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Friday, April 10, 2015

Success After School

Christina Samuels reports at Education Week:
Emerging evidence suggests that students with disabilities have better outcomes after school if they set their own goals, have parents who expect them to be self-supporting, and are able to travel independently outside the home, according to a new review of postschool transition research presented Wednesday at the Council for Exceptional Children convention here.
Valerie Mazzotti, Dawn Rowe, and James Sinclair, all associated with the University of Oregon in Eugene, were presenters at a session on recent research from a federally funded longitudinal study of students with disabilities. (Mazzotti and Rowe are research associates at the university; Sinclair is a doctoral student.)

Previous studies have found that certain factors are linked to postschool success. Among them are inclusion in general education, social skills, and paid employment and work experience. The University of Oregon researchers wanted to expand on those older studies to find if additional factors are tied to positive outcomes. Eleven studies published between 2009 and 2014 were deemed to be of high enough quality to include in the review.
"We have to think about how we support parents in having high expectations," Rowe said.

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