RESUMEN
Middle school students receiving special education services for specific learning disabilities and other health impairments often struggle to remain on task and meet independent work demands. Although a variety of strategies have been documented as effective in improving on-task behavior in students with disabilities, most are not contextually appropriate for public schools. Activity schedules may provide an efficient, minimally intrusive, and low-effort intervention for middle school classrooms. In this study, a concurrent multiple-baseline design across participants with an embedded reversal was used to examine the effects of activity schedules on the on-task and on-schedule behavior of four middle school students with disabilities in a resource classroom. Results demonstrate increased on-task and on-schedule behavior for all participants in math and language arts settings, and students and teachers indicated both that they enjoyed the activity schedule and that it improved on-task behavior and work completion. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.
RESUMEN
Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a chronic illness that is defined and diagnosed by its symptoms: extreme fatigue made worse by physical and mental activity, pain and decreased mental stamina, among others. A long-held, erroneous belief that ME/CFS is not a physiological illness has persisted among some clinicians, leading to the denial of a patient's physical illness and attributing the symptoms to other causes. The debilitating effects of ME/CFS in the pediatric population can affect all aspects of academic, social, emotional, and physical development. ME/CFS has been diagnosed in children younger than 10 years. Therefore, the school nurse is likely to encounter one or more students in the various stages of this disease, putting the school nurse in a position to ameliorate the impact of this potentially devastating chronic condition.