The Autism Spectrum Disorders Outcome Study is tracking the educational progress of 67 students, between the ages of 2 and 6 years, whose primary diagnosis for services is an autism spectrum disorder. This article describes the study, how student outcomes have been measured, and how student progress has been reported to service providers and parents. Outcome data has been collected from performance observations, parent and teacher surveys, and standardized assessments. The strength of this data-collection approach is that it uses a variety of sources and multiple methods to monitor student progress. Initial results, based on the first 16 months of the study, have shown that the majority of the children have made significant progress in the areas of social interaction, expressive speech, and use of language concepts. In addition, they have displayed significant decreases in behaviors associated with autism spectrum disorders. This study began in 1998 and will continue at least through August of 2003.
This study presents a description and analysis of special education administrators' perceptions regarding (a) personnel needs, (b) quality of preparation, (c) training needs, and (d) administrative policies/practices for mainstreaming students with disabilities. A randomly selected national sample of 2,900 special education directors were mailed a questionnaire focusing on these policy and personnel issues. A total of 1,468 special education directors responded to this survey. A current shortage of special education administrative personnel was found in 10% of the responding school districts. A projected shortage of special education administrative personnel in the next 4 years was found to affect 789 of the 1,468 school districts represented. The education and experience of many special education directors appears adequate; however, over one third of the respondents had neither certification in teaching special education nor appreciable experience teaching in special education. The policy/practice with the highest training need was “to increase collaboration between regular and special education.” Special education directors having backgrounds including both special education teaching and special education course work had significantly higher levels of mainstreamed students.
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