Education For Students With Disabilities

Inclusion is beneficial for all students in a general education classroom, not just the students with disabilities. Inclusion teaches all students understanding, compassion, respect, and acceptance of others. Students with disabilities are able to learn from peers and teachers alike. Inclusion also boosts a student’s confidence because they feel accepted within the classroom, the school, and the community. Inclusion leads to more success in achieving the goals set forth in the IEP. The Common Core State Standards go hand in hand with inclusion because they address the knowledge and skills

In the educational world, there are countless programs, curricula, strategies, manipulates, and resources for teachers to pull from in order to aide in the teaching of concepts and learning of students. Whatever method(s) a school or district has deemed best practice, or adopted as their curriculum, tend to be the instructional practices or resources utilized the most by those teachers. Additionally, teachers will also have preference to teaching styles, resources, and materials they use for their students. While autonomy in any classroom is important to students’ academic growth, one must also be careful to select and implement instructional with great intention and purpose. Consideration to students needs is equally important as the mandate of teaching standards and demonstrating proficiency amongst students. Even when teaching non-disabled students, it can be time consuming and overwhelming to plan lessons so just how much more is involved when planning for students with significant disabilities (SD)? Better yet, what are appropriate instructional strategies to use for students with SD? Regardless of the instructional setting, these are considerations that must be given when teaching students with SD in order to maximize their learning opportunities to learn

Students with special needs need deserve the same education general education students are presented with. The philosophy of “ Disability Inclusion” concentrates on creating a safe, loving, and effective learning environment for students who suffer from physical, learning, and behavioral disabilities. When a student with disabilities is placed in the same environment as a non-disabled student, the results show wonderful improvement. When we are able to discover the strength of the student we are able to see just how much the student can improve in an inclusion classroom. Disability Inclusion not only sets a new beginning for an equal education of special education students, but it allows for more interaction with the child, and a more hands-on assessment.

The teacher can encourage this inclusion by teaching the students, parents, and other community members about negative stereotypical attitudes about students with disabilities by avoiding negative words, such as “disabled”, or “crippled”, or “handicapped” and to promote positive ideas about disabilities into class work, the student’s play time and other activities. To further ensure that the classroom is promoting equality for the child with the disability, the teacher should incorporate an inclusive curriculum mindset, by adapting the lessons, learning materials and classroom to suit the needs of all the different types of learners including the child with the disability within the classroom.

Wehmeyer (n.d.) explains that there has been what he describes as three waves of educational practices for individuals with disabilities. In short, these waves, or generations, have moved the ideas and opinions of educating children with disabilities from the use of a functional model to one that now focuses on instruction in the general education classroom. The third generation, educations current focus, first “presumes a student’s presence in the general education classroom” (Wehmeyer, n.d., para. 21). This is not to say that functional skills are no longer necessary or that providing a more restrictive setting is no longer needed. As mentioned earlier, IDEA (2004) requires that individual with disabilities be provided a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) and also requires that they are provided access to the general curriculum. What this change in practice does is move the idea of educating children with disabilities with their non-disabled peers from simply providing access to, first, including them in the general education setting (Wehmeyer, n.d., p. 23). What most people do not realize are the positive effects that this has on the rate of learning for children with

From your perspective, what exactly, are we talking about when we say “special education curriculum”? At first I was a little confused about this question. I was thinking about special education curriculum in the terms of an adaptive curriculum. After reading the articles form this module and locating my own article, “special education curriculum” refers to what educators are doing to make the general education curriculum accessible to students with disabilities. Although there have been many changes related to the education of students with disabilities, there is still a noticeable gap in achievement between students without disabilities and students with disabilities (Aron & Loprest, 2012).

Within the article "Promoting Inclusion, Social Connections, And Learning Through Peer Support Arrangements", Carter et al. (2015) speak about why inclusion is important, as well as ways to help benefit students with disabilities in inclusion classrooms. They discuss the jobs of paraprofessionals and also how peer support can go a long way in helping students, especially those with severe disabilities. By focusing on both academic and social skills, this plan will help students with disabilities learn how to mingle with fellow classmates and help them figure out about their own preferred learning style.

Inclusion in classrooms can further benefit the communication skills and sense of community among students with and without disabilities. “Children that learn together, learn to live together” (Bronson, 1999). For students with special needs, inclusive classrooms provide them with a sense of self-belonging. The classrooms provide diverse environments with which the students will evolve feelings of being a member of a diverse community (Bronson, 1999). For students without disabilities, they learn to develop appreciation of the diversity. The classrooms provide many opportunities for the students to experience diversity and realize that everyone has different abilities that are unique and acceptable. From this realization, the students will learn to be respectful for others with different characteristics (Bronson, 1999). Inclusion in classrooms is beneficial to all students’ individual and community growth.

Through this course, the visit to The Day School, and the field observations, I have learned a great deal about teaching students with severe disabilities. This course has helped me gain a better understanding of the characteristics and challenges students with severe disabilities face. Additionally, I have learned theories, evidence-based practices, and strategies that should be used in the instructional process.

Many children have had learning disabilities for many years. Each year more and more of these children are being helped. Schools are working to improve their special education programs and to have all kinds of students work together in the same classroom. The practice of inclusion was started because educators felt that special needs students would achieve more in traditional classrooms with non-learning disabled students than they would in special education classes. However, research findings suggest that there really is no difference in academic achievement levels for special needs students when they are placed in regular classrooms.

For years children with special needs were ushered off to separate classes and schools. Children with special needs have the right to attend classes with their same aged peers in the same classroom with support. Students with special needs deserve the same opportunities they would have if circumstances were different. Inclusion gives those students with special needs the chance to be part of the community; able to form relationships outside of the family unit. All students benefit from inclusion; students with disabilities develop social skills and develop friendships while non-disabled students learn tolerance and acceptance.

Schooling for the disabled requires a special environment—one that only a few teachers have the gift to care for. Instead of looking out for the child’s

As a future educator, it is essential to note the critical issue that has been floundering about throughout the school system, the insufficient educational support for disabled students. This critical issue is not only present in the United Stated, but it has also moved beyond our boundaries. Whether a school system simply does not provide the necessary services a student requires, there is a lack of movement toward a least restrictive environment, or a school simple does not feel the need to implement necessary changes that would create a more inviting placed for education, the school system (in my opinion) is providing insufficient educational support for the disabled students. Through the development of educational improvements such as

According to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, students with disabilities should be placed in a “least restrictive environment.” One of the main ideas of this act was to improve the learning experiences of students with disabilities by giving them learning opportunities outside of a special education classroom. The number of students with disabilities being placed in their general education classrooms is increasing more and more each year. The U.S Department of Education’s 27th annual report to Congress on the implementation of The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2005) indicates that the number of students with disabilities in general education classrooms has risen to almost 50 percent. This is about a 17 percent increase from the 1997 U.S

One of the main goals of education is to include students with learning disabilities in general education. This means that it is critical for general educational teachers to meet the needs of a diverse group of students with various learning styles and performance levels. Peer tutoring is an instructional learning strategy that allows educators to assist a diverse group of students. (Hughes & Fredrick, 2006). Peer tutoring is not a new concept, but it has been empirically shown to be an effective one. Educational policies such as inclusion have made public school classrooms more diverse. According to recent literature, peer tutoring increases academic performance and improves social skills in students with disabilities. A great number of general education teachers’ lessons are designed for children of average academic performance. This means that children that perform below or above average have needs that are not met. Learning with the assistance of peers through tutoring not only helps students with social skills, but also improves the classroom so it caters to the academic needs of a broader range of children (Fuchs, Fuchs, & Burish, 2000).