Social Outcomes and Acceptability of Two Peer-Mediated Interventions for High School Students With Severe Disabilities: A Pilot Study

Adolescents with severe disabilities often have few opportunities to learn alongside and connect socially with peers without disabilities at their high school. In this pilot study, nine high school students with severe disabilities were randomly assigned to three conditions: peer support arrangements, peer network intervention, or a comparison condition involving “business-as-usual” paraprofessional support. School staff served as intervention facilitators and researchers coached and monitored fidelity. Increased classroom interactions were observed for students in the peer support condition and enhanced social contacts and friendships were found for students in both peer support and peer network conditions. Students, peers, and educators perceived both peer-mediated interventions as highly acceptable and feasible. Drawing upon these exploratory findings, we offer recommendations for research and practice focused on fostering strong social connections within high schools.

Differences between High School Students Who Do and Do Not Volunteer to Participate in a Peer Interaction Program

We examined the differences between two groups of general education high school students: Those who volunteered to participate in a peer buddy program designed to increase their social interactions with their peers with severe disabilities ( n = 30), and those who chose not to volunteer ( n = 30). Differences were examined using the Social Distance Questionnaire for Attitudes of High School Students Toward Handicapped Persons. Analyses indicated that, at pre-test, peer buddies reported significantly greater willingness to interact with people with severe disabilities and more previous contact with these individuals than did nonvolunteers. There were no differences between the scores of the groups on knowledge of disability or affect toward persons with disabilities. After one semester of enrollment in the program, social willingness, knowledge, and contact scores of peer buddies increased significantly, whereas the scores of nonvolunteers remained the same as at the pre-test. In addition, students' self-reported previous contact with individuals with disabilities positively correlated with their scores indicating their social willingness to interact with their peers with disabilities. Implications of the study are discussed with respect to benefits of and recommendations for peer interaction programs.

Supporting High School Students to Engage in Recreational Activities with Peers

The authors investigated the effects of an intervention package to support five high school students with extensive support-needs to initiate and engage in recreational activities with general-education peers in their physical education classes. The intervention components were (a) assessing participants’ recreational activity goals, (b) teaching self-prompting using a picture book, (c) programming common stimuli, and (d) asking participants to assess daily performance and evaluate daily goal achievement. The intervention was associated with increases in participants’ initiation of and engagement in recreational activities with general-education peers, as well as increases in ratings of quality of interaction. In addition, participants typically assessed with accuracy their performance of recreational activities and whether they had achieved their recreational goals. Findings are discussed with respect to future research and practice.

Social Participation in Inclusive Classrooms: Empirical and Theoretical Foundations of an Intervention Program

Improving the social participation of children with special educational needs (SEN) is one of the central goals of inclusive education. However, studies consistently show that children with SEN included in general education classrooms are at risk of being socially excluded by their peers. Interventions are required to promote every child’s social participation. This article reviews skill-based, environment-based, and multicomponent interventions promoting the social participation of children with SEN included in general education classrooms. It then describes a multicomponent intervention program encompassing intervention strategies taking place at the individual, group, and teacher level. A first strategy is to provide pupils with opportunities to learn social skills in peer learning dyads. A second aims at forging a common group identity by holding regular group meetings to discuss common social goals. A third consists of supporting teachers to improve their feedback.

Social inclusion and community participation of individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities

As more individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities are physically included in community life, in schools, neighborhoods, jobs, recreation, and congregations, the challenge of going beyond physical inclusion to true social inclusion becomes more apparent. This article summarizes the status of the research about community participation and social inclusion, summarizes some debates and points of contention, notes emerging research issues, and highlights needed areas of research. It is clear that most research on these topics has been conducted with individuals who are in paid formal services, and there are great needs for understanding the community participation of individuals who live on their own or with their families, as well as researching social inclusion by focusing on the attitudes and experiences of community members themselves, not just individuals with disabilities and paid providers.

School Participation of Pupils with Physical and Psychosocial Limitations: A Comparison

Several features in the school environment affect pupils with disabilities, serving as either supports or barriers to their school participation. The purpose of this study was to investigate and look for differences in the pupil-environment fit of students with physical and psychosocial limitations, using the School Setting Interview (SSI). The SSI is a client-centred instrument, which focuses on school activities where adjustments need to be made to accommodate pupils with disabilities and to enable their participation. Descriptive statistics and Mann-Whitney U tests were employed to compare the fit of the two groups and their school environment.

The results reveal that, in order to participate actively, both groups of pupils required adjustments to many school settings. Pupils with physical limitations frequently need adjustments, but their needs were met by the schools to a more satisfactory extent than were the needs of pupils with psychosocial limitations.

The findings support the usability of the SSI for pupils with various types of limitations. They also stress the importance of eliciting the perspectives of the pupils themselves in order to facilitate the planning and implementation of client-centred occupational therapy interventions in school.

Peer Interactions and Academic Engagement of Youth With Developmental Disabilities in Inclusive Middle and High School Classrooms

We examined the peer interactions and academic engagement of 23 middle and high school students with developmental disabilities within inclusive academic and elective classrooms. The extent to which students with and without disabilities interacted socially was highly variable and influenced by instructional format, the proximity of general and special educators, and curricular area. Peer interactions occurred more often within small group instructional formats, when students were not receiving direct support from a paraprofessional or special educator, and in elective courses. Academic engagement also varied, with higher levels evidenced during one-to-one or small group instruction and when in proximity of general or special educators. Implications for designing effective support strategies for students with autism and/or intellectual disability within general education classrooms are discussed.

Facilitating participation of students with severe disabilities: aligning school based occupational therapy practice with best practices in severe disabilities

School-based occupational therapy is the largest employer of occupational therapists. School-based occupational therapists work extensively with students with severe disabilities. Over the past decade, one significant change in the field of severe disabilities has been the advocacy of best practices. This paper discusses the implications of best practices for school-based occupational therapy practice and examines strategies that occupational therapists use to tackle such challenges. Focuses of the discussions are centered on the issues relative to curriculum, educational setting and instructional strategies. The theme of Activity and Participation proposed in International Classification of Functioning (WHO, 2001) guides our discussions. Specific strategies in aligning school-based occupational therapy practice with best practices in severe disabilities are proposed and highlighted.