Including Students with Significant Disabilities

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Including Students with Significant Disabilities
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Agenda

• Introduction
• Things to Consider
• Curriculum
• Types Access
• Adapting curriculum
• Strategies
• Language Arts
• Math

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Things To Consider

• Individuals with significant disabilities are
  able to learn useful academic skills
• Never underestimate learning potential
• Self-fulfilling prophecy
• Different levels of academic learning
• Consider both function and fun
• Motivation
• Why teach academics at all?
• More meaningful lives
• Independence - not dependence

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Things to Consider

• Special Education is a service, not a place
• Least Restrictive Environment
• interpreted differently nation and statewide
• the environment that the IEP team decides will
  have the least negative impact on a students
  progress in school
• Inclusion is not just where a student is placed
• physical and academic supports are key
• support from sped staff is key

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Curriculum
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Curriculum Types

• General academic curriculum
• general education content and/or environment
• Regular adapted curriculum or streamlined
  curriculum
• supported instruction, adapted curriculum
• parallel curriculum emphasizing only selected
  components
• Functional or limited academic curriculum
• Focuses on skills a student will need to function
  in current and future environments
• Generalization important for future
• May be community based instruction
• Can be embedded in the classroom academic
  curriculum

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Curriculum Considerations

• Relationship between IEP and curriculum
• IEP written to functional and meaningful skills
  and goals
• Curriculum focuses on individual goals and
  objectives from IEP
• Access to general education curriculum
• A right, not a privilege, under IDEA 1997
• Adaptations, modifications and supports

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Functional Curriculum
These areas should be addressed in each students
curriculum and IEP

• Communication
• Motor Skills
• Social / Behavioral
• Skills for a Healthy Life
• Functional Academics
• Leisure / Recreation
• Community Skills
• Vocational Skills

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Adapting Curriculum
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Tools To Use

• IEP Matrix
• collaborative planning tool
• Discrepancy Analysis
• student and classroom focused
• includes strengths as well as challenges

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IEP Matrix

• Write goals / objectives down
• shorten them, make them operational
• focus on meaningful / functional activities
• think about keeping track of progress

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Example IEP Matrix
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Discrepancy Analysis

• Class Activity
• Class Expectations
• Target Student Expectations
• Supports needed
• physical, social, prompts

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Example Discrepancy Analysis
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Instructional Strategies
for Language Arts
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I cant guarantee that every child with a
disability will learn to read and write just
because you provide accessible print materials in
the environment, but I can guarantee that if you
never provide children with disabilities the
opportunity to learn, they wont
--David Koppenhaver
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Reading
There are a variety of techniques and strategies
that you already use. When teaching students with
disabilities, an eclectic approach can utilize
the strengths of the learner and the technique.

• Sight Words
• Phonics
• Balanced Literacy
• Whole Language
• Language Experience Stories
• Symbol Reading

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Sight Words

• Select meaningful words
• Select age-appropriate words
• Select words based on interest and need
• Use Unit-based Vocabulary
• Consider Match-Select-Name technique
• Teach in various contexts for generalization

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Phonics

• Choose meaningful letters
• name, family names, address, etc.
• Teach phonemic awareness
• Embed phonics in reading instruction
• Word Families
• Alliteration and Rhyme
• Alphabetizing
• Make it fun

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Comprehension Skills

• We want students to read for meaning and
  understanding.
• Comprehension must be carefully planned and
  taught.
• Need to use a variety of methods to help students
  express what they have read.

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Writing

• Everyone is a writer
• Theres much more to writing than mechanics
• Writing is part of balanced literacy
• Writing is functional and recreational
• Many ways to write
• Incorporate the writing process

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Writing Mechanics

• Students deserve the opportunity to be taught
  handwriting skills.
• Not all students will master handwriting
• Teach name writing, but dont get stuck there
• Name stamps and initials are okay
• Sensible Pencil

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Instructional Strategiesfor Teaching Math
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Basic Concepts

• Quantity
• Time
• Money
• Measurement

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Teaching Quantity

• Use concrete, age appropriate manipulatives
• Embed opportunities in everyday activities
• Use games, computers and other activities
• Use visual supports
• Explicitly teach computation tricks
• Support with rhymes and other language
• If warranted, use one to one instruction

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Teaching Time

• Matching time on clock to activity schedule
• Picture sequencing activities
• Use games, computers and other activities
• Visual supports
• Classroom schedule, calendar, etc.
• If warranted, use one to one instruction
• Adaptations
• Digital clocks and watches
• Talking clocks and watches
• Personal schedules

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Adapting Materials

• Its inevitable-You will have to create and adapt
  material for many of your students
• HyperStudio
• IntelliTools
• Picture It
• Boardmaker
• Digital and scanned photos
• Scissors, glue and magazines

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Final Thoughts

• No two students are the same, regardless of
  learning ability
• Kids are more alike than different, however
• Academic learning includes social and vocational
  components
• Adapting curriculum is an art and a science
• Students learn better together
• students with and without IEPs

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Questions?
www.sesa.org