Rural Survival. Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the American Council on Rural Special Education (ACRES) (23rd, Salt Lake City, Utah, March 20-22, 2003).

Overview & Synopsis

The American Council on Rural Special Education (ACRES) conference is the only national conference devoted entirely to rural special education issues; sessions encompass theoretical discussion, current research findings, and promising practices based on sound evidence. This proceedings contains 47 conference papers and poster presentations. Following an introduction and keynote address, the papers are arranged in eight strands covering at-risk students, collaborative education models, early childhood and early intervention, inservice education and training, preservice teacher education, technology, transition to work or postsecondary education, and other. The papers provide a rural perspective on various topics, including issues related to specific learning disabilities; discipline and behavior management; classroom inclusion practices; needs of rural caregivers of young children with disabilities; role and training of paraprofessionals in special education; autism and Asperger syndrome; recruitment and retention of rural special educators; development and delivery of online courses; descriptions and evaluations of various Web-based instructional strategies; teacher collaboration and teamwork; and collaboration between university departments of special education and rural schools. An author index is included. (SV)