Including all Children

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Including all Children

• Leu and Kinzer
• Chapter 12

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Definition of Exceptional Children

• Children who deviate so much from the average
  that they require special attention.
• The Borderline Child or Slow Learner--sometimes
  labeled At risk
• Gifted Children
• Rubin, D. (1993). A practical approach to
  teaching reading. NY Allyn Bacon.

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Special Needs - Slow

• At-risk students
• Mildly handicapped students

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At-Risk Students

• Children born to circumstances or socio-economic
  conditions not conducive to success in school (e.
  g., poverty, homelessness, violence)
• Children physically handicapped by
  social/environmental factors (e. g., prenatal
  drug addiction, fetal alcohol syndrome)
• Children emotionally handicapped (e.g., physical
  and emotional abuse)

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Common Myths about At-Risk Children

• Risks are restricted to inner-city and minority
  students
• The effect of at-risk factors on learning,
  behavior, and projected development is uniform

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Mildly Handicapped Children

• 1. Learning disabilities
• 2. Behavior disorders
• 3. Mild mental retardation
• 4. Speech/language disorders

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Legal Implications for Teachers of Special Needs
Children

• (1973) Public schools to address needs of
  children with substantially limiting physical
  and mental impairments
• (1975) Least restrictive environment
• (1986) Special services mandated down to 3 yr.
  olds and incentives for providing education for
  them

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Legal implications (cont.)

• (1990) Priority identification of special
  populations of at-risk children to be included in
  special needs programs (e. g., crack babies,
  homeless children)
• (1990) Review and revise laws, practices or
  policies that act as a barrier to enrollment,
  attendance, or success in school of homeless
  children and youth
• (1991) Individuals with Disabilities Education
  Act (IDEA)--free and appropriate education

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Curricular Implications for Teachers of Special
Needs Children

• Identify behavioral triggers and avoid them
• Consider contexts of problem behaviors
• Use home-school connections to solve the problems

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Specific Reading Problems

• A deficit evidenced by actual school achievement
  and intellectual capacity--requires that
  intelligence is considered a valid measure of
  potential (is there agreement on how to assess
  intelligence?)

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• Poor performance based on grade placement
• A deficit evidenced by a discrepancy between
  reading and verbal capacity--requires that
  listening comprehension serve as a measure of
  verbal aptitude and a way to isolate decoding
  problems
• Dyslexia--assumes brain cognitive defect

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Curricular Adaptations

• Textbook modifications
• Advance organizers
• Tape recorded texts
• Task modifications
• Task differentiation
• Differentiated responding

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Instructional Techniques

• Vary modes and methods of presentation
• Use peer-mediated instruction
• Peer tutoring
• Peer consultation
• Make instruction useful in general situations
• Interesting
• Relevant

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Special Needs - Gifted

• Marland said Gifted and talented children are
  those identified by professionally qualified
  persons who by virtue of outstanding abilities
  are capable of high performance. These are
  children who require differentiated educational
  programs and services beyond those normally
  provided by the school program in order to
  realize their contribution to self and society.

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Areas of Giftedness

• General intellectual ability
• Specific academic aptitude
• Creative or productive thinking
• Leadership ability
• Visual and performing arts
• Psychomotor ability
• Physical activity

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Gifted Children will have some of the following
Characteristics

• Superior general intelligence
• A desire to know
• Originality
• Common sense
• Will power
• Perseverance
• Desire to excel

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Characteristics (cont)

• Self-confidence
• Prudence and forethought
• Better than average skills in some or all of the
  following specific areas
• Social
• Emotional
• Physical
• Intellectual

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Teaching Gifted Children

• Cater to their interests
• Provide for their needs
• Give work appropriate to ability
• Avoid unnecessary drill practice
• Provide abstract exercises

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Teaching Gifted Children (cont)

• Respect them as individuals
• Provide opportunity for interaction
• Provide opportunity for risk-taking
• Use high level thinking skills
• Provide speech stimulating activities

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Can this attitude be changed?

• In American education, we have tended to . . .
  disallow special gifts. By this refusal to
  recognize special gifts, we have wasted and
  dissipated, driven into apathy or schizophrenia,
  uncounted numbers of gifted children. If they
  learn easily, they are penalized for having
  nothing to do if they excel in some outstanding
  way, they are penalized as being conspicuously
  better than the peer group . . . (Margaret
  Mead, Sep. 1954. The gifted child in the
  American culture today. Journal of Teacher
  Education, pp. 211-212.)

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A Final Thought on Special Needs

• Please dont label kids. Because we are all
  gifted, average, and slow, depending on the
  task at hand. (Harry Forgan)