Prior research has discussed high school counselors’ role in students’ experience, but counselors’ understandings of their work and of students has received little commentary. We interviewed counselors in a high-poverty, low-performing urban school district in which two structural elements shape how counselors make sense of their work. First, counselor “success” is contingent on convincing students to act in (what schools see as) students’ own best interest, and many students do not do so. Second, resource constraints severely limit planned one-on-one counseling. We find that counselors see students as both victims of crushing circumstances and as agents actively undermining their own opportunities, as holding ambitions misaligned with performance and as vulnerable to despair. Counselors’ strategies follow from these conceptions: building self-efficacy, emphasizing the importance of goals, and nudging plans toward realizability while maintaining hope. We discuss how counselors cope with the rarity with which they experience professional “success,” given student outcomes.

Numerous investigations have demonstrated means of assessing preferences among students and adults with disabilities. In contrast, there has been little attention on preference identification among young children. We evaluated a preference assessment with 7 toddlers and preschoolers with disabilities in inclusive programs. First, identification of toy-play preferences was compared across three assessments that varied in amount of toy-play behavior sampled and time required for implementation (5-, 10-, and 15-session assessments). Second, results of the assessments were compared to staff opinion. Results indicated the most efficient assessment identified preferences that generally were consistent with preferences identified with the less time-efficient assessments. Results also indicated staff reports did not consistently indicate which toys were played with most frequently. Overall, results demonstrate an efficient means of determining preferences among young children with disabilities in inclusive settings. Results also suggest that staff opinion should not be relied on exclusively to determine preferences.

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