Effective Teaching Strategies for Students with Intellectual Disabilities

First, Rather than focusing on the child's learning deficiencies, emphasize and reward the child’s strengths and encourage them to find new interest and hobbies. Second it is important to meet with the child's teachers, tutors, and school support personnel to understand performance levels, and attitude toward school. After the student has been evaluated they are now eligible for special education services. Special education services are provided to student to work with a team of professionals, including your child's teacher, to develop an Individualized Education Program. The individualized education program is created to provide a summary of child’s current education and future goals within education. Children with learning disabilities need to know that they are loved and that they are not dumb. They need to know that they are intelligent normal people who just have trouble learning because their mind process words and information differently. Students with learning disabilities are just like every other student they just need more focus on certain learning

Two researched based journal articles offer therapy techniques which benefit students with intellectual disabilities. The first article, describes a functional curriculum which aims in strengthening practical skills students with ID need to become independent in society such as shopping, cooking, directions, and ordering food (TEXTBOOK). During the therapy session with the two young girls, the SLP went over map reading and how to understand directions. According to the SLP, the exercise was aimed to assist the two students in case they were ever lost and needed to follow directions on a map. Unfortunately, those who have intellectual disabilities have difficulty with obtaining employment, adjusting to their life post schooling, and living independently. Thus, including these functional techniques in middle school can help them effectively transition into adult life. The second technique known as instructive feedback can teach students with intellectual disabilities more information about a target topic (TEXTBOOK). An example of instructive feedback begins with a student reading the word “directions,” the teacher gives positive verbal reinforcement and then adds information to the word stating, “if you get lost you can ask for directions from a map to find your way home.” According to ------, studies have shown that instructive feedback helps students with ID learn additional information without overlooking target information (Olivia Loughery, T., Betz, A. M., Majdalany, L. M., & Nicholson, K. (2014). Using instructive feedback to teach category names to children with autism. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 45, 425–430.) As teachers, displaying positive reinforcement and instructive feedback helps all students with embedding categories and relationships in their stored

When learning about Intellectual Disability (ID) it is important to explore the subject with people that work with students of ID. The (SPED) special education team placed together for a student in order to determine the students individual education plan (IEP). This SPED team consist of: Special Educator: Mr. Richard Franklin, General Educator: Ms. Rama Smith (Spelling, Literature), Speech Therapist: Mrs. LuDonna Martin, Principal: Mr. John Denton, Community Organizer and Retired Teacher: Mrs. Nelda Clements and I as the Special

These students have normal and sometimes above normal intelligence but they struggling with problems that hinder them from learning and progressing like other students. More recently it is thought that a student with learning disability could show one of more than 500,000 combinations of cognitive or socioemotional problems (Heward, 2010). Learning disabilities cause students to struggle with so many things in school such as academics, emotions, and socializing and learning disabilities also cause students to have problems away from school. Students with learning disabilities may experience problems with learning to read or comprehend what they read, learning to do math or develop mathematical reasoning, learning vocabulary, spelling or the written language, and learning to get along with others and exhibit appropriate social skills. They may also have problems with paying attention, hyperactivity, and sometimes behavior,

The research in this paper is to discuss strategies used to teach students with severe disabilities in mathematics. “According to the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, (AAIDD) Intellectual disability is characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills. The diagnoses of the disability should come before the age of 18 (Westling, Fox, & Carter, 2015).” Mathematics is a core subject area that can pose a challenge for a large amount of students in America, and especially those with severe disabilities. “According to a study, only a quarter of students with disabilities that

Diagnostic/Prescriptive/Evaluative (DPE) process is a type of instruction according to Thomas (1996) that helps students with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) accomplish the best chance of success and independence, when accompanied with life goal planning, and goal instructional analysis (GIA), which is a fundamental part of the DPE teaching. The DPE process takes lesson planning, breaks down instruction into manageable segments specialized for the individual student, which provide the necessary educational flexibility to ensure successful outcomes. The first step of this process is to diagnose the student’s skill level along with his/her strengths and weaknesses, and then devise or prescribe a lesson path, where student progress can be

Bayes, D. Heath, A. Williams, C. & Ganz, J. (2013) Pardon the Interruption: Enhancing Communication Skills for Students with Intellectual Disability. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 00400599, 20130101, Vol. 45, Issue

Intellectual disabilities (ID) in education require proper planning, collaboration, communication, accommodations, modified lessons, and detailed individualized instructions. Intellectual disabilities affect many aspect of a person daily life with a variety of emotional, mental, social, and physical characteristics (Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, n.d.). Intellectual disabilities are also known as mental retardation (National Institute of Health, 2010). When educating students diagnosed with intellectual disabilities individual education plans (IEP) play a large role in the education process and ensure disabled students are meeting goals, reaching academic

The articles describe these learners as having difficulties with abstract thinking and categorizing as well as applying their learning to new situations. There is difficulty with the transfer of information. Use of language is concrete. These students often can only follow single step directions and their sentence development is simple rather than complex. It also points out that there are behavioral and emotional issues that accompany this disability. This population often has emotional outburst due to frustrations and lack of understanding of the expectations. Socially, they may struggle to maintain friendships and do not always understand social cues and rules. “Extensive research evidence reveals that the social skills of students with mild intellectual disabilities tend to be improved when they are provided with appropriate supports and included in general education classroom with age appropriate peers” ( McLeaskey, Rosenberg ,Westling,

Student A is a 7th grade student with an intellectual disability. This student receives small group instruction in math, reading, writing, and social skills. He is included in the general education population for science and specials classes. This student has IEP goals and objectives in math, reading, writing, and behavior in his IEP. This error pattern analysis will focus on his math computation abilities.

Parents send their student to school with the expectation that they will desire to become doctors, lawyers, educators, and perhaps even the President one day. Most educators open their doors on the first day of school longing to receive a classroom bursting with scholars. However, this is not always the circumstance. For this is not a perfect world and there are children who have disabilities and it is one’s duty to stay prepared to educate them too. Therefore, students with these special requirements such as, emotional and behavioral disorders, physical and health impairments, and traumatic brain injury need their educators to know effective teaching strategies based on research, how to develop their self-confidence and develop their self-support

Teachers will undeniably continue to face the challenge of being able to teach all students who have learning disabilities. They will continue on the journey in researching the availability of treatments, services, and new theories. There are numerous tools available in teaching; however, discovering exactly which tools will work for all with some type of learning disability, will continue to be a work in progress. Teachers will persist in expanding their education on how to effectively teach special needs children, because of the desire and passion they have for their

It is important to identify a child’s disability as early as possible in order for the student to get proper intervention services and set up with an individualized learning plan. Differentiation of instruction is important for all of the children in the classroom, not just those with a disability. All students have different learning styles, and all students have the subjects that they excel at and the subjects that they struggle with. “Teachers need the ability to alter instruction to meet student needs, interests, and abilities (Tomlinson, 2001).” One of the most difficult areas in teaching is easily classroom management, even the easiest going students have days of challenging behavior. “Students at risk of disabilities or who have other disabilities engage in a wide range of challenging

Teachers provide students with valuable information, strengthen the thinking skills of our children, and equip students with the advanced knowledge and superior skills required to thrive in a diverse range of industries. However, certain mental disabilities can impair the ability for students to process information and learn material in regular classroom and curricula settings. A significant challenge confronting the United States is the excessive rates at which overaged special education students drop out of school. Educational systems can encourage overaged special education students to remain in school by providing efficacious tutorial services, customizing programs to accommodate

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