NIFDI's Assistant Director of Research, Caitlin Rasplica, will be a discussant at a symposium being held as part of the Association for Behavior Analysis International's (ABAI) 40th Annual Conference in Chicago this May. The symposium, Improving Reading and Writing Repertoires in Students With and Without Disabilities, will address Direct Instruction's evidence-based procedure that has resulted in academic gains for students.

Two papers will be addressed:

(The following is an excerpt from ABAI's description of the symposium)

In the first paper, the implementation of an Accelerated Independent Learner model coupled with Direct Instruction Corrective Reading program resulted in educationally and statistically significant outcomes in students in grades 3-5 that were identified as performing below grade level in reading.

In the second paper, the participants were students diagnosed with emotional disturbances and autism respectively. The experimenters found that the use of general case instruction resulted the mergence of metaphorical production responses for all participants.

The symposium will be held on May 26, 2014 in the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, Illinois at 10:00 am. For more information, visit ABAI's website at http://www.abainternational.org/events/annual-2014.aspx.