Foundational Field Knowledge - Oral Comps - Alyssa Joy

WHAT IS  THE HISTORY OF SPECIAL EDUCATION & HOW DID MAJOR SPECIAL EDUCATION LAWS COME ABOUT?  

• Closely tied to the civil rights movement  

• Previously, there was a lack of access to education with students who had disabilities…it was common for a school to tell a student’s parents that they couldn’t meet the student’s needs  

• Prior to 1970, laws in many states permitted public schools to deny enrollment to children with disabilities… 

• U.S. schools educated only one out of 5 children with disabilities  

• In came the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142) in 1975 

Changed to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990

Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142) in 1975 

• The EHA guaranteed a free, appropriate public education to each child with a disability  

• Provided protections for students with disabilities  

• Leveled the playing field  

The 1986 reauthorization of 94-142

The 1986 reauthorization addressed early intervention and mandated that individual states provide services to families of children born with disabilities from the time they are born.

Previously, these services were not available until a child reached the age of three.

the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990

The 1990 reauthorization changed the law’s name from EHA to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.  

• It also added traumatic brain injury and autism as new disability categories.  

• Additionally, Congress mandated that as a part of a student’s individualized education program (IEP), an individual transition plan (ITP) must be developed to help the student transition to post-secondary life. 

1997 reauthorization of IDEA

The 1997 reauthorization emphasized access to the general curriculum.

States were given the authority to expand the “developmental delay” definition to also include students up to age nine.

The law also required parents be provided an opportunity to attempt to resolve disputes with schools and local educational agencies (LEAs) through mediation and provided a process for doing so.

6 pillars/principles of IDEA

• zero reject

• non-discriminatory evaluation

• free & appropriate public education (FAPE)

• least restrictive environment (LRE)

• procedural due process

• parental & student participation

zero reject - IDEA

No matter the severity of the disability, it is illegal to exclude a student with a disability from receiving a free & appropriate education…schools must educate ALL students! 

• Equal Treatment  

• No Cessation (Cannot Expel a Student for 10+ Days) 

• Manifestation Determination Meetings 

• Weapons, drugs, & injuries are situations that do not require a manifestation determination meeting  

non-discriminatory evaluation - IDEA

To determine whether they have a disability, students are to be evaluated fairly using multi-factored methods of evaluation 

• Cannot discriminate on the basis of race, SES, culture, etc.  

free & appropriate public education

The school is required to provide specialized & tailored education to students with disabilities through services & supplementary aids 

• An IEP is developed and implemented based on unique educational needs, current performance, measurable annual goals, and services provided to attain the goals 

least restrictive environment - IDEA

To the maximum extent possible, students must be educated in their natural environment (i.e., general education classroom is the gold standard)  

• LRE is determined by DATA!!! 

• A switch of a child’s LRE can only be determined through evidence of inadequate progress in a classroom, given the use of all appropriate supports & services  

procedural due process - IDEA

Each party has the rights to an educational due process – when stakeholders disagree with the results of the evaluation, they can obtain an independent evaluation at public expense 

• Order of Evaluations… 

• Face-to-Face Resolution Session 

• Mediation (Non-Judicial) 

• Right to Due Process Hearing (Judicial; Attorneys Involved) 

parental & student participation - IDEA

Schools must collaborate with parents & students in  planning & implementing special education & related services 

• They must give consent to begin the evaluation, be included in decision-making around student’s goals, and have the right to educational records  

Access to records, consent, included in decision making

504 Plan

Provides for accommodations (e.g., child is in the general education classroom & participates in the same lessons, but they may have preferential seating-0A 504 plan improves access to the general education environment 

• E.g., extended time, talk to text, sitting near the front of the classroom, etc. 

Falls under the ADA 

• Broader than the 13 categories of the IDEA 

• Almost any disability could fall under a 504 plan! 

Needs impairment in 1+ major life activities, such as education 

IEP

Provides for modifications (e.g., specialized instruction) 

Falls under IDEA 

• Documented disability in 1 of the 13 categories 

Requires related services to level the playing field academically in addition to accommodations 

• Functional academic impairment is necessary 

Includes individualized goals, methods, & evaluations 

Note. If you deny a child an IEP, you can’t necessarily default them to a 504 plan  

13 Disability Categories under IDEA

• Autism Spectrum Disorder 

• Deaf/Hard of Hearing 

• Deaf-Blindness 

• Developmental Delay 

• Intellectual Disability 

• Emotional Disability 

• Other Health Impairment 

• Orthopedic Impairment 

• Specific Learning Disability 

• Speech Language Impairment 

• Traumatic Brain Injury 

• Visual Impairment 

• Multiple Disabilities 

 

IMPORTANCE OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM AS IT RELATES TO THE IEP & FAPE 

By using an analogy of a vehicle and a destination, a FAPE is the destination and an IEP is the vehicle used to arrive at that destination. Accordingly, the multidisciplinary team are the people who drive the vehicle; they collaborate and develop students’ individualized education plans.  

• A multidisciplinary team is a legal entitlement as a part of IDEIA  

• Each member brings expertise not held by other members of the team  

KEY STAKEHOLDERS IN MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAMS 

Parents 

• May have varying perspectives  

• Somewhat of a wild card… 

• Some may see their child as a unique individual with strengths & not deficits 

• May have the “ADHD Advantage” (Dale Archer) 

• Do disabilities exist? Or are they only differences?  

Special Educator 

Regular Educator  

Representative of the School System 

• Advocates on behalf of all students 

Interpreter of Evaluation Results (most often, a school psychologist) 

Other Individuals Who Have Knowledge About Student 

• Applied Behavior Analyst  

• Behavioral approach!  

• Occupational Therapist  

• Speech/Language Therapist  

Maybe the Student! 

POSITIVE BEHAVIOR INTERVENTIONS & SUPPORTS (PBIS) 

An evidence-based, three tier framework for improving & integrating all of the data systems & practices affecting student outcomes everyday  

HOW DO SCHOOLS & HEALTH SYSTEMS PERPETUTATE RACISM?  

• Legislation…Zero Tolerance 

• Minority students, particularly Black & Latinx boys, are much more likely to be disciplined for minor behavioral infractions, often resulting in suspension or expulsion from school.  

• Schools are much more likely to escalate disciplinary issues to the juvenile justice system for these students, as well…putting them in contact with the criminal justice system at an early age 

• Black students are suspected 3x more than White students  

• When students are suspended or expelled, they are not in the classroom learning. Thus, these students are at a higher risk for doing poorly in school, contributing to a higher dropout rates…subsequently impacting job prospects during adulthood  

• The scientific evidence is mostly normed on white populations, so it affects the impact of the help we are providing to minoritized groups… 

• Even if a sample is nationally representative, the underrepresented groups, the average effect size will not tell you how it’s benefitted 

• For whom is the evidence based on??? 

• We have no clue if an intervention is helpful or harmful for other populations… 

• Evidence-based interventions may be seen as a “claim of superiority” 

• Devalues indigenous helping community practices… 

• The field is still trying to diversify and as a result likely underserves minority populations as well as a lack of representation of diverse therapists,  perpetuated by things like higher ed being a white institution 

Describe examples of how psychology has been wildly off-the-mark in the past, and how science, advocacy or social justice efforts have corrected course.

Core parts: homosexuality classified as a mental disorder in the DSM-5, Eugenics Movement, Institutionalizing inhumane conditions. There are flash cards fleshing out each of these.

How has psychology been wildly off-the mark in the past when it comes to homosexuality? how has science, advocacy, or social justice efforts corrected course?

Homosexuality classified as a mental disorder in DSM-5

American legal system criminalized homosexual behavior; federal and state governments had not yet codified protections for queer and trans people seeking employment and housing; and an insistence on heteronormative gender roles stigmatized anyone who deviated from their role as a “woman” or a “man.”

Corrected by

Research showing that homosexuality is a normal human variation

LBGTQ+ advocates for change

Mental health professionals challenged the classification

Removed from DSM in 1973

How has psychology been wildly off-the mark in the past when it comes to eugenics? how has science, advocacy, or social justice efforts corrected course?

Lewis Terman and Henry Goddard used IQ tests to claim that people of color, immigrants, the poor, and people with disabilities were intellectually inferior

Efforts were used to force sterilization of minoritized groups

Corrected by

Cultural and linguistic biases exposed in IQ tests

Social justice advocates for racist assumptions

Laws banning forced sterilization and discriminatory practices followed

How has psychology been wildly off-the mark in the past when it comes to Institutionalizing inhumane conditions? how has science, advocacy, or social justice efforts corrected course?

Often people with mental illness or developmental disabilities with no treatment

Corrected by

Institutions exposed for abuse

deinstitutionalization movement in the 1960s–80s, supported by both science and civil rights activism, promoted community-based mental health care

Laws passed to protect patients' rights

504

Provides accommodations for students in the general education setting

Example: extended time, seating arrangements, talk to text

Falls under ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)

Broader than 13 IDEA categories

Needs impairment in +1 major life activities

IEP

Provides modifications for learning

Individuals' education plan determined by 1 of the 13 disability categories under IDEA

Functional academic impairment is necessary to qualify

Includes individual goals, methods, evaluations

If you deny a child an IEP, you can’t necessarily default them to a 504 plan

Instructional Hierarchy

Acquisition, Fluency, Generalization, and Adaptation

Instructional Hierarchy: Acquisition

basic accuracy, can the student produce the behavior given the stimulus we provide

Student has begun to learn the target skill, but is not yet accurate or fluent in a skill

Goal is exclusively focused on accuracy before transition to the fluency

Instructional Hierarchy: fluency

completes target skill accurately but works slowly

Goal of to increase students’ speed of responding

Can identify with a rate

Instructional Hierarchy: Generalization

student can accurately and fluently use the target skill but does use it is different situation or setting

OR student may confuse target skills with a ‘similar’ skill

Goal of this phase is to get the student to the skill in the widest possible range of settings and situations, or to accurately discriminate between the target skill and ‘similar’ skill

Ex: counting with different objects

Same skill, different settings

Instructional Hierarchy: Adaptation

student is accurate, fluent, and generalized with a target skill but cannot yet modify or adapt the skill to fit new tasks or situations

Able to deconstruct the skill and use elements of the skill for new situations

Goal to identify elements of previously learned skills to adapt to new demands

Be able to explain what LD is and how RTI/MTSS interventions work in schools

• RTI: evaluation of the impact of the environment students’ prior learning disability an how the environment might be manipulated to address the individua needs of the students 

  • Trying to control the environment to improve performance instead of waiting for students performance to change  

  • RTI is not a cure all for every student with learning disabilities, but is a better than IQ discrepancy

  • Decisions around what assessments, what interventions, and data interpretation

    • Can produce concerns with knowledge and fidelity 

• Three components:  

  • Universal screening - early identification  

  • Tiered Instructions – increasing intervention intensity (smaller groups, instructional time, opportunities to respond) 

    • Tier 1: all students monitored via universal screening to monitor the quality of normal instruction for all students  

      • Can't qualify student based on poor instruction 

      • Valuable data for evaluating RTI/MTSS 

    • Tier 2: small/large group supplemental instruction 

      • When Tier 1 is not working  

      • Goal: increase intensity of intervention, assist the child in adapting to the general education classroom 

    • Tier 3: intense individual intervention  

      • Comparing individual students to growth of his/her class/grade/district/norms 

      • Students identified for disabilities typically  

  • Progress monitoring – different levels of frequency and intensity can be observed and used to make decisions about these frequencies and intensities  

    • Decision based on behavior, and not a construct 

Normal Distribution

• Define: Probability distribution under a normal curve

• Data: Majority lies around the average (center) with less data towards the tails

• Can reveal difference that are due to more than chance

• Normal distribution for IQ tests

  • Mean of 100; SD of 15

    • Standard deviation (SD): Measures the amount of variability from the individual data values to the mean (for sample.... standard error for population!)

    • Confidence interval: range of values that’s likely to include a population value with a certain degree of confidence expressed as % whereby a population mean lies between an upper & lower interval

    • Degrees of Freedom: number of scores in a frequency distribution that are free to vary (N-1)

    • Power: the probability that a test of significance will pick up on an effect that is present

      • Increase sample size --> increase power

      • Can do this beforehand to determine what sample size you need

within subjects

• comparing subjects with themselves, following subjects across time (same participant over time) 

• need fewer subjects, greater comparison across conditions, decreases error because subject is own comparison point, greater power 

• limits internal validity because of carry-over effects (e.g., are results happening b/c of time/maturation?) 

Between subjects

comparing different groups of individuals with each other (e.g., men vs women; group 1 vs group 2)

independence, able to randomly assign participants

reduced power due to random variability in the error term leading to greater error variances

regression

estimate the relationship between two variables

in my thesis, i estimated the relationship between MDE and MDSE and poly-sedative misuse. I also estimated the relationship between religiosity and my outcome variables.

BART

machine learning method that models complex, non-linear relationships by combining predictions from many decision trees using a Bayesian framework. It provides both accurate predictions and uncertainty estimates, making it useful for tasks like causal inference and predictive modeling

correlations

measures the strength and direction of the linear relationship between two continuous variables.

correlation coefficient (r) that ranges from -1 to +1, where +1 indicates a perfect positive linear relationship, -1 indicates a perfect negative linear relationship, and 0 means no linear relationship.

This analysis assumes that the data are normally distributed and have a linear association

A low p-value (typically less than 0.05) indicates that the correlation is unlikely to have occurred by chance, suggesting a statistically significant relationship between the two variables

what are longitudinal methods and what are their pros and cons?

Longitudinal: takes data from same individuals across time

Changes/trends overtime

Pros: lots of data, specific timepoints offer value for intervening planning

Thesis: wanted to see if average school climate measured overtime predicted emotional/behavioral outcomes of a CSBH program

Cons: attrition, more resources, takes longer

Thesis: COVID impact caused admin limitations and data loss

What do you do if a p-value is lower than the significance level?

Reject the null hypothesis

Enough evidence to support the alternative hypothesis

What do you do if a p-value is higher than the significance level?

Fail reject the bull hypothesis

Might not have sufficient evidence that the null hypothesis is not truw

assumption of the p value

assumes that the null hypothesis is true

implications of statistical assumptions in psychology

Most research is looking for a low p value in order to make suggestions about significant effects and findings, but significant p values don’t necessarily mean a causal relationship.

Many research findings are not published because of non-significant p values, but that does not mean that there are not implications for findings. Some p values can show the influence of interventions trending in the direction we would like to see (sarfaraz would disagree with this)

types of statistical errors

Type I: (false positive) Concluding the results are statistically significant when in fact they are due to chance

Type II: (false negative) Concluding the results are not statistically significant when in fact they actually are

Understand the replication crisis, and what it means for the trustworthiness of psychological science as it currently stands, and how we, as a field, might make progress.

Replication Crisis: current crisis in psychology where research studies cannot be replicated

Not inclusive of diverse populations or using consistent/appropriate methods

WEIRD: western educated, industrial, rich, democratic

Trustworthiness: numerous extraneous variables that can result in bias; replication helps verify the presence of a behavior at one point in time is not due to chance or sampling bias

How can we trust the results if they cannot be replicated, generalizability and acceptability are compromised

Progress: to increase our credibility, we need to re-do our publication bias

Publication bias: when results of the research study influence the likelihood of being published

Significant findings are published more than nonsignificant

Incentivizes only positive findings and not for replicability or to even try to replicate