The focus of this paper is on an Australian research project that evaluated the effectiveness of a resource called the Ask Health Diary, which is used in the school curriculum to promote self-determination for better health and wellbeing for adolescents who have an intellectual disability. Education and health researchers used questionnaires and interviews to gather data from adolescents attending special schools and special education units located in secondary schools in south-east Queensland, their teachers and their parents/carers. This paper reports on two research questions: First, ‘How did the teachers use the Ask Health Diary to promote self-determination in health?’, and second, ‘How did teachers, parents/carers and students perceive the benefits and value of the Ask Health Diary?’ The findings indicate that the Ask Health Diary provides a sound curriculum framework for teachers, adolescents and parents/carers to work together to promote self-determination and better health outcomes for young people who have an intellectual disability.

Although professional standards for Australian teachers were developed several years ago, this country is yet to develop such standards for special education teachers. The lack of standards for the special education profession is associated with the absence of a consistent process of accreditation in Australia and a lack of clarity in the pathways that teachers may pursue to achieve accreditation. In this paper, we review professional standards for special education teachers in the UK and the US, and the related yet limited work completed in Australia. Substantial commonalities across these jurisdictions demonstrate that much of the groundwork has been completed in the important task of developing special education standards in this country.

This paper reports on the attitudes of 340 government primary principals from New South Wales, Australia, towards the inclusion of students with disruptive behaviours in schools. Principals’ attitudes were examined using the Principals and Behaviour Survey (PABS), a new composite measure built upon a foundation of existing validated surveys on attitudes towards the inclusion of students with disabilities. Principal component analysis identified 3 components that were used as variables for correlations with a range of demographic characteristics, such as age, qualifications, experience, school size and location. School size and the number of students with a diagnosed mental health condition in the school had a small relationship with principals’ attitudes. From the analysis of data from the emotional response scale, it was found that principals’ emotions about inclusion were less positive towards students with disruptive behaviour than towards students with sensory, physical or intellectual disabilities. Overall, principals appeared to hold dichotomous positions in regard to the benefits of inclusion, viewing it as beneficial for students with disruptive behaviour but not for their peers. However, principals who held more positive views were consistently more positive across all measures.

The extent to which school students continue to receive special education services over time is largely unknown because longitudinal studies are rare in this area. The present study examined a large Australian longitudinal database to track the status of children who received special education support in 2006 and whether they continued to access such support over a 4-year period. Nearly two thirds of the children receiving additional assistance in 2006 did not receive such assistance 4 years later. There were substantial variations in the principal reason for providing special education services to students over this period, and the relative academic performance of the students who received special education support across the 4 years substantially declined. The findings have ramifications for the way we consider changes in the needs of young children as they progress through the primary school system.

This investigation examined the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and their preferences for classroom interventions for behaviours consistent with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Teacher ratings of intervention acceptability, effectiveness, and rate of change were compared across United States and New Zealand samples. Beliefs examined were personal teaching efficacy, general teaching efficacy, and pupil control ideology (PCI). Samples were compared regarding their preferences for the daily report card, response cost technique, classroom lottery, and medication as classroom strategies for managing ADHD-related behavioural concerns. Data were analysed using general linear modelling techniques, and an interaction was demonstrated between ADHD intervention x PCI x nationality. Differences were observed for ADHD interventions across samples based upon pupil control orientations. Implications for educators and their classroom practices are discussed.

This article reports on a collaborative venture between Autism Spectrum Australia and the University of Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Social Club network was formed for children and adolescents to provide structured opportunities for positive peer interactions in safe, stimulating and nonjudgmental environments. The Social Clubs were run by expert facilitators with additional workers drawn from preservice teachers undertaking a service-learning unit of study within the Master of Teaching Secondary course at the University of Western Sydney. The research design included surveys and reflections. Data were drawn from 4 sources: 58 parent survey responses, 51 Social Club member survey responses, 9 facilitator survey responses and 9 preservice teachers’ reflections. Data analysis was framed by Bourdieu's work, which refers to the allocation of social power. After the experience, surveyed parents confirmed that their children were relaxed when changing topics in a conversation and working in groups. Members demonstrated that they engaged with other members and with preservice teachers. Club facilitators felt that the preservice teachers developed an understanding that students with autism spectrum disorder thrive in structured environments and that they would set up their own classrooms accordingly. For the future teachers, it was authentic learning that enriched their preparation for the classroom, however multilayered its student population might be.

Although qualified special educators are more likely to provide effective teaching for students with disabilities and special education needs, it seems many teachers in special education and support positions are not qualified for this role. The study reported here provided analysis of 219 job advertisements for special education positions in order to ascertain what employers required of applicants for special education positions. Advertisements represented all states and sectors in Australia, although the sample does not fully reflect the relative numbers of schools in each state. Most positions were for class teachers or for teachers providing support within and across schools. Special education qualifications and experience in special education were not common criteria for employment. The concerns raised by this finding are addressed through suggestions for formal recognition for special educators and accreditation of teacher education programs preparing special educators.

This study explored the potential of using a new but simplified form of stop-motion animation called slowmation to support 4 primary school students with mild intellectual disabilities in co-constructing an animated social narrative about their own social skills. The research used a multiple case study design incorporating a range of qualitative methods to identify what stop-motion skills the students could use and to what extent the co-construction of an animation influenced their identification of their own social skills. Findings revealed that each student was able to use a range of stop-motion skills with varying levels of support. As a consequence of their co-construction, the students’ understanding of their own social skills increased. Classroom implications, limitations and recommendations for further study are discussed.

In a response to intervention (RtI) model, reading is taught in increasingly intensive tiers of instruction. The aim of the study was to examine the efficacy of a Tier-2 (small group) literacy intervention for young struggling readers. This article focuses on the second phase of a randomised control trial involving 14 students in kindergarten as participants. In Phase 1 of the randomised control trial, the experimental group (E1) received the intervention for 1 hour, 4 days per week, for 3 school terms. The control group received regular classroom instruction. Large and statistically significant mean differences between groups were evident after 3 terms on 2 of 4 measures — the Martin and Pratt Nonword Reading Test and the Burt Reading Test, which measure phonological recoding and single word reading, respectively. Very large effect sizes were found. In Phase 2, the original control group received the intervention in the same way (E2). Testing at the end of Phase 2 confirmed the intervention's large effect on phonological recoding, but the results for the 3 other tests showed no acceleration in the Phase 2 experimental group (E2). This study evaluates the efficacy of the trialled intervention, adds to the research literature on Tier-2 interventions for young struggling readers, and yields practical implications for schools that offer literacy interventions without a strong RtI framework.

With the increasing number of treatment and intervention options for parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in recent years, the number and types of interventions that parents are choosing to use has become of interest. In the present paper, the authors review 41 articles (describing 42 studies) presenting quantitative data on intervention choices of parents of children with ASD. Speech therapy was the most commonly reported intervention for both current and lifetime use. Across the studies, parents were reported to be using a variety of interventions, from those with strong empirical support, such as applied behaviour analysis (ABA), to others that lacked such support, such as dietary interventions. Some differences in the data presented across studies may be attributed to the range of different methodologies used to collect the data. Recommendations for future research, including those related to collecting treatment usage data more consistently, are discussed.