Part 1: Professional Resources and Issues in Education
As a special educator working with students with significant cognitive and learning disabilities, I am in a unique position to determine some of the key issues in education that will be of particular significance in the next three decades. First, the role of standardised tests in evaluating the learning outcomes of these children, especially those on the autism spectrum will become more prominent. Secondly, there will be a bigger need to focus on communication, behavior, and social skills for these students in preparation for making them functioning and productive members of society. Lastly, as more students are diagnosed with autism, all teachers will have to be professionally trained to work with these children. As a result, the scope of duties for special educators will reduce as everyone will be trained to do their jobs.
Per personal interest and area of practice focuses on standardized tests and how they can be expanded to evaluate the autistic kid’s life skills as well as educational performance. As a result, I am interested in the work done by the Center for Autism Research and the Johnson Center for Child Health and Development. These two organizations do similar research that I am interested in, thus would be possible to support my continued professional development. Given our converging areas of interest, below is an annotated bibliography of the resources I would consult in the future.
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The Johnson Center for Child Health and Development. What is a standardized test? . The Johnson Center for Child Health and Development. Retrieved from http://www.johnson-center.org/downloads/pdfs/What_is_a_Standardized_Test.pdf
This resource is a highly comprehensive list of the different standardized tests used in the country to evaluate children and adolescents. Though the list is no unique, the report does a good job of organizing the most popular tests children diagnosed to be on the autism spectrum might be subjected to at different ages. Furthermore, the report lists out and provides brief descriptions of tests that may be performed to gauge a child’s intelligence, development, adaptive behavior, achievement, language, and social skills among others.
Bishop, S. L., Farmer, C., Bal, V., Robinson, E. B., Willsey, A. J., Werling, D. M., ... & Thurm, A. (2017). Identification of developmental and behavioral markers associated with genetic abnormalities in autism spectrum disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry , 174 (6), 576-585.
This paper sets out to contribute to the field of phenotype genotype relationships in the autism spectrum disorder. It concludes that in autistic children, there is a high correlation with the presence of de novo mutations that impact the child’s social communication and language deficit. As a result, this paper is of special significance as it highlights that standardized testing results may be helpful in etiologic efforts and clinical differentiation of the subtypes of autism.
Holloway, J. M., Long, T., & Biasini, F. (2019). Concurrent validity of two standardized measures of gross motor function in young children with autism spectrum disorder. Physical & occupational therapy in pediatrics , 39 (2), 193-203.
In this study, the authors set out to establish the concurrent validity of two standardized measures of assessing an autistic child’s motor development and performance: The Miller Function and Participation Scales (M-FUN) and the Peabody Development Motor Scales, second edition (PDMS-2). The results indicate a strong concurrent validity of the two steps, thus allowing them to complement each other. This paper is significant because it lays the ground for researchers to combine existing standardized measures to better evaluate and meet the evolving needs of the with autism spectrum disorders.
Makrygianni, M. K., Gena, A., Katoudi, S., & Galanis, P. (2018). The effectiveness of applied behavior analytic interventions for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A meta-analytic study. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders , 51 , 18-31.
This paper is a meta-analysis of the interventions designed with the Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). After analyzing multiple studies with numerous variables, the researchers conclude that a significant number of ABA interventions show improved patient outcomes in terms of IQ scores, communications, and language skills. This is an essential area of research if teachers are to be trained to effectively prepare the children for life as adults.
Case, L., Schram, B., & Yun, J. (2019). Motivating children with autism spectrum disorder in gross motor-skill assessments. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance , 90 (4), 32-38.
According to the researchers, improving communication and language when conducting standardized tests, like gross motor skill assessments, for children with ASD is an emerging field of interest. However, children with ASD often lack the motivation to perform well as they either lack an understanding of the test or lack interest in the rigid structure of the tests. As a result, the researchers in this paper advocate for motivating the children first and sustaining their interest if the results of the standardized tests are to be accurate.
Part 2: Action Plan for Continued Growth
Development During the Program
I have always been proud of my ability to easily communicate with children with cognitive and learning disabilities. It is also one of the reasons why I chose to be a special educator. This program, however, has given me the theoretical and practical foundations to not only advance my work, but also the opportunity to advance the field. Through my coursework, I appreciated the role of lesson planning and preparation as it enables one to adopt learner-centered teaching approaches. I developed competent skills for teaching learners critical thinking skills and comprehension. Therefore, I plan on continuing this growth with a focus on enhancing student engagement when teaching, which can be challenging for children with ASD.
Development of my Information Literacy and Research Skills
Throughout my coursework, there has been special emphasis placed on information literacy and research skills. I am proud to say that not only have I learned how to effectively find information (while cancelling out the noise in the form of other uninformative papers), I have also learned to combined complex information from different sources into a congruent whole (Mertler, 2021). Lastly, all these would have little utility without the ability to professionally communicate my ideas and opinions, especially in written form.
Plan for Continued Information Literacy Development
As I am not satisfied with my current improvements in information literacy in my personal and professional growth, I plan on achieving the following goals.
Identify popular and scholarly information, and from them enhance the value of different viewpoints.
Learn how to use advanced features in databases hosting scholarly papers, staring with generating and updating search terms.
Use bibliographies and citation databases to find more information and resources
Knowing how to use archival finding aids
Achieving these goals would require joining or participating in research work by organizations like the Center for Autism Research and the Johnson Center for Child Health and Development. Through them, I can get the opportunity to conduct research, this apply and grow my literacy skills. As a consequence, I will inevitably improve my writing skills as well.
Action Plan for Building upon my Personal and Professional Strengths
To build up my personal and professional strength, I need to be guided by the following goals:
Improve student engagement through application of concepts and analysis of information to make informed decisions.
Continue planning and preparing my lessons in advance by focusing on learner-centered teaching approaches
Establish a good learning environment as it easily facilitates content delivery and improve student engagement
Achieving these goals would require that I do the following with organizations like the Center for Autism Research and the Johnson Center for Child Health and Development:
Take part in a research study that will help me advance my skills in a field of study that is interesting to me
Be one of the researchers on the ground actively doing the work being studied, such as teach students with the aim of evaluating a particular intervention
At the end of the study, evaluate my performance, quantify my achievements, determine areas that need improving and repeating the same process to improve them.
References
Bishop, S. L., Farmer, C., Bal, V., Robinson, E. B., Willsey, A. J., Werling, D. M., ... & Thurm, A. (2017). Identification of developmental and behavioral markers associated with genetic abnormalities in autism spectrum disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry , 174 (6), 576-585.
Case, L., Schram, B., & Yun, J. (2019). Motivating children with autism spectrum disorder in gross motor-skill assessments. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance , 90 (4), 32-38.
Holloway, J. M., Long, T., & Biasini, F. (2019). Concurrent validity of two standardized measures of gross motor function in young children with autism spectrum disorder. Physical & occupational therapy in pediatrics , 39 (2), 193-203.
Makrygianni, M. K., Gena, A., Katoudi, S., & Galanis, P. (2018). The effectiveness of applied behavior analytic interventions for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A meta-analytic study. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders , 51 , 18-31.
Mertler, C. A. (2021). Introduction to educational research . Sage publications.
The Johnson Center for Child Health and Development. What is a standardized test? . The Johnson Center for Child Health and Development. Retrieved from http://www.johnson-center.org/downloads/pdfs/What_is_a_Standardized_Test.pdf
