE your performance on employment soft skills of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities: A pilot study of generalization.

Previous research has identified UPGRADE Your Performance as a method for teaching employment soft skills to students with disabilities. UPGRADE Your Performance instruction is a multicomponent intervention including self-evaluation, self-graphing, goal setting, and technology-aided instruction. This pilot study investigated the generalized effects of UPGRADE Your Performance on soft skills of secondary students with intellectual and other developmental disabilities participating in an 18-21 transition program located on a university campus. Results indicated that when students improved in two targeted soft skill areas, generalization occurred to three non-targeted soft skill areas. Implications for practice and suggestions for future research are included.

Effects of Reading Racetracks on Sight Word Acquisition for Deaf Kindergarteners.

This study examined the effects of a reading racetrack game on acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of sight words for four kindergarten students who are deaf. The game consisted of placing sight words around a racetrack board and prompting the participant to read the words. A multiple probe design across word sets demonstrated a functional relation between the intervention and the participants' acquisition of vocabulary to 100% mastery on at least three consecutive sessions for each participant. Three out of four participants maintained most of the sight words acquired for 2-4 weeks after intervention and generalized reading the words to another presentation format.

Effects of Behavioral Skills Training on Teacher Implementation of a Reading Racetrack Intervention.

This study examined the effects of behavioral skills training (BST) on teachers' implementation fidelity of a reading racetrack (a board game designed to increase sight word fluency) with elementary students identified as struggling readers. BST, an alternative to traditional professional development, is a performance-based protocol incorporating instruction, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback. A multiple probe design across teacher-student dyads demonstrated that BST was functionally related to the teachers' implementation of a reading racetrack with 100% fidelity on at least three consecutive sessions. Additionally, students met mastery criteria for sight word acquisition and demonstrated maintenance at least one to two weeks post intervention.

Stop to Ask and Respond: Effects of a Small-Group Self-Questioning Intervention on Reading Comprehension Performance.

Self-questioning, a strategic approach for monitoring one's own comprehension, has shown promising outcomes for a diverse range of learners. The current study sought to replicate and extend this area of research by examining the effects of a small-group self-questioning intervention with systematic prompt fading on students' reading comprehension performance. Two small groups of fifth grade students performing among the lowest on reading comprehension in their general education classroom were selected to participate in this study. Three participants in each group were taught to stop to ask and respond to questions (STAR strategy) while chorally reading expository text passages. A multiple probe design across the small groups was used to examine the effects of this self-questioning strategy on the reading comprehension performance when prompts were systematically faded. Results indicated the groups, on average, demonstrated an increase in the number of comprehension questions answered correctly. Implications for practice are discussed.

Teaching students with intellectual or developmental disabilities to write: a review of the literature.

The purpose of this review was to identify effective methods for teaching writing to students with intellectual disabilities. After criteria were established, database searches and hand searches of selected peer-reviewed journals were conducted. Findings revealed a relatively small number of studies that met the criteria for inclusion. Participants, settings, research designs, independent variables, dependent variables, and results are synthesized across studies. Writing instruction effects on various written expression outcomes were aggregated by averaging percentage of non-overlapping data (PND) across studies. Findings revealed that strategy instruction was investigated more frequently than other types of approaches. Strategy instruction was consistently found to be very effective for teaching writing skills to students with intellectual disabilities. Limitations, directions for future research, and implications for practice are discussed.