Assessing the Effectiveness of Individual Education Plans for Childhood Cancer Survivors

Summary

Neurodevelopmental outcomes in children treated for cancer involving the central nervous system (CNS) provide educators with new challenges with regards to classification, monitoring, and intervention in the regular or special education classroom setting. Recommendations resulting from serial neurodevelopmental evaluations for these children often do not overlap with traditional special education recommendations commonly included in Individual Education Plans (IEPs) for children with congenital or genetic learning problems. The investigators currently do not know whether or not school-based treatment for learning problems, based on the child's IEP, incorporates recommendations made based on a neurodevelopmental evaluation appropriately. In addition, it is not clear whether or not the recommendations that are included in a child's IEP have any beneficial outcome on the child's learning and academic achievement over time. The purpose of this project is to examine the relationship between neurodevelopmental outcomes, recommendations for intervention, special education services and accommodations included in a child's school IEP, and outcome for the child following implementation of the IEP. The study has two major specific aims:

1. To quantify the clinical and educational contributions of recommendations resulting from neurodevelopmental evaluations and the subsequent development of IEPs.

Hypothesis 1.1: Higher concordance between recommendations made based on neurodevelopmental evaluations and criteria written into children's IEPs will be associated with more positive academic outcomes (i.e. maintenance or improvement in academic skills).

Hypothesis 1.2: Children who have higher concordance between criteria written into their IEPs and academic services actually received will show more positive academic outcomes than children whose IEP criteria and academic services are less concordant.
2. To evaluate an intervention that will improve academic outcomes for children treated for cancer.

Hypothesis 2.1: Children whose IEPs are monitored more frequently will show more positive academic outcomes than their peers whose IEPs are monitored less frequently.

Conditions

• Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
• Central Nervous System Tumors
• Lymphoma

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Annual Intervention Group

Parents/caregivers and the teacher of participants will be asked to evaluate the effectiveness of the child's IEP once per academic calendar year. The evaluation is done through the use of an IEP Questionnaire developed for this study. This questionnaire addresses the child's academic performance, progress, and adherence to the IEP developed.

BEHAVIORAL

Quarterly Monitoring of IEP

Parents/caregivers and the teacher of participants will be asked to evaluate the effectiveness of the child's IEP four times per academic calendar year. The evaluation is done through the use of an IEP Questionnaire developed for this study. This questionnaire addresses the child's academic performance, progress, and adherence to the IEP developed.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• American Cancer Society, Inc.

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Miami

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Daniel Armstrong, PhD · University of Miami

• Maria L Goldman, PsyD · University of Miami

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

6 Years

Max Age

12 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2003-01-31

Primary Completion

2010-10-31

Completion

2010-10-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations