An important contemporary issue in special education is the extent to which students with a disability are included in all mainstream educational activities, including educational accountability. In line with other Western countries, the extent of national testing conducted by Australian schools will increase in the near future. At the moment, the participation of students with a disability in national testing is low and it is unlikely to significantly increase without the development of clear guidelines about allowable accommodations in testing, and the development of alternative assessment protocols for students with high support needs. This paper reviews the recent literature on both accommodations and alternative testing for students with a disability and makes a number of recommendations about the inclusion of students with a disability in national and in school‐based testing.

Alternate assessment and access to the general curriculum are the focus of much attention today for professionals and practitioners who provide services to students who have severe disabilities. Current legislation in the United States requires states to include students with severe disabilities in state‐wide assessments. The rationale is to require schools to be accountable for the progress of all students. Including students with severe disabilities in school accountability systems has created the need to rethink curriculum for this population and develop alternate assessments. In recent decades educators have focused on functional curriculum for students with severe disabilities, but recent federal legislation in the United States called No Child Left Behind requires schools to collect data on the yearly progress in academic content areas. Educators are focusing on ways to define alternate achievement standards for reading and mathematics for students with severe disabilities. States have developed a variety of formats for alternate assessments to be used for students who cannot participate in large scale assessments with accommodations. This article describes: (a) how the move towards including all students in school accountability is impacting curriculum for students with severe disabilities, (b) the decisions states must make in developing alternate assessments, and (c) recommendations for future practice and research.

This article analysed 44 studies between 1991 and 2003 which report on the effectiveness of self‐monitoring in improving academic, behavioral and social skills of students with a range of disabilities. Using prior reviews by Reid (1996), and Webber, Scheduermann, McCall and Coleman (1993) as a model, study variables were tabulated and analysed. Strengths, weaknesses, and factors which increased the effectiveness of self‐monitoring were discussed.

Analysis of study variables found self‐monitoring of attention, productivity or accuracy effectively increased a range of dependent variables, with productivity producing the greatest reactivity under certain circumstances. However, reactivity was idiosyncratic to participant, setting, and task variables, and teachers should consider student preferences and class pragmatics when choosing monitoring conditions.

In a 1999 paper Gersten and Chard proposed that number sense might be to mathematics what phonemic awareness is to reading. They explained the role of phonemic awareness in reading acquisition and its influence on reading research and argued that an understanding of the concept of number sense could be equally influential in the field of mathematics, in particular for the population of students at risk of developing mathematical disabilities (MD). The present paper examines the analogy in the light of existing literature in the area of number sense and concludes that while it may have some merit from a research point of view there are some inherent risks in the promotion of the analogy prior to the research community providing a definition of number sense and sufficient evidence that it is a prerequisite for mathematics success.

This mixed methods study employed comparative, case‐study methodology to explore influences affecting the development of musical interests and achievements in eight female and eight male young adults with Williams Syndrome. Components of the “Schoolwide Enrichment Model” (Renzulli & Reis, 1997b) were used to guide the study. Caregivers completed telephone interviews and checklists from their homes and participants completed a range of interviews and questionnaires while attending a 10‐day, music, talent development program. Results indicated influences, identified through the ecological model, constructivism and behaviourism that influenced the development of supportive, inclusive school communities that may have affected the development of the participants and their musical potential.