Introduction
The pilot study was conducted at three middle schools with eighth grade students
who have learning disabilities. The students were divided into a treatment and control
group. Those in the treatment group were taught with a curriculum designed to improve
their self-advocacy skills. The curriculum included lessons on learning disabilities,
accommodations, options beyond high school, and preparing for the transition IEP
meeting at the high school. The treatment was administered in the Basic English
classrooms at two of the middle schools. One school had two Basic English classes for
eighth graders, so one was used as a control group and one as a treatment group. The
other two schools had only one class of eighth grade students in Basic English, so one
school was used as a treatment group and the other as a control group. Students with
learning disabilities in the general education English class from two schools were part of
the control group, as they did not need to be in a Basic English class to be involved in the
control group. Chi-Square tests were run to compare the results of a pre-intervention
questionnaire given to both the treatment and control groups to determine if placement in
Basic English versus general education English made a difference in self-advocacy skills
and no significant differences were found.