The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) provides school personnel with information on the amount and quality of evidence for educational programs, policies, and interventions. Over a decade ago, the WWC expanded their review procedures to include single-case research methods. Originally included as pilot standards, the recent updates elevated single-case research to a more prominent role for informing the development of evidence reviews and practice guides. While we applaud the removal of the pilot designation, our review of the updated procedures revealed concerns that, in our estimation, systematically favor studies based on nonexperimental criteria and inadequately address many issues and challenges with single-case research methods while overlooking other important concerns. As such, we are concerned that the current procedures will reduce the quality of information drawn from single-case research and disseminated to school personnel. In the following commentary, we describe these concerns and provide solutions-based recommendations for strengthening the standards and review process.

Using Handheld Applications to Improve the Transitions of Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders: 10.4018/978-1-4666-5792-2.ch007: While the knowledge that has been gained from previous studies has accelerated the understanding of the difficulties facing individuals with Autism Spectrum

In peer-mediated interventions, nondisabled peers are systematically taught to engage children with disabilities in positive social interactions, with the aim of helping the latter acquire new, targeted social skills. Peer-mediated interventions have been used to enhance the social and play skills of young children with disabilities for many years and continue to be commonly employed with these children in classroom settings. Because of the frequency of use, it is important to know the level of empirical support for this instructional practice. Our objective for the overview reported here was to evaluate systematic reviews of peer-mediated interventions for young children under the age of 5 years with or at risk for disabilities. We conducted an overview of reviews, a method used for evaluating existing research reviews. We searched electronic databases and other sources for published articles presenting the results of reviews of studies on peer-mediated interventions meeting our criteria. We then synthesized the findings across reviews to formulate conclusions on the interventions’ effects and thus to make practice recommendations. We located 10 reviews in which 47 studies with 114 young children with a variety of developmental disabilities were discussed. In these studies, peer-mediated interventions typically occurred in natural settings such as inclusive classrooms and children’s homes. The findings from all 10 reviews suggested that peer-mediated interventions were effective for improving the social development of young children with disabilities. Over 80% of the 47 studies displayed positive findings. Three of the 10 reviews conducted a meta-analysis, and all three meta-analyses showed robust results for the peer-mediated interventions. Thus, the use of a peer-mediated intervention for children under the age of 5 with or at risk for disabilities is strongly supported by empirical research, and therefore it should be considered an evidence-based practice for young children with disabilities. Finally, peer-mediated interventions’ results were most robust when used with preschoolage children in inclusive (natural) settings.