Each year, the TASH Conference brings together our constituents to share resources and success stories, learn about field-driven best practices, and network within a community engaged in shared values. The Conference is attended by passionate leaders, experts, and advocates from every corner of the disability community. Conference attendees are influential in their fields and communities, and play an important role in the provision of services and supports for the millions of individuals and organizations around the world; and include professors and researchers from leading institutions; those involved in local, state, and federal governments and public policy; special and general educators, and school administrators; self-advocates, adult service providers; students, family members, and many others. This year’s conference theme, Building Diverse and Inclusive Communities, reminds us that equity, opportunity, and inclusion relies on the input of broad perspectives and experiences.
Many students with severe disabilities are included in the general education classroom for some part of their instructional day. General educators rarely receive strong training to support these students and need guidance on how best to plan for their participation. A multiple probe across participants design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of collaborative planning with ongoing consultation to increase interactions and instructional behaviors between four diverse general educators and middle school students with severe disabilities in a metropolitan school district. The collaborative planning intervention increased general educators' instructional behaviors toward the students and students' academic engagement with class content. General educators were successful in taking a more active role in planning and delivering instruction to the students with severe disabilities. Implications are offered for improving procedural fidelity within individualized interventions, ensuring sustainability in the absence of researcher involvement, and preparing educators as collaborators.