Students With Disabilities

This brief by the National High School Center provides an in-depth look at the implementation and structural issues, as well as the needed support required to successfully institute Response to Intervention (RTI) at the secondary school level. It defines the RTI models, explores benefits and challenges faced at the high school level, shares a snapshot of implementation at the high school level, and outlines the necessary resources needed to support this work.

This article from the National Association of Secondary School Principal’s Principal Leadership journal describes response to intervention’s (RTI) tiered process for implementing evidence-based instructional strategies in the regular education setting while frequently measuring student progress to determine whether these practices are effective. It specifies some common components of strong collaborative teams and elements of effective RTI programs.

This report from the National High School Center outlines steps that schools can take to identify at-risk students and provide the necessary support systems and relevant interventions to assist students in obtaining a high school diploma. Further, the report discusses the use of early warning data systems to target interventions for groups and individual students, offers a variety of best practice approaches undertaken by higher-performing high schools, and presents effective programs that are currently being implemented to stem the dropout problem.

This policy brief released by the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability at the Institute for Educational Leadership identifies five broad policy and practice areas critical to ensuring all students--and especially those with disabilities--are prepared to succeed in high school and in their post-secondary careers. The brief makes 14 recommendations spread across the five areas and provides suggestions on what organizations can support these recommendations.

This report from the American Youth Policy Forum and the Center for Education Policy examines the work that has been accomplished in educating children with disabilities over the past 25 years since Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1975. It also identifies issues that still need to be addressed.

This report from the National Center for Technology Innovation examines the perspectives of stakeholder groups from the fields of education and technology on how assistive and learning technology could become considered a critical component of education and be used to serve students more effectively.

This tool kit offers information about the U.S. Department of Education’s investments supporting teaching and assessing students with disabilities; papers on seven models for large-scale assessment; technical assistance products related to assessment, instructional practices, behavior, and accommodations; and additional resources.

This meta-analysis of 31 studies examined whether reading interventions could assist elementary, middle, and high school students with reading difficulties and learning disabilities. Overall, results showed that students who received a reading intervention outperformed students in the control group. This positive effect was also found for students with disabilities across all measures. Further, with few exceptions, studies that examined reading comprehension found that reading interventions could have a positive effect on reading comprehension.

This report presented a meta-analysis of writing interventions for students with learning disabilities. Interventions focused on writing expository or narrative texts. Thirteen studies were found that fit the authors’ criteria. Results indicated that interventions had a positive effect on students' writing and understanding of the writing process.

This study analyzed the goals from the IEP of 54 high school students diagnosed with reading disabilities in basic reading skills (e.g. letter/word identification and/or decoding) to determine whether IEP appropriately acknowledged and addressed these issues. When available, the authors also examined the students' IEPs from elementary school (ES) and/or middle school (MS) and compared these to the high school IEP. It was found that most of the HS IEPS failed to address student deficits in basic reading skills.