Glenn Research Fellow Caitlin Cooper Schneider was honored at last week’s Council for Exceptional Children Annual Conference with two awards for her work on sexuality education for students with disabilities. Schneider, a doctoral student at BU Wheelock, received the Teacher Education Division’s Kaleidoscope Student Research Poster Award for Literature Review and the Kaleidoscope Award for Better Poster Design.

Schneider’s literature review, “Examining Sex Educators’ Beliefs and Practices in Meeting the Needs of Students with Disabilities,” assesses how sexuality education for youth with mental disabilities is currently taught, including barriers to teaching, and to make recommendations for its improvement.

“I study…an incredibly understudied topic that has huge implications,” explains Schneider. “I’m proud that I was able to get another person excited enough about this topic that they thought that I deserved this award.”

Schneider’s research at BU Wheelock focuses on the intersection of legal, social, and educational influences on sex education, and their impacts on students with disabilities.