Online ISSN: 2325-7466
2006
Triannual
National Association of Special Education Teachers (NASET)
United States

Articles

Facilitating Student Engagement Using Optimal Trunk Support for Children with Postural Dysfunction

  • Dr. Thilagha Jagaiah (Author) University of Hartford image/svg+xml
    Dr. Thilagha Jagaiah is an Assistant Professor of Special Education and a Program Director in the Education Department at the University of Hartford. She has expertise in foundational skills of sentence-construction, writing instruction and intervention, multi-tiered or RTI systems of support, and evidence-based practices for students with learning disabilities, individualized education plan, special education law, and assessment. Dr. Jagaiah has directed and co-directed two-internal grant research projects focused on syntactic complexity and its relationship to writing quality in informative and narrative essays and optimizing trunk support to improve academic engagement for children with disabilities through school-based experimental research.
  • Dr. Sandra Saavedra (Author) University of Hartford
    Dr. Sandra Saavedra is an Associate Professor of Physical Therapy at the University of Hartford. She has more than 25 years clinical experience in pediatric physical therapy, and is a national leader in research, teaching and application of segmental principles to treatment of posture impairments. Her degrees include MS in Physical Therapy from University of Southern California, PhD in Human Physiology from University of Oregon and postdoctoral research at University of Michigan. Her ongoing research is focused on typical and atypical development of trunk control and has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.64546/jaasep.512
Abstract
Children with postural dysfunction experience difficulties keeping their bodies upright. Without appropriate trunk support, these children are not able to effortlessly control their head and trunk even for a short duration and could impact learning engagement. The purpose of this feasibility study was to examine if optimal trunk support enhances student engagement tasks (eye gaze, reaching, manipulation, head turn, and making choice), and if the student engagement varied between the initial and final measures for both the customized and usual devices over a six- to eight-week period. Video data of nine children from early intervention and K-12 were recorded and coded for student engagement tasks. Findings reveal significant improvement in student engagement when using the customized device. The average effect size for student engagement for the customized compared to the usual device in the initial and final measures exceeded 0.8.
Keywords
Early Intervention, Elementary School Students, Eye Movements, High School Students, Human Posture, Learner Engagement
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How to Cite
Jagaiah, T., & Saavedra, S. (2023). Facilitating Student Engagement Using Optimal Trunk Support for Children with Postural Dysfunction. Journal of the American Academy of Special Education Professionals, 18(1), 72-94. https://doi.org/10.64546/jaasep.512

Winter 2023

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  • Article Type Articles
  • Submitted January 11, 2023
  • Published February 15, 2023
  • Issue Winter 2023
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