Interventions for Children with Disabilities

Twenty years ago, a visitor to Centennial School would have heard a cacophony.

“Banging on doors, yelling, wailing,” said Julie Fogt, the current director of the school. “Adults were loud: ‘Stop that, stop that! Crisis! I need help!’”

It was a private school, but public schools paid to send their most troubled kids there. The school took only children who had both a diagnosis of autism or emotional disturbance and a history of severe behavior issues.

A nearly $900K grant from IES supports Van Norman’s work to develop a quantitatively rigorous and user-friendly measure of the effectiveness of interventions for students with disabilities and learning difficulties.