This study evaluated the classroom measure of active engagement (CMAE), an observational tool designed to measure active engagement in students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Participants included 196 students with ASD and their educators (n = 126) who were video-recorded at the beginning of the school year. Findings documented limited active engagement overall, with students spending less than half of the observation well-regulated, productive, or independent and infrequently directing eye gaze and communicating. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the structure of the CMAE was represented by a 5-factor model. These findings underscore the need for improved active engagement in students with ASD and show promise for a tool to measure behaviors associated with positive educational outcomes in students with ASD.
Many assume that cognitive and linguistic processes, such as semantic knowledge (SK) and self-regulation (SR) subserve learned skills like reading. However, complex models of interacting and bootstrapping effects of SK, SR, instruction, and reading hypothesize reciprocal effects. Testing this “lattice” model with children (n = 852) followed from 1st–2nd grade (5.9–10.4 years-of-age), revealed reciprocal effects for reading and SR, and reading and SK, but not SR and SK. More effective literacy instruction reduced reading stability over time. Findings elucidate the synergistic and reciprocal effects of learning to read on other important linguistic, self-regulatory, and cognitive processes, the value of using complex models of development to inform intervention design, and how learned skills may influence development during middle childhood.
These findings support the preliminary efficacy of CSI, a classroom-based, teacher-implemented intervention for improving active engagement, adaptive communication, social skills, executive functioning, and problem behavior within a heterogeneous sample of students with ASD. This makes a significant contribution to the literature by demonstrating efficacy of a classroom-based teacher-implemented intervention with a heterogeneous group of students with ASD using both observed and reported measures. (PsycINFO Database Record
Social skills and vocabulary are important areas of development involved in early reading achievement, yet little attention has been given to understanding the dynamic associations among them during the elementary years. This study examined the relations among three dimensions of social skills-cooperation, assertion, and self-control-vocabulary and developing reading comprehension (RC) skills in a longitudinal sample of first graders ( = 468). Using Structural Equation Modeling, reciprocal effects were observed between vocabulary and RC as well as direct effects among social skills, vocabulary, and RC after controlling for the influence of problem behaviors. This study highlights the reciprocal nature of students' vocabulary and RC skills as well as provides preliminary evidence suggesting that social skills play a role in developing vocabulary and RC skills, and further, vocabulary and RC skills play a role in social development during middle childhood. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.
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