SRU ETD Test 20250603

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is a federal law that requires that students with disabilities are provided with a Free and Appropriate Public Education. The cost of ensuring FAPE can be quite high for students that require more specialized supports; however, in not meeting that standard, districts may be liable for compensatory education. Much of the responsibility to fund special education, especially in Pennsylvania, falls on the schools to raise through local taxes. This has put schools in very challenging circumstances in regard to their budget. States across the country have conducted a Costing Out Analysis to review the necessary spending levels reviewed for education. Many studies discuss the need for higher funding allocations from state and federal governments so that the high-cost burden does not fall on LEAs and local tax dollars to meet the IDEA compliance requirements. While overall compliance with IDEA has improved over time, it is still an issue that needs to be addressed. This study used multiple regression to determine if there is a link between compliance with the Cyclical Monitoring for Continuous Improvement and factors such as special education spending and percentage of population receiving special education supports. The data are all public record and was collected through Pennsylvania Department of Education online Databases. The data revealed a regression model suggests that the relationship between the number of areas of non-compliance has a significantly moderate negative correlation with both the number of special education expenditures and the percentage of special education students. The model can explain or predict 11.4% of the number of areas of noncompliance in a school district.

This phenomenological qualitative inquiry was designed to explore the phenomenon of using assistive technology (AT) or putting AT "on the shelf" in the school setting. The purpose of this study was to identify factors involved in educators' use or discontinued use AT in the school setting. The researcher wanted to learn more about educator efficacy with implementing AT and interviewed 10 participants of various stakeholder roles in the AT decision-making process. Participants shared their insight through one of two options: a live interview or a written questionnaire. Key findings were generated through emergent themes from the sample's responses. Findings indicated that participants used AT continuously when there was buy-in from IEP team members. AT was discontinued by this sample due to lack of buy-in and challenges with the technology. Further research stemming from this study includes the exploration of instructional coaching as an approach to support educators with the use of AT in the school setting.

Special educators, school leaders and parents across the nation are exploring the benefits of inclusive opportunities for high school students with and without disabilities. Peer Mediated Intervention (PMI) is a long-standing literature-backed set of teaching procedures and models that promote prosocial development in individuals with developmental disabilities across the lifespan. Although PMI literature includes benefits to typical peers, little to no information exists specific to the high school and young adult population.\n\nThe present study gathers qualitative interview data from four parent participants to gain authentic feedback about the takeaways for their typical high school student from their perspective. Many positive implications were uncovered in the thematic coding and data analysis process. Positive implications for peers can be utilized as support for the development and maintenance of future inclusive extracurricular activities in public high schools. Discussion around the findings of the study provide school leaders with clear and concise examples of this support, including but not limited to: increase in personal self-worth and empathy, college and career readiness opportunities, and community acceptance carryover.

Abstract The last few years have seen an increased interest in the effectiveness of special education services for student-inmates with disabilities housed in restrictive housing units (RHUs) for a minimum of 22 hours per day but "few studies have examined the complexities associated with restrictive housing" (Butler, Solomon, and Spohn, 2018, p. 1174). These student-inmates are placed in RHU's for disciplinary reasons, medical precautions, mental health evaluations, plus other underlying variables depending on the policies of each correctional facility. This purpose of this research study was to better understand how special education teachers and special education supervisors provided a FAPE for student-inmates housed in RHUs with little to no time out of their cell and limited instructional hours due to prison policies that exclude them from attending live instruction. An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) with in-depth one-to-one interviews was applied to the lived experiences of the participants who provide special education services to student-inmates housed in RHUs at county prisons. State and federal prisons were excluded from this student because the researcher wanted to solely focus on county prisons. The researcher used a small sample size for the structured interviews but recruited participants from different county prisons across the state. The participants included three special education teachers and three special education supervisors. Three common themes emerged after analyzing the data: (1) the use of cell-study packets for RHU student-inmates was a replacement at institutions where access to live instruction was prohibited, (2) safety and security policies that amplified institutional barriers superseded student-inmates educational rights, and (3) access to educational programming was immeasurably different between non-RHU student-inmates and RHU student-inmates. The findings of this study had an overarching theme that participants continually acknowledged how institutional barriers severely limited their ability to provide a good quality education for RHU student-inmates. It is critical that future research on this topic expand upon the understanding of how low-quality secondary education programs at prisons has the potential to thwart the legal obligations of providing a FAPE. The implication is that low quality education programming is recognized throughout correctional facilities, but the focus is primarily on adult education while the delivery of appropriate special education services is overlooked.

This qualitative research study analyzed open-ended survey responses from teachers and administrators regarding perceptions of the support administrators provide for culturally responsive practices and addressing the needs of at-risk and underserved populations. For purposes of this research study, the teacher group included educators who have an impact on the day-to-day functions within the classroom environment: paraprofessionals, assistants, and related service providers. Building-level principals, assistant principals, and central office administration including superintendent, assistant superintendent, curriculum supervisor, and special education supervisor(s) were included in the administrator group. Responses from both groups were reviewed separately and comparatively to determine whether there were similarities and differences between teachers' perceptions of the supports provided by administrators and administrators' perceptions of the supports they provide. Qualitative data were reviewed and evaluated to provide an analysis aligned with the study's research questions. Participants were from a diverse group of professionals across Pennsylvania. Survey responses maintained full confidentiality of the participants for protection from any potential negative consequences or outcomes from their participation in the research project. A comprehensive review of the literature was completed to provide comparative data to complement the study results and analysis of individual survey responses. The overall outcome of the study is dependent on and limited based on the participant sample size and diversity of the participant environments. Keywords: administrator, confidential, correlation, culturally responsive, diversity, hand-coding, survey-based perception, participant, professional development, qualitative research study, retention, support, systematic inequalities, teacher

Teacher stress studies suggest that teacher stress has become progressively heightened. Researchers have acknowledged that teachers are stressed, and in turn, there has been an increase in burnout and turnover within the field. Seemingly, even with the magnitude of attention dedicated to preventing occupational stress, the prevalence is growing. In response, this study aimed to understand special education teachers and the stressors within their occupation. This study used a questionnaire using a Likert scale and opened ended questions to gain a better understanding of the stressors and overall well-being of special education teachers. The mixed methods approach allowed for a comprehensive look at 45 K-12 special education teachers within four school districts in Western Pennsylvania. The data was collected from April to May of 2018 and used the themes: (a) working conditions, (b) professional responsibilities, (c) student needs, and (d) student behavior to categorize the data. Data suggested that the working conditions and professional responsibilities provided the most stressors for special education teachers. The questionnaire also provided insight on an individual's inability to differentiate between types of stressors. The implications of these findings for future research, professional development, and wellness education are discussed within this study.

The field of music therapy is currently working towards increasing cultural awareness, equity, social justice, and belongingness for the wide diversity of music therapists and the people we work with. Due to the Eurocentric approach to music therapy education and training, the Arab community is a cultural group that has minimal representation in the music therapy literature. Throughout the Arab world the music therapy profession could still be regarded as being in its infancy stage. With limited international higher education programs in music therapy, most people living within the Arab region must travel to study. Previous research in music therapy and other mental health professions have indicated that international programs have fallen short in their ability to support the needs of international students, instead assuming they will acculturate with ease, and provide minimal education and guidance on ways therapeutic interventions can be adapted in various cultural contexts. This research study utilized a mixed-methods approach within a constructivist paradigm that pulls from feminist theoretical perspectives to better understand the educational and cultural experiences of Arab music therapists through an anonymous online survey. The data was analyzed for common themes that emerged. Overall, a majority of respondents felt that their music therapy education and training experience did not meet all of their cultural needs. The researchers hope that the data gathered will be useful for other Arab international music therapy students, but more importantly, that it will help guide and inform music therapy programs globally in their efforts to better support the needs of Arab music therapy students.

Music therapy settings are often marked by multiple power hierarchies, in which music therapists hold privileged identities in areas such as race, disability, language, and class in relation to clients who may carry multiple oppressed identities. In international service-learning settings, these dualities can be even more pronounced. As international service-learning projects market themselves to young music therapists and students, they emphasize these projects' ability to accelerate music therapists' advancement in the profession. However, analysis of visual and written discourse can reveal subtler and more insidious consequences of such projects, particularly in the ways they uphold colonial and ableist paradigms. In this paper, I will outline some foundational understandings regarding Indigenous studies, Disability studies, "voluntourism," and the relevance of representation. I will then analyze publicly available photos and text from four international music therapy service-learning projects, using Actor-Network Theory to identify colonial and ableist themes. The analyses will demonstrate that these experiences align and prepare young music therapists for broader music therapy practice mainly by reinforcing music therapy's deeply colonial and ableist foundations. Music therapy identity in these images is white, settler, nondisabled, and aligned with Western music and culture; client identity is Indigenous, colonized, Disabled, and represented without markers of local cultural resources. Beyond identity, these images reveal relational patterns that align with colonial and ableist tropes. As represented in these images and texts, music therapists purportedly give, help, act, distribute, teach, and transform, whereas clients receive, wait, accept, assimilate, and "overcome." The representations are not merely neutral agents that reveal existing dynamics; they also perpetuate problematic notions of music therapy as an assimilative and charitable agent, enacted by active "helpers" upon passive "sufferers." They both accentuate and perpetuate assumptions of Black and colonized people as needy or deficient, positioning Western music therapists conversely as helpful and sufficient. In analyzing and interpreting these representations, I will approach the following questions: How much does music therapist identity depend on the construction of a needy other? In representing ourselves as helpers, how do music therapists unwittingly create or emphasize deficits in clients?

Females with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an emerging research topic in the field of special education. Identification of ASD begins with the use of screening tools. This study utilized the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire – Revised Extended Version (ASSQ-REV) to (1) evaluate the accuracy of the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) in identifying males and females with ASD and (2) evaluate the accuracy of the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire – GIRL (ASSQ-GIRL) questions in distinguishing between the female and male phenotypes of ASD. Two hypotheses were proposed: (1) males will more accurately be identified than females as having ASD using the ASSQ and (2) the ASSQ-GIRL will identify the female phenotype of ASD at a greater rate than the male phenotype of ASD. Heterogenous convenience sampling was utilized to recruit 49 participants. Responses were analyzed through quantitative analysis using the McNemar's test. Results showed no statistically significant difference for both hypotheses thus disproving both proposed hypotheses. Further research should focus on the inclusion of characteristics of females with ASD into ASD screening tools. This research has the potential to lead to earlier ages of diagnosis for females with ASD thus resulting in increased access to needed interventions and supports.