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It is important for teachers and researchers to have access to evidence-based practices that target teaching specific content area skills, such as mathematics, to students with ASD (Hume et al., 2021). Previous literature reviews targeting mathematics interventions for students with ASD (Barnett & Cleary, 2016; Gevarter et al., 2016; King et al., 2016) presented several limitations, and with the increase in research are currently outdated. The purpose of this updated review was to assess the current state of the literature on mathematics interventions for students with ASD and identify any interventions which qualify as an evidence-based practice. Twenty-five of the 32 articles located for the review met quality indicators according to Cook et al. (2014) and presented positive results for the 60 students with ASD. Virtual manipulatives (VMs) and modified schema-based instruction (MBSI) were determined to be evidence-based practices for students with ASD. Authors also noted that the majority (84.0%) of the included studies involved intervention packages and there is a need to extend research to high school aged students, teacher implementation, and small and whole group settings.

This article describes a comprehensive framework (iDISC) for the close reading of informational texts for elementary students that may need additional language, social, memory, or behavioral supports. The article introduces concrete tools that are used before, during, and after close reading, including cue-cards, language stems, discussion behaviors, anchor posters, and graphic organizers. The tools provide teachers with instructional scaffolds that can support their students to undertake more educative discussions with peers.

Many individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can effectively decode and read words fluently, but have significantly below-average understanding of text. Following written directions may hold unique potential as it requires a reader to convert a written text into a goal-directed and observable performance. The present data-based case study investigated whether two elementary students with ASD could learn to follow six-step written directions when they were given access to high-preference items as they completed the final step in the directions. It was anticipated that as the number of directions increased, there would need to be adjustments to the intervention, especially as working memory was taxed and students were reliant on understanding the written text to successfully follow the written directions. At baseline, neither student could follow the six-step directions. After participating in the multiple phases of the intervention, both students learned to read and follow six-step directions without a high preference reward following the last step in the directions. Teaching students to follow written directions by creating opportunities to access preferred items through reading text may provide the origins of making text mediate independent and self-regulated behavior, but it is not sufficient for all students when they lack executive skills. This study discusses implications for research and classroom practice.

This exploratory case study used a mixed-methods pre-/post-intervention design to study the impact of an intervention on reading comprehension, annotation, and discussion quality. Five third-grade struggling readers who were part of a Tier 2 reading comprehension group were apprenticed into holding close-reading discussions of informational text. The teacher utilized an apprenticeship approach to provide explicit instruction and scaffolding to support four phases of close reading (discussion norms, main ideas, annotating text, discussion). Curriculum-based probes indicated that students improved their comprehension as measured by the total number of accurate main ideas recalled, the number of correct responses on quizzes, and the number and breadth of annotations. A standardized, norm-referenced measure of fluency (Reading Curriculum-Based Measurement [R-CBM]) and comprehension (MAZE) also showed improvements from fall to spring, with four of five participants changing levels from the winter to spring administration on the MAZE measure of comprehension. Discourse analysis revealed changes in discussion quality.

This article describes a comprehension strategy that can be used by teachers to help students identify and construct the main ideas for expository texts. The BURNS Strategy (i.e., Box. Underline. Reread. Note. Summarize.) was developed as part of a larger reading intervention to improve the comprehension performance of struggling readers in the elementary grades. The BURNS strategy was designed to incorporate thinking scaffolds and question prompts to guide students through a thinking process that might help them construct the main ideas. This article reports on the teaching process and instructional scaffolds used in the intervention, and discusses implications for teaching main ideas in the intervention setting.

In this study, the authors examine the learning of 48 preservice teachers (PSTs) taking a literacy course in special education and the primary-grade struggling readers they tutored in a field component of the course. The primary purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the effects of the course and tutoring on PSTs' knowledge and preparedness to teach reading. In addition, the authors examine whether the phonics scores of their tutored students improved. The results showed that PSTs improved in their knowledge of literacy, self-confidence in teaching reading to struggling readers, and analyses of oral reading miscues. Their tutored students also improved significantly on measures of their phonics knowledge and performance. The authors of this study suggest that carefully designed literacy coursework with field experiences can help PSTs perform more like mature teachers when the literacy tools and instructional scripts for teaching phonics are made explicit and transparent. Implications and limitations are discussed.

This special series represents collective courage because what is willing to be risked may be profound. At center is a willingness to reach out and cultivate new conversations on disability. Indeed, the artists who contribute to Ware's article are key co-authors; their art ushers us into a new disability literacy that extends and challenges current cultural scripts. We examine four central themes informed by Ware's text and art-based educational research (ABER) linked to the larger series conversation on interdisciplinary research methodology.

This study focuses on an examination of the learning-to-learn strategies of seventh-grade students as they highlight, take notes, plan, organize, and write expository texts. Participants consist of 125 students, 41 with disabilities and 84 without disabilities. The results reveal that the students with disabilities have more difficulties in using the learning-to-learn strategies as they read, study, and write expository texts, although neither group is judged to be highly proficient. The implications point to a renewed emphasis on preparing content-area teachers to teach the literacy and learning strategies that support the development of learners who know how to read to learn and how to write to learn. (Contains 7 figures and 1 table.)

Fifty years after "Brown v. Board of Education", school achievement remains segregated by both race and class. Despite an emphasis on reading achievement as required by No Child Left Behind, many students have serious literacy needs, even into the middle and upper grades. The purpose of this study was to ascertain ways in which middle school reading instruction is coordinated to improve academic outcomes for at-risk students. In-depth interviews were conducted with professionals from five urban and five suburban middle schools surrounding five components of reading programming. While both align their curriculum with state expectations, they differ in terms of program continuity and stability. Overall, systemic coherence in schools was a rarity. Implications for literacy programming and systemic reform are presented. (Contains 2 figures and 3 tables.)

Changing discursive practices is necessary for educational social justice and is made possible through the interanimation of diverse ways of knowing that create dynamic tensions and challenge reliance on narrow views of what counts as legitimate knowledge. In this article, we accept the challenge that Reid and Valle put forth in creating new discourses of possibility through the animation of sociocultural and critical theory as they might apply to the interrogation of two aspects of the meaning-making process: (a) the interanimation of voices across systems as a condition of reculturing institutions and communities of practice, and (b) instructional activity settings in educational contexts (e. g., disciplinary apprenticeships). We conclude this article by examining possibilities for collaborative research activity.

This article introduces Project PREPARE, a 5-year project to develop a collaborative site of practice and inquiry between two universities, primary and elementary schools in a poor rural town, and the school district. During the collaboration, there were steady improvement in student achievement in reading and mathematics on multiple measures. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

This paper describes how meaning potentials were constructed in the literacy event known as Morning Message, an activity in which a 4th grade teacher and students jointly constructed a written text around the experiences of one student. Emphasis is on how meaning was orchestrated and scaffolded by the teacher's conversational moves and on how writing conventions and meta-messages were embedded in the dialogue. (Contains references.) (Author/DB)

Examines the special education teacher's role as a more knowledgeable member of the classroom who uses dialogue to scaffold performance, nurtures the dialogical relationship that underlies the discourse in classrooms, uses procedural facilitation to make complex processes accessible to students, and transfers increasing levels of control and responsibility to students for regulating their own language. (SG)

This article describes implementation of a Sharing Chair as part of literacy program in a third and fourth grade special education learning disabilities class. Following free writing in their personal journals, students could share and receive feedback from a peer/teacher audience. The article presents results of analysis of videotape recordings of Sharing Chair implementation. (Contains extensive references.) (Author/DB)

Reports the results of three studies conducted to determine the efficacy of the Early Literacy Project in improving the reading performances of elementary students with mild disabilities. Results indicate the program has been effective in accelerating literacy learning and can be integrated into the general education curriculum. (Author/CR)

This study examined changes in the beliefs and practices of three special-education teachers over the course of their participation in a three-year collaborative literacy project. Results suggest that teacher change is a long-term process, evolving from an early focus on enacting activities to an increasing emphasis on changing the broader contexts of the school. (Author/DB)

The activities of a literacy project are described as examples of social constructivism. The role of social and dialogic interactions of teachers and students in literacy communities in which the production, rather than the reproduction, of knowledge is the goal of the instruction is emphasized. Examples of teacher and student dialog are provided. (CR)

This study examined patterns of reading-related classroom dialog of three low-gaining and three high-gaining special education teachers. High-gaining teachers spent considerably more time scaffolding student responses, modeling reading strategies, encouraging risk-taking, and transferring control of the reading process to students. Low-gaining teachers spent most of their time evaluating students' responses. (Author/PB)

This article reviews recent projects using text structures and the writing process as frameworks to guide the composition dialogue. Learning-disabled students' attitudes toward writing as a required skill rather than a means of expression are confronted in the emphasis on dialogue. Several blank forms for organizing prewriting thoughts are reproduced. (Author/PB)

This article reports on a reading comprehension instructional technique which uses reciprocal-like teaching formats in groups and semantic mapping to make text structures apparent. The procedure significantly affected recall of expository ideas and knowledge of comprehension strategies with 28 intermediate grade students with learning disabilities. (DB)

POSSE, an instructional procedure for a reading comprehension curriculum, structures classroom dialogue about text meaning. Students with mild handicaps predict what the story will be about, organize their knowledge, search for the text structure, summarize, and evaluate. POSSE's successful application is dependent upon effective lesson dialogue and student leadership in the dialogue. (JDD)

Summary Introduction After the attacks in Paris, France was again struck by terrorism in the city of Nice during the night of July 14, 2016. At 22:33 in the evening, a 19-ton truck drove into the crowd of holiday celebrators. The attack resulted in 458 wounded and 86 deaths. The purpose of this study was to describe the management of patients with abdominal trauma admitted alive in our institution, in the context of a massive influx of victims. Material and methods We performed a retrospective analysis of the management of adults with abdominal trauma arising from the terrorist attack in Nice. Results Among the 182 victims admitted to our trauma center, eleven patients presented with abdominal trauma. The median age was 44 years [14–63] and the median Injury Severity Score (ISS) was 34 [9–59]. Eight patients underwent urgent surgical treatment in the operating room including six for abdominal trauma. These patients were treated according to the principles of surgical damage control, albeit without the need for temporary abdominal closure or packing. Three patients could have had their lesions managed non-operatively had they been admitted outside this surge episode, which saturated the technical means of the receiving hospital. Conclusion The terrorist attack that victimized the citizens of Nice resulted in the second largest number of dead of any attack on French soil. A large number of patients were admitted to the city's only center for adult trauma care. The management of these patients posed diagnostic, therapeutic and logistical problems. Increased use of pre-hospital pelvic restraint belts may help to reduce vehicular trauma. We do not feel that non-operative management of abdominal lesions can be envisaged in the context of a mass influx of victims. We recommend surgical hemostasis for patients with secondary hemorrhagic risk from visceral trauma in the context of a massive influx of victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]