With recent advances in technology, students with disabilities may be able to access instruction and test content with greater ease than ever before. However, the availability and provision of accommodations that facilitate this access may vary across environments (e.g., instruction and testing environments, classroom-based and standardized testing environments, high school and college environments). Using survey methodology, we are exploring the experiences of college students with reading disabilities who use accommodations. The project will seek to identify any challenges associated with aligning accommodations for students with reading disabilities across different environments, as well as explore possible strategies for overcoming those challenges.
We are conducting an investigation of the educational services provided to students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in public schools in Michigan. We will review literature on effective strategies and programming for students with ASD, as well as collect information through surveys, interviews, and direction observations to better understand current practices in Michigan. This will be used to provide recommendations to policymakers about how to improve educational services to students with ASD in the future.
All too often tests are administered to students, but the information that is collected is not used to drive instructional changes that can lead to improved student outcomes. Recently, measurement experts have emphasized the need for investigations of the consequential validity of tests - does testing actually benefit students? In this experimental study, we seek to examine whether any instructional and student performance changes occur with multiple administrations of a recently developed test of early informational reading comprehension: the Concepts of Comprehension Assessment (COCA)™.
With recent changes in federal legislation, particularly the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, there is a need for school professionals to be trained in assessing response-to-intervention and promoting access to the general curriculum among students with disabilities. This project is intended to train school psychologists to take leadership roles in these efforts, particularly as they relate to students with reading difficulties. Thirty graduate students in school psychology will be provided related training. This project is currently funded through the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.
The Center for Neurodevelopment Study (CNS) is a multi-disciplinary laboratory at Michigan State University. The primary mission of CNS is to use state-of-the-art neuroimaging techniques to better understand the neural mechanisms that underlay childhood developmental disorders and giftedness. Current studies at the lab include work on social perception in children with autism spectrum disorders, response to feedback in children with ADHD, and mathematics giftedness.
Dr. Jodene Goldenring Fine is Associate Director of the Center. School Psychology doctoral students working with her gain valuable clinical experience in neuropsychological test administration and scoring, interviewing parents and children, and making research diagnoses. More advanced students can get involved in neuroimaging experiment design, data collection, analysis of MRI and FMRI data, and producing papers for dissemination of research findings.
Preschoolers are three times as likely to be expelled when compared with students in grades K through 12 (Gilliam, 2005). Explanations for this higher expulsion rate appear to be linked to factors related to the preschool attended, the characteristics of the children in the class, the availability of and access to classroom-based consultation, and the teacher’s self-reported stress and depressive symptoms (Gilliam & Shahar, 2006). The need for mental health consultation within preschool settings is essential for the early identification and treatment of children’s challenging behaviors. Addressing these issues via a mental health promotion approach requires the need to enhance the social and emotional quality of child care settings and to assist parents and caregivers in their ability to promote positive behaviors across home, school, and community settings. Multiple systems need to be targeted by programs aimed at preventing preschool expulsion. These include system change at the child, family, staff, and program levels (Perry, 2005). Consistent with the evidence-based practice movement being seen within health care, mental health service delivery, and education, our proposed evaluation will provide (a) scientific evidence of the efficacy of the CCEP Initiative, (b) identify variation in program quality and link these variations to child, family, and child care outcomes, and (c) provide a replicable set of best practices that can be carried out in other program locations.
We will examine the acceptability, integrity and effectiveness of the use of the Incredible Years Parent Training Program in a self-administered format to parents of children enrolled in a local Head Start program. Specifically, the study objectives are to investigate the use of the program on improving children’s behavioral functioning and parent interactions with their children within actual practice and bring research into practice in a university-community collaboration. Study participants will include 40 Head Start parents who rated their children as being significantly at-risk for behavioral problems. The participants will be randomly assigned to receive the intervention from within the agency or outside of the agency. Parents will complete the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA), the Parent Practices Interview, the Behavior Assessment System for Children-Monitor for ADHD, and the Global Change Form to measure children’s behaviors. Results of the study are expected to contribute to the current knowledge on effective treatment of at-risk children and the prevention of behavioral problems.
This proposal seeks funds to develop an interdisciplinary training program that prepares 12 Michigan State University doctoral students from school psychology and special education-emotional impairment for leadership roles in the development, implementation, and evaluation of interventions and prevention programs for youth exhibiting disruptive behaviors within the school setting. A multidisciplinary faculty, numerous parent organizations, state department personnel, representatives from a number of local education and community agencies and nationally renowned experts in evidence-based treatments have contributed to the development of this project and are committed to the successful completion of this innovative, comprehensive, and multifaceted training curriculum.
This research examines the implementation process in transporting evidence-based interventions (EBIs) into community settings and how they are adapted to be meaningful in authentic contexts. The focus of my work is the transportability of an evidence-based intervention, the Incredible Years, Dina Dinosaur Curriculum (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2004) in preschool and Kindergarten classrooms. This intervention is designed to promote social-emotional competence and problem solving in young children. We are documenting the challenges and strategies involved in implementing an EBI and studying how cultural adaptations affect implementation integrity and acceptability. This work is supported by an MSU College of Education Seed Grant.
This project prepares doctoral level school psychologists and special educators for leadership roles in the implementation and culturally valid use of evidence-based interventions (EBIs) with diverse populations in early childhood. My work on this project focuses on the development and evaluation of students’ knowledge and skills in the culturally valid use of EBIs with diverse populations. This project involves an innovative collaboration designed to develop cultural competence through the creation of online communities of school psychology students across the country. This project is funded by a Leadership Training Grant from the United States Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, 2007-2011.
This study investigates how parents foster the development of self-regulation in the context of parent-child interactions in joint problem-solving. We are analyzing the video-taped interactions of mothers and children in as they solve well- and ill-structured tasks. We use self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) to examine ways in which parents support and promote their children’s autonomy, relatedness, and competence.
Understanding Developmental Differences Among Children Raised by Homosexual vs. Heterosexual Parents
