Best, J. W. & Kahn, J. V. (2002). Research in education. (9th ed.) Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Subjects in the study will be drawn from a local clinic serving autistic children which offers them educational programs as part of their general services. All data will be analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Once data are analyzed, they will be used to answer the initial research question of the study which was, "What teaching strategies will be effective in enabling me to minimize non-verbal, autistic students' exhibition of aggression?" The measure of aggression in the proposed research will be Shapiro's (2000) Aggressive Behavior Checklist which can be used by teachers to assess a wide range of both verbal and non-verbal aggressive behaviors. There is a specific form just for teachers to rate students. According to Shapiro (2000), the instrument can be used to provide a multidimensional picture of the aggressive behavior of students between 11 and 13 years of age, and can be applied to both regular and special education children. The instrument contains norms and utilizes Likert type scaling for a total of 17 aggressive behaviors. Shapiro reports moderate to good reliability data with test-rest values averaging 0.69 and internal consistency coefficients at .91. Criterion validity was tested and found to be acceptable. Stringer, E. T. (1999). Action research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. In this particular design, a baseline measure of sample subjects' aggressive behavior will be gathered prior to implementation of the floor time teaching strategies. The teaching strategies will then be implemented. Two weeks later, an assessment of children's aggressive behavior will again be taken. At this time, teachers will be asked to provide feedback as to which instructional strategies appeared to be most effective in reducing aggressive behavior. Another two weeks of floor time will then be given to children after which they will again be |
