Search

Students with complex support needs frequently experience restrictive educational placements such as self-contained and separate school classrooms. Given the need to support students with complex support needs to experience positive outcomes and make progress in the general education curriculum, there is a need to investigate the characteristics of the classroom contexts in which they are learning. The purpose of this study was to use ecobehavioral assessment observation methods to investigate how student behaviors, educator behaviors, and classroom ecology vary across general education, resource, self-contained, and separate school classrooms. We observed 116 students with complex support needs across the United States, and results indicated that contextual features of resource, self-contained, and separate school classrooms do not offer superior levels of instruction or supports for students with complex support needs as compared with general education classrooms. We were more likely to observe no one interacting with the focus student, no instruction, and the presence of distractions in self-contained and separate school classrooms compared with general education classrooms. Implications for policy, research, and practice are presented.

Students with complex support needs require individualized education programs (IEPs) to describe their present levels of academic achievement and functional performance (PLAAFP), and the annual goals and supplementary aids and services (SAS) that will be provided to enable them to make progress in the least restrictive environment. Previous research has found that IEPs do not reflect recommended practices and that IEP quality varies by educational placement in inclusive and separate class settings. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a national sample of IEPs of elementary-aged students with complex support needs to determine whether placement predicts IEP quality. We used multilevel regression to measure the extent to which placement predicts overall IEP quality as well as the quality of IEP components, including PLAAFP, goals, and SAS. We did not detect statistically significant differences in IEP quality by placement for any of these IEP components or for overall quality; instead, we found the IEPs consistently failed to meet quality indicators across all four placement types. Given these findings, we suggest implications for future research aimed at improving IEP quality for students with complex support needs.