Epilepsy is the most common chronic neurological condition in children and can have a significant negative impact on education. The current study aimed to examine factors that may influence the likelihood that a teacher will contact the parents of a student with epilepsy for information regarding the disorder and its impact within the school environment. Specific variables of interest included teacher knowledge about epilepsy and confidence when teaching at student with epilepsy, parent perceived knowledge about epilepsy, and parent socio-economic status. Variables were assessed through the previously developed Teacher Epilepsy Knowledge and Confidence Scales (TEKCS) as well as case vignettes. Overall findings suggest that teachers provided with a letter from a parent of a student with epilepsy are highly likely to contact the parent for more information regardless of the above mentioned factors. Additional supplemental analyses replicated previous findings indicating that special education teachers and teachers currently teaching a student with epilepsy possess more knowledge and confidence than general education teachers and those teachers who are not currently instructing a student with epilepsy. In addition, this study also examined the specific types of information teachers sought from parents. Study limitations, implications for practice, and future research directions are discussed.

Students with traumatic brain injury (TBI) sometimes experience impairments that can adversely affect educational performance. Consequently, school psychologists may be needed to help determine if a TBI diagnosis is warranted (i.e., in compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, IDEIA) and to suggest accommodations to assist those students. This analogue study investigated whether school psychologists provided with more comprehensive psychoeducational evaluations of a student with TBI succeeded in detecting TBI, in making TBI-related accommodations, and were more confident in their decisions. To test these hypotheses, 76 school psychologists were randomly assigned to one of three groups that received increasingly comprehensive levels of psychoeducational evaluation embedded in a cumulative folder of a hypothetical student whose history included a recent head injury and TBI-compatible school problems. As expected, school psychologists who received a more comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation were more likely to make a TBI educational diagnosis, but the effect size was not strong, and the predictive value came from the variance between the first and third groups. Likewise, school psychologists receiving more comprehensive evaluation data produced more accommodations related to student needs and felt more confidence in those accommodations, but significant differences were not found at all levels of evaluation. Contrary to expectations, however, providing more comprehensive information failed to engender more confidence in decisions about TBI educational diagnoses. Concluding that a TBI is present may itself facilitate accommodations; school psychologists who judged that the student warranted a TBI educational diagnosis produce more TBI-related accommodations. Impact of findings suggest the importance of training school psychologists in the interpretation of neuropsychology test results to aid in educational diagnosis and to increase confidence in their use.

Chronic illness can affect multiple domains of functioning, yet scientific understanding of the effects across the lifespan and under multiple contexts is still developing. For instance, research consistently indicates the early years of a child's life are pivotal for early intervening to positively affect physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional development; unfortunately, the impact of chronic illnesses, and thus appropriate interventions, during this time are not well-established. Academic achievement is one area in which children with chronic illness are negatively affected and research suggests that the effects of illness can be exacerbated by certain social determinants of health and demographic characteristics; however, no recent studies have examined these relationships for children at school entry. The current study utilized the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) to examine variations in early academic readiness in reading and mathematics by diabetes status, race, and social determinants, specifically mother's education and access to early childhood education, among children born in 2001. Results of the current study indicated that children with diabetes scored lower on reading and mathematics relative to their non-diabetic peers. Significant interactions were evident for diabetes status by mother's education, race/ethnicity, and by early childhood education. Children in homes whose mothers had the lowest level of education did not score as high as children in homes with mothers who had higher levels of education. Among children without diabetes, those identified as Asian, Pacific Islander, or Native Hawaiian outperformed White, Black, Hispanic, American Indian, and multi-race groups on measures of reading and mathematics, whereas among children with diabetes, those identified as multiracial scored highest. Regardless of diabetes status, children who attended preschool outperformed those who did not, yet children without diabetes who had not attended preschool outperformed diabetic children who did receive such services. Findings support the need for targeted early intervention as preschool alone did not mitigate the effects of diabetes on academic performance.

Children with epilepsy represent a unique group of students who may require accommodations in school to be optimally successful. Therefore, it is important for teachers to understand the possible academic consequences epilepsy can have on a child. An important step in providing this information about epilepsy to teachers is understanding where they would prefer to acquire this information. The current study examined differences between teachers of differing ages, school levels and special education teaching status in their preferences for gaining information from parents and the internet. Contrary to expectations, older teachers (those 56 years of age and older) were no less likely that younger teachers to prefer information from the internet. As predicted, elementary school teachers were more likely than high school teachers to prefer information from parents. However, interestingly middle school teachers were also more likely to prefer information from parents than high school teachers. Lastly, contrary to hypothesized results, special education teachers were no more likely to prefer information from parents than non-special education colleagues. Limitations of this study, implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.

Cystic Fibrosis, one of the most severe childhood life-shortening illnesses, places demands on a child's life conceivably interfering with his or her academic success. It is possible that the medically related activities in which individuals with CF partake interfere with academic activities and the motivation, specifically beliefs, expectancies, and values held, toward those activities. These issues encouraged the investigation of academic achievement and achievement motivation in children with CF through exploration of three research questions. Question one concerns differences in academic achievement between children with CF and a healthy comparison group for 1) reading and 2) math. Question two explored differences in aspects of motivation including ability beliefs, outcome expectancies, and task values between the groups for the two academic subjects. Finally, question three examined the relationship between motivational components and academic achievement. Evidence is provided for differences in math achievement between the two groups. Differences in motivation between children with CF and healthy children remain unsubstantiated.