STUDENTS WITH PROFOUND MENTAL AND PHYSICAL DISABILITIES NEED MORE THAN PAPER AND PENCILTO BE SUCCESFUL IN SCHOOL. Heather Centaure As a Special Education Teacher, who has taught students with profound physical and mental disabilities for eight years, my greatest concern is the inability of many students with profound mental and physical disabilities to participate to their fullest potential in school. Several key factors contribute to this including poorly designed school programs, a lack of functional curriculum, and more specifically is the lack of students being placed in functional supportive positions during classroom instruction. Functional supportive positions as defined by Utley includes, “The position chosen must provide the student enough postural support to (a) normalize Tone, (b) minimize interfering abnormal movements (e.g., associated reactions, extension), (c) facilitate goal-directed movements (e.g., hand, arm, or head movements to activate a switch), and (d) allow the student to concentrate his or her efforts on participation in the activity instead of on maintaining body posture. This position also must (a) match the target behavior, (b) be similar to the position that peers without disabilities use for the activity, and (c) not interfere with the student’s functional vision and hearing abilities” (Utley, 1994 as cited in Smith, Gast, Logan & Jacobs, 2001, p. 136). To achieve this functional positioning “many students require therapeutic
Special education teachers make a conscious decision to work on a daily basis with students who display various disabilities. Some of the disabilities include autism, negative social and emotional behaviors, mental retardation, multiple disabilities, mobility disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, as well as students who suffer from being blind and deaf. When these disabilities interfere with the daily educational activities of a child, the child is in need of the valuable opportunities provided in a self-contained classroom.
The right of entry to education resources is more than uncomplicated admission to a college. The right to use means to provide students with the devices they will need to be victorious in higher learning. Students with a recognized disability ought to be no omission. In reality, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, “ensure that all qualified persons have equal access to education regardless of the presence of any disability.” Objective replacement, class waivers, and revision of classroom management, testing and course necessities are all illustrations of behavior to supply access for the learner with a disability. A break down to the creation of such practical adjustments can place schools in breach of federal and state statutes, ensuing expensive fines.
“One of the essential roles of special education teachers is coteaching and working with other professionals, as well as communicating with family members and between special education teachers and other school-related professionals(Vaughn & Bos, 2015, p. 114)”. With the importance of a least restrictive environment special education and general education teachers are working together in a classroom with varying levels and abilities of learners. It is vitally important to have an effective relationship between the two teachers while developing and implementing lesson plans for learners with special needs. The physical space and dynamics of the classroom should fit the needs of the students and the established procedures should ensure a highly functional environment. Importantly, educators need to communicate to families “encouragement about what they can do at home and about an effective plan for providing instructional supports for their child(Vaughn & Bos, 2015, p. 114)”.
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
Children with disabilities need to be recognized as individuals as well as be valued for the people they will grow to be. In the classroom the growing process can be difficult to achieve depending on the nature and severity of the disability. Not all children will be served by full inclusion, some students have disabilities that require medical attention or physical facilities such as specially equipped bathrooms, ramps or elevators that may not be found in the traditional school building. For example, a child with severe cerebral palsy with severe limb constriction, lack of bowel control, inability to feed themselves and confined to a wheelchair, inclusion could cause more harm than good. This student requires medical aid to care for physical
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.
Traumatic brain injuries, physical disabilities and sensory impairment issues can cause difficulties for students in school. However, just because an individual has this type of a disability this doesn’t mean that they are unable to function in a general education classroom. Many times these students have a mild level of impairment. Because of this, the individual only requires a few supports such as a resource teacher or technological resources to be successful at school. An example would be a student with cerebral palsy, arthritis or other physical problems. These students are capable of learning at the same rate as peers. In addition, students may have mild hearing or vision problems, but are still intellectually proficient. These
Monitoring posture and breaking bad habits that affect the integrity of your spinal health is difficult. Once formed, these habits can result in many spinal curvature disorders that can last a lifetime. For those with disorders such as scoliosis, there is a need to develop good spinal habits to alleviate the symptoms of their disorder. Although Physical Therapists and movement experts are a viable solution to teach proper body mechanics, patients often forget or have difficulty assessing their own habits effectively when they leave therapy.
Students with Neurological Disabilities can present unique challenges in our classrooms, both for teachers and the student. Using one of the specific disabilities mentioned in the chapter, develop a plan for the classroom teacher to begin their accommodation of that student in their classroom. Refer to page 203 (Bennett, Dworet,Weber) to assist you in your answer. Keep in mind that having a support person (Educational Assistant) in the classroom does not take away the classroom teachers responsibility for developing an educational program to be carried out in conjunction with those support staff.
I am extremely in favor of inclusion of students with disabilities. Inclusion can be defined as an option in which the education of a child is taken into consideration. For example, it involves the students with disabilities pursuing most or all of their education within an ordinary school setting with their other classmates that do not have disabilities. Inclusion has many objectives, but the most important objective of inclusion would definitely have to be in that it is a program that supports children with special needs having equal educational conditions. Inclusion attempts to accomplish this by giving those students various resources that will help them succeed in school, such as greater access to the general education curriculum.
In today’s educational environment, all students expect to receive the same level of instruction from schools and all students must meet the same set of standards. Expectations for students with learning disabilities are the same as students without any learning difficulties. It is now unacceptable for schools or teachers to expect less from one segment of students because they have physical disabilities, learning disabilities, discipline problems, or come from poor backgrounds. Standardize testing has resulted in making every student count as much as their peers and the most positive impact has been seen with the lowest ability students. Schools have developed new approaches to reach these previously underserved students while
Recently, CAI has become an acceptable instructional strategy to provide several academic outcomes for at-risk students and those with disabilities. Even though there has been research on the effects and implications of CAI on students without disabilities, there is limited research evidence about the effects of CAI on students with disabilities.
The modern classroom has many challenges that face it. Shrinking budgets, less parental involvement, higher expectations, and growing class sizes, just to name a few. If this list was not daunting enough you also have the special needs students that have an array problems in your classroom that need specialized attention, lessons and seating. There are many forms of diverse learners from students who suffer from ADHD to physical disabilities to students with autism to ones that are bullied in school. There are so many things going on in our students lives we sometimes forget they have lives, pressures and disabilities that affect their performance and attitude in our class that have a profound impact on how they learn. For this paper I
The key to any successful school district is the administration. Teachers essentially provide structure, organization, and the background of a child’s future. To educate students with learning disabilities, it is essential that the staff has the training and resources needed for the appropriate people, place, and time (Lazarus) (What is Inclusion, 2001, n.p). It is unrealistic to expect that regular education teachers will always be aware of the latest research or be able to readily adapt the school's
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