Many strategies and interventions exist in the education of young children with disabilities. One area of intervention is that of social interaction, including social skills instruction, peer interaction strategies, and play skills. Interaction and social skill strategies for use with children with and without disabilities for the purpose of increasing social interactions between children with and without disabilities in educational settings is an area many educators of early childhood special education strive to find in an effective and easy to implement format. Several strategies from research are presented in this article. Only strategies that were demonstrated to be successful through reported research are discussed. Strategies are identified according to their ease of implementation and effectiveness.

Universal design for transition (UDT) refers to an approach to instructional planning, delivery, and assessment that bridges the gap between teaching academic and functional/transition goals. It builds upon the principals of universal design for learning (UDL) assuring that instructional practices are designed to meet the needs of diverse learners through the use of multiple means of engagement, expression, and representation. UDT assures that instruction includes multiple transition domains, multiple transition assessment, multiple resources/perspectives and student self-determination to support academic achievement and the transition to adult life. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the use of a UDT approach to instructional design and delivery had the results predicted when used in a high school social studies class. A single subject multiple-treatment design was used to determine the impact of each instructional approach. Quantitative data was gathered through observation and survey of 6 students at the secondary-education level. The findings indicated that students with disabilities were more interested and engaged and had better academic achievement when a UDT approach was used compared to the other two approaches. Implications for UDT being an effective evidence-based approach to instruction and assessment, as well as future research on UDT are presented.

Self-determination is now widely recognized in the literature as a best-practice procedure in the education of students with disabilities, particularly regarding facilitating students' transition from high school to adult life. But what do teachers know about how to facilitate student self-determination? In this study, special educators and university professors were surveyed to determine what teachers know about self-determination, what the primary source of their information about self-determination is, what strategies related to facilitating student self-determination teachers have heard of and/or used to facilitate student self-determination, and how important the core competencies of self-determination are in teachers' own lives. In addition, university professors were asked what methods and strategies they teach in their courses that are related to facilitating student self-determination. Implications for teacher education, research, and dissemination are discussed in this article.

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