Journal on Developmental Disabilities

Prior research has indicated that students with disabilities are less likely than students in the general population to secure part-time employment during high school, receive post-secondary education, live independently, or secure competitive full-time employment after graduation. Federal law in the United States has been passed to create an environment to change this outcome. This exploratory study reviews the outcomes of a two-month long vocational support program. Using the Transition Behavior Scale, the researchers reviewed 27 (14 female/13 male) high school-aged/young adult students’ (between the ages of 15-19) self-reported attitudes of their program experience. Using the Attitudes Toward Intellectual Disabilities Questionnaire, self-reported attitudes toward students with intellectual disabilities of their eight career experience mentors (all females/young adults between the ages of 18-22) in the program were assessed. While results showed some small improvements in scores from pre-test to post-test, they did not show a significant difference in any specific subscale for either the mentor or student groups. Increasing the amount of time students are in the program, extending the segment of the experience that focuses on classroom time/skill development, and analysis by workplace are recommended for future consideration.

Throughout the past decade, research has demonstrated the importance of addressing young children’s social-emotional development and that educators require knowledge on interventions designed to improve social-emotional learning. As children’s early experiences impact their development, it is essential that educators working in early childhood settings receive training and support to promote social-emotional competencies. The present study was carried out in the province of Quebec. It evaluated the effectiveness of the implementation of the Pyramid Model (PM), a multi-tiered framework that promotes social-emotional competencies and prevents challenging behaviours in young children attending early childhood settings. Nine educators and 10 children participated in the study. Educators were provided with practice-based coaching (shared goals and action planning, focused observation, reflection, and feedback) following a two-day PM training session that was part of another study. A mixed-method design was used to assess the effects of PM implementation on the educators' practices, the children’s social skills, as well as the intervention's feasibility and acceptability. Quantitative and qualitative data were combined to assess the social validity and feasibility of the intervention for the purposes of breadth and depth of understanding and corroboration. Also, a multiple baseline design across participants was employed to examine target behaviours in the educators and children. Significant improvements were identified in the educators' PM practices and the children's social skills. Educators reported that the intervention was feasible and expressed high levels of satisfaction with its implementation.

The typoscope has been considered as an important aid for children with learning disabilities (LD) who struggle with reading. It is also believed to be helpful for children with writing difficulties who struggle with copying tasks. Surprisingly, however, no academic evidence has yet been found that the typoscope works for these children. This study aimed to analyze the effects of typoscoping in three Japanese children with writing difficulties for the task of copying Japanese character lines using eye-tracking glasses. A copying task was presented to three children with LD and three with typical development (TD). This consisted of copying 22 target letters (characters) of the hiragana (Japanese phonogram), randomly arranged on a sample sheet, onto a blank 18 mm square grid sheet. Children with LD took longer to complete the copying task without using a typoscope than children with TD. In the copying task with the typoscope, their time was similar to children with TD. The eye-tracking data showed that all three children with LD tended to lose targets in the copying task without the use of a typoscope but were less likely to lose targets if they used a typoscope. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the use of typoscope effectively reduced the target search load and shortened the transcription time for the children with LD.