An evidence-based, online professional development curriculum aims to help teachers recognize, respond to, and prevent bullying toward students with disabilities.

The curriculum highlights the value of teachers building a strong rapport with their students, noticing changes in student behavior as potential warning signs, incorporating social skills and communication skills into classroom learning objectives, as well as practicing behavior-specific praise in a way that showcases students’ strengths and encourages collaboration with peers.

While the online curriculum has recently been successfully received and implemented by 200 elementary school teachers in a pilot study in the southeastern region of the United States, the researchers hope that, with additional federal funding, the online curriculum can be soon accessed by teachers nationwide.

“Teachers often tell us they don’t feel prepared to address bullying issues at school, especially those complicated cases involving at-risk youth or kids with disabilities,” says Chad Rose, an associate professor in the University of Missouri College of Education and Human Development.

“Students with disabilities often get bullied more than their peers without a disability. For example, kids with a stutter or kids that may walk or talk differently than their neurotypical peers often get mimicked, which could actually be a violation of federal civil rights laws related to disability-based harassment.”

Given the busy schedules of teachers, Rose and colleagues created an evidence-based online curriculum that can be completed in four hours, compared to most bullying-related professional development courses that take place in-person for a full day and don’t always include evidence-based information. The trainings are broken up into different modules, covering how to recognize and respond to bullying, as well as overall strategies to improve classroom climates in a way that reduce or prevent bullying in the first place.

Read the full article about students with disabilities by Brian Consiglio at Futurity.