Research Briefs - Fall 2008 by Brad Duncan

Message from the Dean It is a great privilege to share with you the 2008 issue of Research Briefs from the College of Education at the University of Kentucky. We are pleased to highlight examples of the research and scholarly accomplishments of our faculty over the past year. This has indeed been a landmark year for the College of Education. During this 85th anniversary year of the College, we are celebrating the continuing accreditation of the education unit by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board. The College was among the first institutions in the country to be accredited by NCATE in 1954, the first year that NCATE accredited teacher preparation institutions. We are extremely proud to have maintained continuing accreditation status since that time.

The College of Education is committed to continuing this tradition of excellence. We take great pride in producing well-prepared professionals for a variety of roles, conducting meaningful research, and applying this research to improve the lives of citizens in Kentucky and the broader global community.

In this Research Briefs, you will see snapshots of the research interests and achievements of our faculty. As you read these pages, you will learn about our faculty who hold endowed chairs and professorships and our faculty who have been recognized with international, national and state awards. You also will learn about the wide range of research interests across the College. This diversity of interests is reflected in articles related to topics such as childhood obesity prevention, working with students and adults with special needs, baseball and biomechanics, and digital moviemaking.

Clearly, the faculty is engaged in research on issues of vital importance to the local, national and international communities. We are committed to ensuring that the results of this research will make a difference in the lives of Kentuckians in the Commonwealth and beyond.

We invite you to learn more about the research and scholarship of our faculty. I hope you enjoy reading this issue of the 2008 Research Briefs.

Rosetta F. Sandidge Interim Dean

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Jody Clasey Heading Up Battle Against Childhood Obesity .............................................................

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Alternate Assessment of and Support for People with Significant Cognitive Disabilities a Challenge .........................

Thoroughbred Printing ---------------------------Office of the Dean UK College of Education 103 Dickey Hall Lexington, KY 40506-0017

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Lynda Brown Wright and Kenneth Tyler Showing PROMISE ................................................................................

Adam Martin Martin Design Studio ---------------------------Printing

Lisa Ruble Developing New Approaches to Working with Students with Autism ....................................................

Brad Duncan ---------------------------Graphic Design

Kathy Swan Harnesses the Power of Learning Through Moviemaking ........................................................................

Deborah Bott Slaton ---------------------------Editor

Janice Almasi Brian Bottge Ralph Crystal Melody Noland

Rosetta Sandidge ---------------------------Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies

2 Reading First Program Works in Kentucky ........................................ 3 College of Education Endowments............................................. 4-5 NCATE Accreditation ..........................................................................

The  University of Kentucky College of Education Research Briefs is published annually. ---------------------------Interim Dean

Table of Contents

Credits

Improving Quality of Life for MS Patients a Top Priority for Malachy Bishop ...................................................

11 Increased Student Retention Goal of “The Study” .......................12 National Early Childhood Transition Center Opens Doors to Children with Disabilities ......................................

Lars Björk Alan DeYoung Linda Levstik Kristen Perry John Thelin Elizabeth Towles-Reeves Jessica Cunningham The Professional Education Unit at the University of Kentucky is accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), 2010 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20036; phone (202) 466-7496. This accreditation covers initial teacher preparation programs and advanced educator preparation programs. NCATE is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation to accredit programs for the preparation of teachers and other professional school personnel.

The University of Kentucky is committed to equal opportunity and nondiscrimination in all programs, events and services, regardless of economic or social status and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, creed, religion, political belief, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, age, veteran status, or physical or mental disability.

University of Kentucky College of Education

13 Robert Shapiro Maps Out Process of Hitting in Baseball ..............14 Awards and Honors ................................................................ 15-16

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After a rigorous review process in late 2007, the University of Kentucky’s professional education unit recently was notified that it has received continuing accreditation from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). The Unit Accreditation Board unanimously validated that all standards were met by the unit and that there were no areas requiring improvement.

UK Professional Education Unit Earns Accreditation from NCATE

“Our stellar report from NCATE is excellent news for faculty and students working in UK’s graduatelevel educator preparation programs,” said Deborah Slaton, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Education. “Sometimes the ‘teacher education’ part of the NCATE name masks the fact that our graduate programs preparing other school professionals who require advanced training all participated in the NCATE review. Clearly, the College of Education and other colleges at UK are preparing leaders for schools in Kentucky and the nation.” While the School of Education was established within the College of Arts and Sciences at UK in 1911, the College of Education was created in 1923 and the first bachelor’s degree in education was awarded in 1924. NCATE was founded in 1954 and the UK College of Education was one of the first institutions in the country to earn NCATE accreditation that year. The College has had continuous accreditation since that time. “The success of our review here at UK can be attributed in large measure to the tremendous collaboration we have among our education and content faculty and our P-12 school partners,” said Rosetta Sandidge, NCATE Coordinator and Interim Dean of the College of Education. “Everyone has worked so hard to make sure that accreditation requirements are reflected in the day-to-day work of our educator preparation programs. These requirements are now part of what we do on an ongoing basis, and it’s rewarding to have these efforts recognized at both the national and state levels.”

“The University of Kentucky is gratified at the highly successful outcome of our NCATE continuing accreditation process,” said James Cibulka, head of the professional education unit and Dean of the College of Education from 2002-08. “It is rare that an institution goes through the process without receiv-

University of Kentucky College of Education

ing any areas for improvement. Our faculty and staff will continue to work with all our partners to assure that our educator preparation programs are of the highest quality.” The continuing accreditation review focused on the professional education unit at UK, which includes initial and advanced educator preparation programs located in seven colleges on the UK campus: Agriculture, Arts and Sciences, Communications and Information Studies, Education, Fine Arts, Health Sciences, and Social Work. Forty-two programs in the unit were reviewed during NCATE’s visit in 2007. These programs included 18 leading to initial certification of teachers; 11 leading to advanced preparation of teachers; 11 leading to preparation of other school professionals, such as principals, superintendents, school social workers, school psychologists and school media librarians; and two endorsement programs in instructional computer technology and reading and writing. w

For more information on the UK College of Education, visit www.uky.edu/education. More information about NCATE is available at www.ncate.org. w

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Reading First Works in Kentucky

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Special thanks to the University of Kentucky Early Childhood Lab’s students and staff for their cooperation with this story.

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For more information, visit www.kentuckyliteracy.org.

Kentucky Reading Project (KRP). Read to Achieve, funded through the Kentucky General Assembly and administered by the Kentucky Department of Education, operates in 311 elementary schools and reaches more than 10,000 students. It provides reading intervention services for primary-aged students who are having difficulty with reading, and the majority of students read at or above A recent report issued by the U.S. Department of Educagrade level after participating in the program. KRP, operated tion, Institute of Education Sciences stated that the Reading by CCLD, has provided intenFirst national literacy program was not having a statistically sive training in reading insignificant impact on student reading achievement. However, struction to more than 3,000 of Kentucky’s teachers over the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development (CCLD), the past nine years, improving classroom instruction so that which is housed in the University of Kentucky College of the need for intervention for Education, reports that the opposite is true in Kentucky. struggling readers is reduced. Reading First was estabResearch conducted by the CCLD shows that in lished by the national No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 the 72 schools across the Commonwealth of Kentucky to help all children read at or above grade level by the that are participating in the Reading First program, end of third grade. In 2009, a final report will be issued reading growth has been seen across the board. In the providing an additional year of data that will examine first four years of the five-year program, the percentthe impact of scientifically based reading instruction age of students in kindergarten through third grades on improvements in reading comprehension. proficient in reading has increased from 30.1 percent The CCLD, which celebrated to 71.7 percent (from 2004 to 2007). Also, in these its 10th anniversary in 2008, schools, the achievement gap between white students is a collaboration between and other racial groups is narrowing. For example, Kentucky’s eight state from spring 2005 to spring 2006 Caucasian students universities and focuses had improved 14.7 percent while African-American on improving literacy students had improved 28.8 percent. instruction in early Why has the program shown success in Kentucky childhood through and not in the national sample surveyed by the Inadulthood with nustitute of Education Sciences? Kentucky is using a merous professional comprehensive and customized approach to the development and Reading First program, said CCLD Director of Reresearch initiatives. search Susan Cantrell. “Rather than using one standard package of materials statewide, Kentucky’s proposal for the Reading First grant is based on meeting the needs of individual schools and students,” Cantrell said. “The Kentucky program is grounded more in professional development and teacher learning than in just implementing scripted packaged programs. “Teachers implementing Reading First in Kentucky are addressing comprehension, word recognition, vocabulary and fluency in a comprehensive way with an appropriate focus in each of those areas,” Cantrell said. “Our research is telling us that a comprehensive approach which includes high-quality classroom instruction and effective intervention programs makes a positive difference in young children’s reading achievement.” Kentucky has a number of other successful literacy intervention programs that Reading First is building on. Other statewide initiatives involving CCLD include the Read to Achieve program and the

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Carol Lee Robertson Endowed Professor of Literacy Education

Janice Almasi

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Endowments Update

University of Kentucky College of Education

In the scope of literacy research, Janice Almasi has been busy. Working with staff from the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development (CCLD), a joint effort among Kentucky’s eight state universities, Almasi has been evaluating the Kentucky Reading Project as a co-principal investigator on the Striving Readers grant. This year she planned and hosted the Kentucky Literacy Research Symposium, and she was appointed to the board of directors for two prestigious literacy groups: the National Reading Conference and the International Reading Association. “I am so honored to not only have been nominated by each of these organizations, but also to have the support of their members,” Almasi said. Almasi also presented a paper at the International Reading Association World Congress in Costa Rica titled “As Students Learn, Teachers Learn.” The paper focused on Almasi’s work in engaging K-3 students in peer discussion texts and studying the resulting development among the students and the teachers over the course of an academic year. “In contrast with models of discussion where teachers ask students many questions to guide their comprehension, our model has the teacher working with the students before and after the discussion of the text,” Almasi said. “Students learn to have adult conversations about text where they pick the topics and learn how to respond in a conversational way. In turn, we teach the teachers how to scaffold cognitively across time so they are changing the way the students learn to think, rather than how to comprehend a particular text.” What Almasi has found is comparable to the parable of teaching a man to fish. Teach a child to comprehend one story, then the child understands one story; however, teach the child how to comprehend in general, then the child can comprehend for a lifetime.

Brian Bottge William T. Bryan Endowed Chair in Special Education Brian Bottge is doing what works. In an effort to meet the goals of “No Child Left Behind,” the U.S. Department of Education is sponsoring the “Doing What Works” (DWW) Web site as a clearinghouse for research-based practices and interventions for K-12 classrooms. As part of this initiative, Bottge made contributions to one of the practice guides anticipated to make its way onto the DWW Web site by this fall. Bottge thinks that the DWW idea is long overdue: “The DWW helps teachers and administrators translate research-based practices for use in classrooms. Teachers and administrators will get a much better idea of what the research suggests by watching the videos and slideshows that are incorporated into the DWW.” Based on his research funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), Cognition and Student Learning Program, Bottge, along with six other panelists with expertise of research on learning and memory, was asked to contribute his recommendations to the IES Practice Guide Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning (available at http:// ies.ed.gov/ncer/pubs/practiceguides/20072004.asp). The purpose of practice guides is to “bring the best available evidence and expertise to bear” on classroom practices that are likely to work based on the research. In addition to the practice guides, the DWW Web site will include video interviews with some of the practice guide panelists, including Bottge. The subject of his component is the use of concrete simulations to assist students in understanding abstract concepts. For example, a slideshow will show students in one of Bottge’s studies applying their understanding of math concepts in concrete problem situations by designing, modeling and building hovercrafts. Students develop skills in interpreting two- and three-dimensional shapes, drawing schematic plans to scale, and working with units of measure. In the Hovercraft Challenge, students work in engineering teams to design and construct a “rollover cage” out of PVC pipe for a hovercraft they will ride the final day of the project. The concrete, 3-D model helps students visualize, compare and transform geometric objects, key understandings in middle school geometry. For more information on Doing What Works, visit http://dww.ed.gov/.

Endowments Update

University of Kentucky College of Education

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Back in the early 1970s Brownsville Station sang about smoking in the boys’ room, but in 2008, Melody Noland is looking at ways to prevent it. Noland, along with colleagues from the Department of Kinesiology and Health Promotion and the University of Kentucky College of Nursing used surveys to gauge the perceptions of the smoking policies at Fayette County, Ky., high schools by students and principals. Her findings support the notion that when kids see other kids smoking they are encouraged to smoke, as well. Noland also found that the students’ “everybody’s smoking” perception was enhanced by the fact that three-quarters of the students overestimated the number of students in their grade they believed were smokers. Many students surveyed believed that enforcement of non-smoking policies was lacking, while the school principals felt enforcement was satisfactory. “Even though there is a no-smoking policy in schools and Lexington (Ky.) has a no-smoking policy in public places, enforcement in schools is a big concern,” Noland said. “We asked the principals about the barriers to enforcement, and a lot of it comes down to there being only a few principals, busy teachers, etc. In addition, we have seen that it isn’t always being enforced at home, either. But we felt that everybody in the schools need to be involved: the principals, the teachers, the bus drivers, the law enforcement, everybody.” Noland also is looking at improving the health of students and staff in other ways. The Physical Activity and Wellness Schools (PAWS) project will kickoff in late October 2008 at Tates Creek High School and Clay Mills Elementary School in Lexington. Thanks to gifts from George and Betty Blanda and Steve and Elaine Harris, Noland and her staff will be able to institute health education, physical fitness and wellness activities at the schools in an effort to benefit the health and well-being of the students and staff.

George and Betty Blanda Endowed Professor in Education

Melody Noland

Thanks in part to the generosity and support of UK College of Education benefactor Helen Hill, Ralph Crystal and the faculty of the Rehabilitation Counseling Program have developed one of the nation’s solely Web-based master’s programs in rehabilitation counseling and one of the few fully online Web master’s degree programs at the University of Kentucky. The Web-based distance education initiated in January 2004 serves master’s degree candidates from all over the country. The program is designed for individuals who are employed full time as rehabilitation professionals and enables students to complete the degree in the same 16-month time frame as their full-time campus counterparts. To accomplish this, Crystal has focused on issues related to a Web-based program: the technology needed, development and structuring of courses and student learning experiences, and accessibility of the program for students with disabilities. “On the pedagogical end, we have used discussion boards, presentations in PowerPoint format, video lectures and Web sites to enhance the educational experience so the program is not a series of lecture notes,” Crystal said. “On the research end, we have been examining adult learning issues and the satisfaction of learners with this type of experience.” An example of Crystal’s research focus is the accessibility of the program to its students who may not be familiar with an online format and the expectations and challenges of the program. “We structured the program to match the full-time experience of students in the on-campus program, and to compare learning outcomes between campus and distance education students,” Crystal said. A measure of success of the Web program is that it was awarded a federal grant. In 2005 both the campus and distance learning programs were reviewed by the Council on Rehabilitation Education, the accreditation board for rehabilitation counseling programs, and awarded full accreditation for eight years with no conditions. UK’s Rehabilitation Counseling Program is ranked by U.S. News & World Report magazine as a top-20 program.

Wallace Charles Hill Professor of Rehabilitation Counseling

Ralph Crystal

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While Hollywood is a long, long way from the University of Kentucky campus, Assistant Professor Kathy Swan is looking at ways to bring a little movie magic to the nation’s classrooms. Today technology grows at a blistering pace and researchers have studied for years the need to incorporate new technologies into K-12 curriculums. However, with such drastic improvements in how one can teach or present information, problems invariably arise. One of Swan’s main research questions, then, is “How can I help social studies teachers use technology effectively?” With the costs of equipment coming down and the bundling of moviemaking software in standard operating systems (such as Microsoft’s Moviemaker or Apple’s iMovie), it is easier than ever for teachers to use this technology in classrooms. All it really takes is an idea, a little technology know-how and the initiative to get it done. But can easier access to this technology assist in the teaching of social studies? Swan has looked into this assimilation of moviemaking technology in the classroom in the form of the “digital documentary.” Along with her colleague Dr. Mark Hofer at the College of William and Mary, Swan introduced a moviemaking project into two social studies classrooms where students created threeminute historical documentary films on myths in American history. “What can be troublesome with this type of integration is the change in the teacher’s mindset going from teacher-centered to student-centered instruction,” Swan said. “And you also have the challenge of the actual integration of technology, such as lack of available computers and unpredictable Internet access, etc.” In this particular study, Swan worked with a teacher excited to embrace the technology of the proposed learning model but soon faced many challenges: making time for the project, connecting the project to local curriculum standards, learning the new technology and managing the instruction. However, despite some instructional complexity, the teacher was pleased with the work completed by the students and requested that Swan return to the classroom the following year. Subsequently, Swan took the project to another classroom where it encompassed social studies and lan-

LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!

Kathy Swan Harnesses the Power of Learning Through Moviemaking

University of Kentucky College of Education

guage arts education, where the teachers involved were both experienced and strong in content, pedagogy and technology. The students were led through a process of selecting and researching a topic, collecting online materials, writing scripts, preparing storyboards and piecing together the documentary. While there were snags, especially in storyboarding, the students and teachers found the project to be a rousing success. “This process of making digital documentaries offers students the opportunity for dynamic and creative ways of learning,” Swan said. “It is engaging for the students as they learn to source historical documents and develop their own historical narratives, all within the artistic boundaries of a new technology—an exciting challenge for most students.” Swan’s work with her colleagues, including UK College of Education Professor Linda Levstik and UK Department of Kathy Swan History Associate Professor Kathi Kern, has been rewarding as well. She has been awarded the National Technology Leadership Initiative (NTLI) Award three out of the last four years. She also is co-author of the Digital Directors Guild (www.ddguild.org), a Web site that provides a space for teachers to explore digital moviemaking, its place in the curriculum and its impact on student learning. Because Swan believes that a variety of technology tools are needed to fit with the diversity of teachers’ methods, she also has begun to study the use of other technologies such as electronic primary sources, videoconferencing and podcasts. Two of her other projects online are the Historical Scene Investigation project (www.hsionline.org) and Econocast (www.econcast.org)–materials that are freely available to teachers. While not necessarily a technology advocate, she admits, “A former professor once told me, ‘It’s like standing on the shore and telling the tide not to come in. You can do it, but you are going to get wet.’ Holding back technology is not possible. My work is about achieving a greater understanding of how to incorporate these new ways of teaching and learning and providing tools for teachers to help them successfully achieve their learning goals within the current school context.” w

Lisa Ruble Developing New Approaches to Working with Students with Autism

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Amanda Smith (left), an Ed.S. student in School Psychology, is one of Lisa Ruble’s (right) assistants on her autism research.

University of Kentucky College of Education

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Ruble said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to have been on the other side of things being hands-on working with kids and families and teachers. Now I have the opportunity to step back and say, ‘Okay, how can we conduct research that better addresses what these real-world issues are?’ ” Finding answers to these questions is not easy. Yet Ruble feels that with their work in identifying the personal and environmental challenges and supports, and then identifying and prioritizing teachings goals, the progress of students with autism can be improved in real-world settings. To accomplish that, those people around the children must change how they approach the situation and training is key. “Over the years, we’ve focused so much on how to change the children to get them to fit in,” Ruble said. “We need to do as much or more work in trying to get the people around the child to understand the child’s perspective. That’s why I’ve really been focused on training people and supporting the parents and teachers of these students.”

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However, according to Lisa Ruble, associate professor in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology, applying these findings to realworld classrooms is imperative. “We haven’t figured out yet how to get that information out there so all kids can get access to the same quality of specialized intervention or specialized service,” Ruble said. “So that’s what I’m trying to do, figure out ways to bridge the gap between research and what’s really happening in our schools.” In an effort to achieve this, Ruble was awarded a National Institutes of Health grant to conduct systems and outcomes research with children ages 3-8 who have autism spectrum disorders. The main goal is to develop pilot data for a larger project that will allow her and her colleagues to look at what they’ve learned in a controlled environment and how they can apply that knowledge to public school programs, classrooms and other environments in which these children live and work. “What’s unique about our study is that it’s one of the few randomized controlled studies,” Ruble said. “It’s really exciting because our findings show that kids whose teachers participated in the consultations or interventions have made significantly more improvement in attainment of their targeted Individual Education Plans (IEP) objectives.” Into the third year, Ruble and her colleagues have finished the data collection and are in the process of moving forward with papers and a training manual. Up next will be the writing of a grant that will allow them

to extend their efforts to students in a wider age range. Ruble brings more to the table than the skills of being an academic researcher. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and started a treatment program at the University of Louisville for children with autism. In that role, she was often called in to work with schools when other methods they had tried did not work, when parents wanted another opinion or when schools just wanted further assistance. “I want to take what I have learned at an outpatient, real-world setting and really talk about the challenges that teachers encounter in classrooms,”

Over the last decade, the number of students with autism being served in public schools has increased more than 500 percent. As a result, a great amount of attention is being focused on how to best serve these students. Through laboratory-based research studies, evidence has been gathered that shows these children can make significant improvements in their social and language skills given specialized interventions.

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college graduates identify as those variables that were helpful in their success. For example, how valued did they feel by school personnel? Did their parents attend PTA and other meetings? How were decisions about the student’s high school curriculum made? Were the students involved in school-related or community activities? Were the students involved in their religious community? To what extent did the students interact with their peers and what was that impact? What was their home life like? Brown Wright believes that “obtaining information from African American young adults who have reached a level of academic success will be most valuable as we interpret the data that is received from our study with high school students.” Ultimately, Brown Wright and Tyler want to know what predicts success and what helps young people achieve success no matter where they come from. And according to Brown Wright, a significant part of this is learning what parents are doing and have done to assist their children throughout their secondary education. “As a parent, I may need to do different things to ensure my child’s achievement,” Brown Wright said. “Maybe I need to be sure to meet with my child’s teachers and my child so that we all know what is expected of us. Maybe I need to get my child involved in enriching school and community activities. Maybe I need to make sure somebody’s at home when my child gets home. Maybe I need to make sure we have dinner as a family. We need to help parents be proactive in helping their children and knowing what things are most important.” In the end, Brown Wright and Tyler hope the results from Project PROMISE also will assist policy makers in informing school districts of ways they can help ensure the success of African American students in Kentucky. For this, they argue, an understanding of what parents already bring to the table is key. “This kind of research can be most informative for parents and guardians,” Brown Wright said. “Parents and/or guardians can be the best advocate for their children. They can help to make things happen for their child in the schools, provide the home environment that best supports the child’s overall development and involve their child in community activities that enhances their academic performance.”

The literature shows a significant amount of research looking into academic performance of African American children and youth from lower socioeconomic families, and Lynda Brown Wright, associate professor in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology (EDP), has previously studied these issues in relation to African American males.

Lynda Brown Wright and Kenneth Tyler Showing PROMISE

Lynda Brown Wright

University of Kentucky College of Education

Kenneth Tyler

Brown Wright and Kenneth Tyler, an assistant professor in EDP, have sought to broaden this literature by investigating those psychological and contextual factors that may be linked to the academic performance and success of African American high school students. “When looking at what is happening with the academic success of African American students today, many have said, ‘The problem is related to socioeconomic status’ or ‘It’s poverty in general’ or ‘It’s single-parent families,’ ” Brown Wright said. “I believe those factors can influence achievement, but those factors in and of themselves do not explain the academic performance of African American students. In recent years, I also have been concerned about affluent African Americans who are not doing as well as they could be doing in some cases. I started thinking that there are other variables involved: school factors, home variables, and community factors that may influence this outcome.” Thanks in part to Brown Wright’s desire to document empirical information that can empower parents to better advocate for their children and a $10,000 grant awarded by University of Kentucky President Lee T. Todd, Jr., through its designation as a Commonwealth Collaborative, Project PROMISE (Proactive Research on the Mediating Indices of School Excellence) was born. Brown Wright and Tyler are working on a quantitative analysis of data collected from 11th and 12th graders in two high schools, one in Louisville, Ky., and one in Lexington, Ky. They believe that interactions within the home and school contexts are linked to the development of African American students’ perceptions of themselves, their home and school environments, and ultimately, their school-related behaviors and performance. A second component of Project PROMISE will be to look retrospectively at what African American

Alternate Assessment of and Support for People with Significant Cognitive Disabilities a Challenge

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Belva Collins

John Schuster

Donald Stenhoff

University of Kentucky College of Education

“All over Kentucky we have students who are being assessed even if they can’t read, can’t write and sometimes can’t speak,” said Belva Collins, professor in the Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling (EDSRC). “A lot of them do not have functional skills, but they still have to take the alternate assessment to show they can do grade-level content. So, it’s really challenging.” Collins believes the goal is to find a way to make the content meaningful. For example, in teaching the Periodic Table to students with severe cognitive disabilities, she had to figure out a way to take the core content the students have to know and teach it in a way that will enrich their lives and still show that they learned some of it. To do this, she devised a way to break it down into the three basic elemental forms: solids, liquids and gasses. Through a cooking activity, the students were able to see how water could be transformed from a solid (ice) to a liquid to a gas (steam). “We are teaching this in a very systematic way,” Collins said. “We sit down with the students every day and go through the whole school year. We work with teachers on this, on how to do it.” Along with John Schuster, also a professor in EDSRC, Collins also is working with teachers on their master’s degrees in severe cognitive disabilities through a personnel preparation grant. These teachers work in the field but are often not highly qualified, so these grant dollars provide these instructors with tuition to obtain their master’s degrees and allow Collins and Schuster to conduct research in

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their classrooms along with the teachers to help satisfy the teachers’ thesis requirements. Because Collins and Schuster are serving teachers in their classrooms, the master’s program is delivered via distance education, another research area of interest to Collins. “I am working with Dr. Shuster and Dr. (Don) Stenhoff on a Leadership Grant in Applied Behavior Analysis and Distance Education,” Collins said. “With this grant we are going to teach doctoral students how to use distance education technology to conduct consultations for behavior analysis. They will be able to put cameras in schools and observe children and their behaviors so they can conduct behavioral assessments at a distance. Dr. Schuster and Dr. Stenhoff will lead the behavioral part and I will be the consultant on the technology part.” As part of the grant that will begin in January 2009 and is funded by the United States Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs, doctoral students will be recruited to be in the program, and they will be trained to be behavioral consultants from a distance and get their doctorates in special education at the same time. Another area of concern for Collins is the support that individuals with severe cognitive disabilities receive in their communities, namely the religious community. Collins and doctoral student Melinda Ault believe that once these students exit the school systems a natural place to continue getting that support is in their church. However, a lot of times, churches are not providing that support. Collins feels the reason for this is that the churches do not have the proper programs or the appropriately trained staff to work with them. Through a national survey Collins and Ault found that in general when a church was supportive, it was really supportive, but when it was not, it was terrible. “We want a model that is inclusive, where those with cognitive disabilities go to the same classes and programs that everyone else goes to,” Collins said.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 was designed to close the achievement gap and make sure all students achieve academic success. Under its alternate assessment mandate, even students with the most significant cognitive disabilities have to take an assessment for content. This has proven difficult for many teachers.

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Jody Clasey Heading Up Battle Against Childhood Obesity At first glance, the Pediatric Exercise Physiology (PEP) Laboratory at the UK College of Education Department of Kinesiology and Health Promotion (KHP) looks like any other health club or training facility. It is filled with two full sets of resistance training and other exercise equipment. However, upon closer inspection one thing is clear: This is not your average gym.

University of Kentucky College of Education

The PEP Lab equipment is designed to serve the needs of pediatric patients, from kindergarten through middle school. It is small in order to accommodate the shorter stature and limb lengths of a young person’s body. But why is this equipment so special and so necessary? “The number of overweight and obese children in the United States and Kentucky has risen exponentially over the past several years,” said Jody Clasey, PEP Lab Director and an associate professor in KHP. “In Kentucky, the number of such children who are obese is at about 25-28 percent, with another 20-22 percent who are overweight. This is a real problem.” What Clasey and her colleagues from the UK College of Medicine are attempting to do is show that the use of a resistance training program on these children will help them become healthier and reduce the risk of many serious illnesses including Type II diabetes, which is the form associated with obesity and lack of activity. In 1990 Type II diabetes accounted for just about 4 percent of the cases of diabetes in children and

adolescents. Ten years later, it was estimated that number had grown to nearly half of all diabetes cases in this age group. “There is a magic pill out there that will help to reverse this trend,” Clasey said. “It’s called activity. You don’t have to be a marathon runner, you just have to be active everyday.” In one study, Clasey and her colleagues put a group of children through 10 weeks of resistance training, three times per week for one hour. After 10 weeks, the control group, which did not receive resistance training, gained approximately 10-12 pounds. The training group showed the children were getting stronger and their body composition was changing for the better. They were gaining much less fat. One thing Clasey loves about working with the PEP Lab and the UK Body Composition Core Laboratory is the collaborative work they are able to do there. They work with the UK Medical Center, the UK Graduate Center for Nutritional Science, Cardinal Hill Rehabilitation Hospital and the Shriner’s Children’s Hospital. Clasey also is excited about upcoming projects. In one study, she and her colleagues will be looking at fit (lean) versus unfit (obese) children using functional MRI to determine if their brains are “wired” differently. “We are going to look at math and Jody Clasey reading centers and ask, ‘Is there a difference in the way they are stimulated?’ ” Clasey said. “Another area of the brain we’re going to look at is addiction and compulsive behavior by stimulating with enticing foods. We want to see if placing food in front of them triggers their pleasure centers in the brain differently. The question becomes, if I’m wired like that, and there’s something I’m not doing, like exercising, and it’s causing that area of my brain to work differently, could that somehow be related to addictive behaviors of all sorts?” Other studies that Clasey hopes to work on involve a collaboration with the Departments of Microbiology and Pediatrics where they will look at the body’s catecholamine and inflammatory response differences in lean and obese children. Also, she has projects that involve children with Cerebral Palsy and adolescent girls who are pre- and post-spinal corrective surgery. With the collaborative support and the many wonderful facilities at her disposal, Clasey is excited about the work she will be doing in the future. “The University of Kentucky has been very good to us,” Clasey said. “UK recognizes obesity research is an area where we can be a leader, and that provides a wealth of opportunity for us to excel in this area.”

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Improving Quality of Life for MS Patients a Top Priority for Malachy Bishop

University of Kentucky College of Education

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Malachy Bishop, associate professor in the Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling, is looking at illness self-management and a number of questions concerning MS therapy adherence (maintenance). His work is funded through the generosity of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. MS can affect a person’s quality of life through a number of changes that are unpredictable and extremely variable. These physical, psychological and social changes impact social roles, family relationships, employment status, and physical and mental health. Through self-management, people with MS may be able to combat the changes and their negative impact. This behavior includes being knowledgeable about MS and its treatment, being an informed participant in one’s health care, being involved in treatment decisions, and being knowledgeable about and practicing health enhancing behavior. “I wanted to look at the role of self-management in the relationship between MS and quality of life among recently diagnosed adults,” Bishop said. “This is, of course, a highly emotional and difficult time for a lot of people. The way they respond to the diagnosis is very individual. I examined whether higher levels of self-management enhance people’s sense of control over their lives and whether that reduces the longterm impact of MS on quality of life.” Bishop’s preliminary findings show that patients who engage in higher levels of self-management behavior do experience a higher quality of life and see less impact of the MS across different areas of their lives than those with lower levels. By taking practical steps through adherence to treatment, open communication with one’s physician, social support, a good understanding of MS and health maintenance behaviors, patients can feel more in control of their lives and improve their quality of life. Another goal of Bishop’s research is to help improve the adherence to treatment. Researchers and clinicians agree that the use of disease-modifying therapies

(DMT) can reduce future disease activity and assist in the improvement of quality of life for the MS patient. While many researchers believe that DMTs should be administered as soon as possible after diagnosis and maintained, only about 50 percent of all MS patients in the U.S. and 60 percent of those with Relapsing-Remitting MS are using DMTs, while a large number discontinue them after only a brief duration. “We know some of the reasons people cite for stopping treatment, including self-injection anxiety, the sometimes significant sideeffects and the cost,” Bishop said. “Also, although the DMTs appear to provide a long-term benefit in terms of reducing future disease activity, they do not provide an immediate, noticeable change, which sometimes makes their long-term use a tough sell.” Bishop has found it interesting that the most important factor that differentiates those who maintained therapies and those who started and then stopped DMT was the confidence displayed by the patients’ doctor or neurologist in the effectiveness of such treatments. In addition, findings have indicated that there is a critical time period after which patients are much less likely to discontinue treatment. “The implications are that if we can help people get through that initial period of treatment, we are more likely to see long-term adherence,” Bishop said. “Overall, this research is particularly exciting because it may have a direct impact on people with MS, but also on people with a number of other chronic conditions, the treatment of which also may be described in terms of this framework of short-term barriers but long-term benefits.”

In the United States nearly 400,000 people, or about 1 in 750, live with multiple sclerosis (MS). One of the most commonly acquired neurological diseases, MS can significantly lower the quality of life, and understanding the effects of this disease is paramount to helping those with MS and those who work to help them.

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In recent years, the University of Kentucky has increased its efforts to combat student attrition, and the campus community has embraced this mission by supportStudy,” offers academic consultations, workshops on ing the use of resources for this cause. As study skills and a peer tutoring program, along with other outreach programs. “The Study” has been so a result, UK saw a 4.5 percent increase in popular that in 2006 AE had to move to a larger space retention over the past year bringing the in order to accommodate the student demand. “AE is designed to enhance the academic success total figure to an all-time high.

Increased Student Retention Goal of “The Study”

University of Kentucky College of Education

Jane Jensen, an associate professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation (EPE), as well as a number of graduate students from EPE and the Department of Educational Counseling and Psychology have been helping the retention efforts. Jane Jensen Jensen has been working since 2000 with undergraduate education on academic intervention for students who have experienced academic difficulty at UK. From 2003-2006 she served as the Faculty Coordinator for First Year Initiatives, including a focus on enhancing academic support on campus. Since 2001, EPE has offered a 100-level course, EPE174, that focuses on a better understanding of the academic work required of college students, the organization of the University and themselves as learners. “I designed the course following a model I helped develop at Indiana University,” Jensen said. “It’s not an orientation to college or a study skills course. Instead, it introduces students to in the history, organizational structure, and academic culture of college and how they can be strategic learners in that context. Since the first semester, we’ve had graduate teaching assistants from both EPE and EDP teach the course, and the results have shown that students who complete EPE174 are retained at a 20-30 percent higher rate than those students in the same academic situation who don’t take the course.” Another key factor in the improvement of student academic support at UK has been the establishment of Academic Enhancement (AE). Jensen created this department in 2004 with the help of Karin Lewis, current AE director and a doctoral student in the Department of Educational Counseling and Psychology. The service, known affectionately by students as “The

of all students with a particular emphasis on first-year undergraduate students,” Lewis said. “It is part of the University’s strategy to improve retention and graduation rates. The profound increase in the volume of students seeking tutoring is a positive change that will improve student engagement, performance and persistence in challenging courses typically experienced as ‘gatekeeping’ courses. The steady growth in peer-tutoring visits will continue as the first-year cohort increases in accordance with the University’s Top-20 Plan.” There is a very strong working relationship between the College of Education and “The Study.” The teaching assistants for EPE174 have offices there and Jensen continues to serve as a faculty member of the advisory committee. AE graduate students have presented papers at national first-year experience conferences and other local and national conferences. Although the AE Director and teaching assistants have College of Education ties, the more than 70 undergraduate workers come from all areas of campus and provide leadership and peer tutoring for as many as 50 different courses. “I am passionate about the student-responsive, research-supported, date-driven work we accomplish in AE,” Lewis said. “The work we do is valuable to students and meaningful for student persistence. Not only do the students seeking our services benefit, but the students providing the services benefit in profound and meaningful ways. I am delighted that AE serves students across all colleges and majors, and is available to the entire population of students.” w

National Early Childhood Transition Center Opens Doors to Children with Disabilities

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Beth Rous

Katherine McCormick

University of Kentucky College of Education

As a result, NECTC researchers have been able to identify and validate via national survey a set of 21 transition practices that can be used to support children and families through the transition process. This, in turn, has been used to help the U.S. Department of Education and the Regional Technical Assistance agencies across the country develop guidance materials for states as they work to improve the process. “This work is important because it will directly improve the lives of young children with disabilities and their families as they move from one program to another,” said Katherine McCormick, associate professor in the UK College of Education and co-principal investigator of the NECTC. “It provides answers to state, district and local policy makers to help them make this process easier and less stressful for children, families and their teachers.”

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• families who needed respite care; • therapy services across transition periods; • a reduction of special education services as children transition to preschool and then to kindergarten; and • a decrease in home visitation services as children grow older.

This is especially so in the case of very young children with disabilities who, along with their families, are attempting to navigate the many services and supports prior to entering school for the first time. In an effort to help ease these often traumatic and emotional changes, the National Early Childhood Transition Center (NECTC) was created. Funded by the Office of Special Education Programs in the U.S. Department of Education, the NECTC is operated by the University of Kentucky Human Development Institute and was set up to conduct a set of 18 studies to build an evidence base supporting the transition of young children with disabilities as they move from early intervention programs to preschool and from preschool programs to kindergarten. “Early research has demonstrated that children’s early experiences in preschool and their transition to school has lasting impacts on their overall school success,” said Beth Rous, associate professor in the UK College of Education and principal investigator on the NECTC project. “Children who experience poor transitions may be more vulnerable to mental health and adjustment problems, have less academic success and have more difficulty with social relationships with their peers. This work provides evidence-influenced strategies to help programs and families better support children through this process.” Federal law, through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, requires every state to have procedures in place to coordinate this transition for children who are eligible for services through early intervention programs that serve children birth to age three, as well as preschool programs that serve three- and four-year-old children. NECTC researchers (from UK, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Oregon

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State University and Utah State University) have published key findings to support children, families and program staff in navigating the transition process. A survey of over 2,400 preschool teachers across the United States indicated that public school preschool teachers use a variety of strategies to support children transitioning to preschool. However, those strategies more often tended to be low intensity (involving a whole group) rather than high intensity (tailored to individual children and families). Therefore, it is important to provide training on specific transition strategies because it has a direct impact on the use of those strategies. NECTC researchers also found that stress can be intensified during transition periods for families with children with significant disabilities. Focus groups confirmed this to be especially true in regard to the following:

Transition is often difficult. Whether it’s the transition of becoming a parent, the transition from high school to college or college to the “real world,” the changes accompanying transition can be stressfull.

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The batter steps to the plate. He plants his cleats in the dirt. He sizes up the pitcher. And he awaits the delivery.

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Robert Shapiro Maps Out Process of Hitting in Baseball

University of Kentucky College of Education

This is a final representation of a hitter after data on his swing has been collected. The small dots represent the markers and the red arrows show the force exerted by the hitter’s steps.

Once the ball leaves the pitcher’s fingers at 90 miles per hour, the batter has approximately 0.42 seconds to decide whether or not he’s going to swing and execute the swing. Less than a half a second. Not much time to make such a decision and execute a successful swing. During the spring and summer months, baseball players in college and the major leagues are making those decisions numerous times a day. But once the decision to swing is made, what goes into the mechanics of the follow through? How much force is applied as the batter steps? How is the bat positioned in relation to the body? Do the batter’s hips turn? How are his legs positioned? And how does all of this relate to the effectiveness of the swing? Robert Shapiro, professor of biomechanics in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Promotion, has been studying these very questions. When former University of Kentucky Baseball Coach John Cohen arrived in Lexington, Shapiro approached the coach about using UK players in his work. Cohen quickly took to the idea and suggested hitting as the subject of the initial study. However, pitching is what most of Shapiro’s work has revolved around. After receiving his doctorate from the University of Illinois, he took a job at Northern Illinois University where he was introduced to the general manager of the Chicago White Sox. w

Shapiro convinced the team to allow him to study the mechanics of the team’s pitchers, a study that lasted for more than 10 years and was well ahead of it’s time. “There were no other studies of its kind out there,” Shapiro said. “The study was the only one to collect data during actual Major League Baseball games.” Shapiro came to the UK in 1985 and began working with the baseball team in the late 80s. After a small break, Cohen came in as UK’s new skipper and the work began anew. While with the White Sox, the method for collecting data was much more Robert Shapiro time-consuming than it is today. Shapiro now collects data by placing more than 40 markers on the body, bat and ball. Twelve high-speed digital video cameras are positioned on the batter and pick up only the reflection of the markers to generate a real-time three-dimensional image. Once the computer maps the image, a skeletal frame representative of the batter is inserted to display the positions of the parts of the body during the swing. In the end, many facets of the swing can be determined, and an individual batter can make adjustments based on the data. “You can use it as a teaching tool with nearly immediate feedback, but we are still restricted to laboratory or practice situations,” Shapiro said. “And they are developing markerless tracking that is based on shapes instead of markers. With an advanced version of the system, you could take an image in the third inning of a game and make the correction in the fifth inning.” u

Awards and Honors

University of Kentucky College of Education

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Alan DeYoung, professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation, traveled to the former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan during the Spring 2008 semester to conduct research under a United States Department of State-funded project. DeYoung’s research, entitled “Making Market Choices in Higher Education: How Students Choose Universities and Specializations and How Universities Create New Specializations in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan,” examined student and parent aspirations and expectations about universities and major subject fields among cohorts w

Linda Levstik, stik, a professor off social studies and humanities education in n the Department ment of Curriculum um and Instruction, tion, received thee 2007 Jean Dresden en Grambs Distinguished ed Career Research in Social Studies award from m the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). The award, presented every other year, r, recognizes professionals who have made extensive xtensive contributions to knowledge concerning ng significant areas of social studies education cation through meritorious research. “On a personal level, I am delighted that my peers feel that I have made significant contributions and have generated quality research in my field,” Levstik said. “Professionally, it is an acknowledgement that my work is worthwhile, but my hope is that my lifelong work has made a difference in the classroom and in students’ understanding of history.”

DeYoung Conducts Research in Kyrgyzstan

Levstik Receives Career Research Award

For more information on the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, visit http://fulbright.state.gov/.

Lars G. Björk, professor and acting chair in the Department of Educational Leadership Studies, was selected as a Fulbright Scholar for the upcoming year. Björk will be working with a research team at the University of Jyväskylä Institute of Educational Leadership in Finland on several projects funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education including conducting the first national study of superintendents in Finland, conducting a study of municipal government mergers, and publishing study findings in international scholarly journals. “Receiving a Fulbright Scholar Award acknowledges my work as a scholar in the nation as well as internationally,” Björk said. “I am honored to be a part of the Fulbright Program and join the ranks of distinguished alumni who have become heads of state, judges, ambassadors, cabinet ministers, CEOs, university presidents, professors and Nobel Prize winners.”

Björk Selected as Fulbright Scholar

of secondary school graduates, entering university students and their parents in northern Kyrgyzstan. DeYoung said his interest in this topic is a result of his earlier research which found skyrocketing demand for higher education by secondary school graduates, even though the national economy has limited employment opportunities. When the new republic was part of the Soviet Union, student enrollment in republican universities was about 14 percent, but since 1991 that figure has increased to about 70 percent. “What makes these universities increasingly desirable when the schools are decreasingly utilitarian?” DeYoung asked. “The government has provided opportunities for more universities to be created, but the oversight of programs and quality is seemingly very weak. Who decides upon and what are the criteria for evaluating newly created academic specializations?” DeYoung’s work is being funded through a Special Initiatives Research Fellowship administered by the American Councils for International Education: ACTRA/ACCELS courtesy of the U.S. Department of State’s Program for the Study of Eastern tern Europe and the Independent States of the Former er Soviet Union (Title VIII).

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Awards and Honors Perry Wins Award From NRC for Literacy Research Imagine being in a foreign country. You know the language, but you still have a difficult time getting along. While you know the words, you don’t always understand their usage Kristen Perry, assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, has researched this scenario in respect to Sudanese refugees in the United States, work that helped her garner the J. Michael Parker Award from the National Reading Conference. The award is given to a graduate student or untenured faculty member for contributions to adult literacy research. “It is not necessarily the meaning of the words that they aren’t clear on, it is how to use that text,” Perry said. “For example, they may know what a coupon is, but they may not know how to use it. We can’t just teach basic reading and writing. We have to teach them how to use a text beyond just reading it.”

Thelin Honored

University of Kentucky College of Education

In the past year, John Thelin, University Research Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation, has garnered the attention of a number of national organizations. In 2007, he was appointed to the advisory and editorial board for the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Scholarly Colloquium on College Sports which was developed to unite top scholars to study intercollegiate athletics’ influence on both university and cultural life. In March 2008, Thelin received a 2007 National Education Association Excellence in the Academy Award at the 2008 NEA Higher Education Conference for his article “Expectations and Reality in American Higher Education” which appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of the NEA’s journal “Thought and Action.” Then in April 2008, he was presented with the Eldridge W. Roark Meritorious Service Award from Omicron

Delta Kappa, which is presented to individuals who have shown varied and meritorious service to ODK.

Towles-Reeves Earns TASH Award Elizabeth Towles-Reeves, who received her Ph.D. in educational psychology from UK in May 2008, received the 2007 Alice H. Hayden Award at the annual TASH Conference last December. The award is presented to a doctoral student in education or a related field who demonstrates potential for leadership in teaching, scholarship and service on behalf of people with significant disabilities. “All students should be able to learn,” said TowlesReeves, Research Coordinator for the National Alternate Assessment Center (NAAC), a project in UK’s Human Development Institute. “They should have access to instruction because it helps them be productive members of society. All children are important.”

Cunningham Honored with AERA Research Award Jessica Cunningham, a doctoral student in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation, received the AERA Survey Research in Education SIG Graduate Student Award at the 2008 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting for her manuscript “Balancing Content with Measurement Jessica Cunningham (left) Standards in Survey Develposes with her adviser, opment.” Associate Professor Kelly “It is an honor that the Bradley, after receiving the Survey SIG has recognized AERA Survey Research in Jessica with this award,” said Education SIG Graduate Kelly Bradley, associate proStudent Award. fessor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation and coauthor of the winning manuscript. “As her adviser, I see Jessica’s hard work and dedication on a daily basis. She is a rising star in the field of quantitative methods and has much to contribute to the area of survey research.”

Quoting the Faculty

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“This process of making digital documentaries offers students the opportunity for dynamic and creative ways of learning. It is engaging for the students as they learn to source historical documents and develop their own historical narratives, all within the artistic boundaries of a new technology—an exciting challenge for most students.”

Kathy Swan, Assistant Professor Department of Curriculum and Instruction

“Over the years, we’ve focused so much on how to change the children [with autism] to get them to fit in. We need to do as much or more work in trying to get the people around the child to understand the child’s perspective.”

Lisa Ruble, Associate Professor Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology

“This kind of research can be most informative for parents and guardians. They can help to make things happen for their child in the schools, provide the home environment that best supports the child’s overall development and involve their child in community activities that enhances their academic performance.”

Lynda Brown Wright, Associate Professor Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology

“Overall, this research is particularly exciting because it may have a direct impact on people with MS, but also on people with a number of other chronic conditions, the treatment of which also may be described in terms of this framework of short-term barriers but long-term benefits.”

Malachy Bishop, Associate Professor Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling

“Since the first semester, the results have shown that students who complete EPE174 are retained at a 20-30 percent higher rate than those students in the same academic situation who don’t take the course.”

Jane Jensen, Associate Professor Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

“Early research has demonstrated that children’s early experiences in preschool and their transition to school has lasting impacts on their overall school success. This work provides evidence-influenced strategies to help programs and families better support children through this process.”

Beth Rous, Associate Professor Department of Education Leadership Studies

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You can use it [mapping of a baseball player’s swing] as a teaching tool with nearly immediate feedback, but we are still restricted to laboratory or practice situations. With an advanced version of the system, you could take an image in the third inning of a game and make the correction in the fifth inning.”

Robert Shapiro, Professor “We want a model that is inclusive, where those with cognitive disabilities go to the same classes and programs that everyone else goes to.”

Belva Collins, Professor Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling

“The University of Kentucky has been very good to us. UK recognizes obesity research is an area where we can be a leader, and that provides a wealth of opportunity for us to excel in this area.”

Jody Clasey, Associate Professor Department of Kinesiology and Health Promotion

Department of Kinesiology and Health Promotion

2008 Research Briefs University of Kentucky College of Education

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