UMass Boston

Over the past decade, a dramatic increase has occurred in the number of individuals identified with autism, with the U.S. Department of Education reporting an astonishing six-fold increase in the number of children receiving special education services in the public schools. This unprecedented increase has had a major impact on families, school systems, and state agencies as they struggle to cope with the difficulties of educating and providing care for this rapidly expanding group of moderately to severely impaired children.

In an attempt to help school systems meet this challenge, in late 2001, Dr. Paul Benson, associate professor of sociology and senior research associate at CSDE, and Dr. Gary Siperstein were awarded an initial grant from the U.S. Department of Education to begin a major longitudinal study of parent involvement in educational programs for children with autism. The rationale for the project was predicated on the fact that while educators view educational involvement as an essential component of programs for autistic children, such involvement is often a very difficult to achieve and sustain due to the heavy care-giving demands placed on parents. Thus, educators are faced with a dilemma of how to actively engage parents in the education of their children without increasing family stress and burden. As part of the initial grant, data was collected over a four-year period from 107 families and 150 teachers drawn from thirty-six school systems or multi-system special education programs located in the Greater Boston area.

Study findings to date present an intriguing portrait of the project’s cohort of children and families, and of the variety of ways that parents participate in the education of their children with autism. For example, over the course of the grant period, substantial improvement in functioning was observed in approximately one-third of the autistic children participating in the project. Improvement was most likely to be observed in children whose parents were most involved in actively promoting their child’s learning and development at home during non-school hours. The extent of assistance provided to families, by teachers, home trainers, and other school personnel were found to play a critical role in promoting educational involvement by parents.

Public schools have been directed to increase the standards by which they teach and assess students, particularly those at the middle and high school levels. The increase in expectations and standards has in turn placed many more students at risk for failure. CSDE began a research study in 2001 to help schools help students adjust to the growing complexity and demands of school.

Bridges to Success was conducted in four middle schools in the greater Boston area and involved school-wide orientation activities, as well as the development and delivery of a curriculum for sixth-grade students that included helping develop better study and organizational skills, time management, communication skills, problem solving, anger management, and stress management techniques.

Qualitatively, the response from schools to this curriculum has been overwhelmingly positive. The Bridges to Success Curriculum has been extensively revised based on feedback received from teachers and was published as Moving to Middle School: Life Skills and Coping Skills for Successful Student Transition by Jalmar Press in 2002.

The fundamental shift toward inclusion in our schools and in the larger society has been transforming the social and academic experiences of children with disabilities. Along with unprecedented opportunities, the newly mandated policies aimed at ensuring universal access to the general education curriculum pose considerable and perhaps unprecedented social challenges for children with intellectual disabilities. As children with intellectual disabilities become full-fledged members of the general education classroom and school community, these children are expected to interact flexibly and adaptively with more cognitively advanced peers.

CSDE initiated the Promoting Social Success project in order to equip children with intellectual disabilities to meet today’s social challenges by providing teachers with an instructional program, specifically designed for this population of students, that reflects a social-cognitive theoretical approach. By designing an instructional program in accordance with recent theories and research findings in social cognition, we best equip students with intellectual disabilities to meet the main social challenge of the classroom—the challenge of “social adaptation" (the capacity to continually adjust one’s behavior to fit varied and ever-changing social circumstances.)

Results of the evaluation of the impact of the PSS intervention provide evidence that a social-cognitive approach to social skills instruction can be effective in improving the social behavior of students with cognitive limitations. Overall, 64% of the students who participated in the intervention showed improvements in social behavior, either in teacher ratings of their social skills or in observed social behavior. This research led to the publication of Promoting Social Success: A Social Skills Curriculum for Students with Special Needs (Brookes 2003.)

Get Into It is a compilation of educational resources for K-12 educators, developed by Special Olympics, Inc. It explores issues surrounding inclusion, diversity, and social justice for all with a particular emphasis on individuals with disabilities through a variety of lessons and activities. The CSDE has focused on the national roll out of this program and its use by teachers at the national level. The evaluation of Get Into It will provide information on the promotion, design, and delivery of Get Into It in K-12 educational environments and aid in the continued development and adaptation of Get Into It in the future. During the 2011-2012 school year, 116 teachers completed an online survey detailing their use and benefits of the programs in their school. Furthermore, an additional 10 schools were evaluated through site visits. Current data is being analyzed from the survey methods and qualitative data from teacher interviews and classroom observations is being reviewed for salient themes that presented themselves across schools.

Get Into It is a compilation of educational resources for K-12 educators, developed by Special Olympics, Inc. It explores issues surrounding inclusion, diversity, and social justice for all with a particular emphasis on individuals with disabilities through a variety of lessons and activities. The CSDE has focused on the national roll out of this program and its use by teachers at the national level. The evaluation of Get Into It will provide information on the promotion, design, and delivery of Get Into It in K-12 educational environments and aid in the continued development and adaptation of Get Into It in the future. During the 2011-2012 school year, 116 teachers completed an online survey detailing their use and benefits of the programs in their school. Furthermore, an additional 10 schools were evaluated through site visits. Current data is being analyzed from the survey methods and qualitative data from teacher interviews and classroom observations is being reviewed for salient themes that presented themselves across schools.

Young Athletes is an innovative sports play program with 76,000 participants aged 2-7 years involved around the world. The program includes active games, songs and other play activities that help children develop motor, social and cognitive skills. Children with intellectual disabilities have this opportunity to learn, grown and have fun because of you- their families, teachers, coaches, volunteers, early intervention specialists and other professionals.

Your commitment to learn about and lead the Young Athletes program at home, in the community, and in schools is what makes the biggest difference in young children’s lives. The new Young Athletes Curriculum is a tremendous resource to support your success and we are pleased to introduce it to you.

The Young Athletes Curriculum builds on the Young Athletes Activity Guide and Training video resources, providing scripted Lesson Plans for you to use over an 8 week period. For each week there are 3 days of Lesson Plans for a total of 24 days. Lessons are designed to be offered in sequence to help children become acquainted with the activities and build skills through repetition.

It is extremely exciting to provide this resource to you because of the promising results of the research study results. This Curriculum was developed and evaluated by the Center for Social Development and Education at the University of Massachusetts Boston in collaboration with the Frank Porter Graham Research Institute at the University of North Carolina. Those children whose teachers lead Young Athletes using the Curriculum gained significantly more motor development skills than their peers whose teachers did not incorporate the Lessons into their preschool program. In addition, teachers and families also reported that young athletes made important gains in social skills, language development, confidence and other kindergarten readiness skills. (Favazza, Siperstein, Zeisel, Odom & Moskowitz, 2011)

National Survey of Consumer Attitudes Documenting Consumer Support for Businesses that Hire Individuals with Disabilities

Students and adults with disabilities, particularly with intellectual disabilities (ID), are often challenged in the school and the work settings by negative attitudes and misperceptions. Presently, major advances are being made to improve the social skills of adolescents in the school setting as well as in the preparation of students with disabilities to transition into the workforce. However, teachers, counselors, and potential employers continually underestimate the competence of individuals with disabilities, in particular those individuals with ID. As a result, future employers often have low expectations for a potential employee with a disability, and thus are a formidable barrier to their future employment.

In the summer of 2003, CSDE partnered with the America's Strength Foundation (ASF) to conduct "A national survey of consumer attitudes toward companies that hire individuals with disabilities." In contrast to research focusing on the attitudes of employers, this study is one of the first to examine the attitudes of consumers toward companies that hire people with disabilities. The survey included 803 adults who were randomly selected across the continental U.S. It was conducted with help from the Center for Survey Research and the Gallup Organization.

CSDE researchers found an overwhelmingly positive attitude among consumers toward socially responsible companies, and in particular toward those that hire individuals with disabilities. Ninety-two percent of consumers surveyed felt more favorable toward companies that hire individuals with disabilities and 87 percent said they would prefer to give their business to such companies. Seventy-five percent of respondents reported that they had either worked directly with someone with a disability and/or received services as a customer from a person with a disability. Ninety-one percent of those with a disabled coworker said that the job performance of his or her coworker was "very good" or "good." Ninety-eight percent of those who had been served by a disabled worker were "very satisfied" or "satisfied" with the services they received. The study was published in the January 2006 issue of the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation (IOS Press).

The CSDE's national study of the public’s perceptions and understanding of the use of performance enhancing drugs (steroids) by middle school, high school and college students is now available. The research is in partnership with Cooperstown Hall of Fame Foundation, the Taylor Hooton Foundation and the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society (PBATS). Download a copy of this study here.

Based on the results of this study, the Taylor Hooton Foundation, created when Taylor Hooton committed suicide from the depression he suffered as a result of anabolic steroids, will create an educational platform to raise public awareness about the dangers of anabolic steroids, and Cooperstown Hall of Fame Foundation, in partnership with PBATS, will expand its anti-steroid use campaign.

The CSDE and the Center for Survey Research at UMass Boston collaborated to create the survey, which addresses the public’s current knowledge about anabolic steroids, the perception of young adult steroid use, the motivation behind steroid use, and the knowledge of the dangers of steroid use.  The survey was administered by the Gallup Organization via a phone interview involving 1,000 nationally representative adults ages 18-65 beginning in September.

Evaluation of the Young Athletes Program

CSDE continues to build on their preliminary evaluation of the Special Olympics Young Athletes Program (YA) started in 2006. Young Athletes is a program designed to promote motor and social development in young children (ages 2 ½ to 7) with developmental disabilities through physical activity and play.  As part of the Center’s work, a new in-depth curriculum (Favazza, Zeisel, Parker, Leboeuf, 2012) was developed to accompany the activity guide created by Special Olympics for use by teachers and parents of preschool age children. The Young Athletes Curriculum consists of 24 detailed lessons and materials for home implementation and training for teachers who implemented the curriculum.

During the past two years, in collaboration with the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Feinstein School of Education at Rhode Island College, CSDE conducted an intense study of the YA program. A rigorous random assignment to treatment design was used involving 238 preschool children (3-5 years of age) in 52 pre-school classes. The classes selected represented inclusive settings (69%) and self-contained early childhood special education classes (31%.)

CSDE and its partners at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute and Rhode Island College also undertook a longitudinal study of the YA program, following children in both states to examine the long-term impact of YA participation.

Global Expansion and Evaluation of the Youth Athletes Program

Given the success of CSDE’s ongoing research into the Young Athletes program, CSDE has been asked to oversee and evaluate the expansion of the Young Athletes (YA) program to developing countries worldwide. SO programs in developing countries, particularly impoverished communities, will be instructed on how to provide 8 weeks of structured Young Athletes programming using the YA Curriculum (Favazza, et al., 2012.)  With the support of CSDE, community leaders will be instructed on how to recruit and engage families and their children with disabilities who otherwise may not have any early intervention opportunities or supports and how to train teachers and parents to deliver the program in schools, home, and orphanages. Read more about the CSDE recent trip to Africa and next steps here.

Because the absence of these kinds of supports in impoverished settings can lead to children having significant pervasive developmental delays, including delays in motor development, there is a great need for motor and social stimulation. Aside from having limited educational programs, they also may not have regular access to other motor supports (i.e., physical therapy, occupational therapy, organized motor play.) This project will build on the previous YA research by documenting and assessing how Young Athletes is adapted and implemented in the developing countries of India, Pakistan, Tanzania, Malawi, Romania, and Venezuela and the impact of the program on children, families and communities.

See Also

The Young Athletes Curriculum: Impact on Children With Disabilities in Kenya
Young Athletes Globalization Initial Report
What is Our Role in a Social Connectedness Movement
Young Athletes Program: Impact on Motor Development
Young Athletes Study: Fact Sheet

A Program Evaluation of Unified Sports in Elementary Schools