African American students are overrepresented in special education and underrepresented in gifted education. This is in large part due to students’ poor performance in core academic areas such as reading, math, and writing. Differentiating instruction in early grades could assist in closing the writing performance gap between African American and majority students, with the intended outcome of increasing the likelihood of students achieving their academic potential. Research-based strategies that improve fluency and vocabulary—potentially improving writing quality—include students counting the total number of words they have written and self-monitoring their progress. We examined the effects of self-counting (which included viewing graphs of the word counts students had written) and student use of synonym lists (which provided alternative words for students to use in their writing) on the length and quality of writing of 5 high-achieving urban African American first graders whose instruction took place in a first/second-grade split classroom. All 5 students demonstrated improved writing outcomes. The results of this study support the use of differentiated interventions for high-achieving students in order to better increase the likelihood that they will achieve in written expression at a level commensurate with their abilities.

New estimates report that Black girls are facing an educational crisis with regard to disproportionate disciplinary practices and academics. To date, there has been very limited research with regard to school-based interventions that have been designed to help Black girls explore both their cultural and gender identity. This is problematic because Black girls are constantly faced with the task of disproving negative characterizations (i.e., angry, loud, and aggressive) and advocating for equitable treatment from teachers and school administrators. These negative characteristics often translate to lower academic expectations, harsher punishments, and juvenile justice involvement. To address this problem, a single-subject study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of implementing an 8-week cultural-empowerment program based on the Sisters of Nia curriculum. Results based on visual analysis, percentage of nonoverlapping data, and Tau-U all show that the Sisters of Nia intervention led to a significant reduction in verbally aggressive behavior for all four participants. These findings serve as further support to incorporate culturally based interventions at the school level.

The intersectional experiences of Black Autistic women and girls (BAWG) are missing from medical and educational research on autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Understanding the intersectional experiences of BAWG is important due to the rising prevalence of autism in Black children and girls (CDC, 2016) and the concurrent lack of availability of culturally relevant autism-related interventions (Maenner, 2020;West, 2016). Intersectionality is the study of the overlapping discrimination produced by systems of oppression (Collins, 2019;Crenshaw, 1989;1991) and allows the researcher to simultaneously address race and disability in special education (Artiles, 2013). In this scoping review, the authors used the PRISMA-ScR checklist (Tricco et al., 2018) and Arksey and O!Malley!s ( 2005) framework to investigate the degree to which autism-related research (ARR) has included the intersectional experiences of BAWG. Utilizing narrative synthesis, strengths and gaps across the current body of literature are identified in order to set new directions for intersectional ARR. Overall, the authors found that across a 77-year period, three studies foregrounded BAWG and none addressed intersectionality as measured through criteria advanced by García and Ortiz (2013). These results reveal the scholarly neglect BAWG face in ARR, discourse, policy, and practice. A future agenda including research, practice, and policy priorities is identified and discussed.

Reading pens are a form of assistive technology that may be used to bypass weak word decoding and vocabulary skills of students with reading disabilities. Only two known studies have examined the effects of reading pens on the comprehension of school-aged students, and no known studies have been published regarding post-secondary students. The present study investigated the effects of reading pen assistive technology on the comprehension accuracy and rate of three post-secondary students with university-recognized reading disabilities. An alternating treatments design was implemented to compare the effects of (1) a reading pen decoding accommodation, (2) concurrent reading pen decoding and vocabulary accommodations, and (3) a no-accommodation control condition on the comprehension of the three participants when provided college level difficulty reading passages. Results indicate that use of a reading pen did not uniformly improve the comprehension of the post-secondary students. However, the student with the poorest reading skills benefitted the most. Discussion focuses on explanations for the results, practical implications for post-secondary students with reading disabilities, and future directions for study.

Significant racial and ethnic disparities in health care and service access exist. In the present article, we reviewed qualitative studies investigating the racism-related experiences of Black caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the U.S. health care system. Specifically, we examined institutional racism (i.e., systemic racism) and individual racism directed toward Black families when they seek diagnoses and services for their children with ASD. Additionally, we summarized culturally responsive and context-specific practice guidelines to work collaboratively with Black caregivers of children with ASD for applied behavior analysis practitioners.