Teaching Strategies For Children With Disabilities

There were three strategies that stood out of me in my observations; no modification, extended time on tests/homework, and bringing in the special education teacher. I thought only one of these strategies was a good strategy in the classroom. What I took away from this is all the bad strategies teachers use when working with exceptional students. The first strategy was no modifications. I decided to go back to my old high school to see if anything had changed within the special education program. The first teacher I observed had a few students with special needs throughout the day. As the day went on I began to notice the students with exceptionalities were not getting any help in the classroom. Each student was given the same worksheet and the same amount of time to complete everything. I observed the teacher hand out a worksheet to each student and I got the see the worksheets. Each student received the same sheet and were all expected to complete it before the hour was over. This did not help the students that may have needed extra time to complete the assignment or one of the students who needed one-on-one help with each task they completed. This strategy was not acceptable in the general education classroom with students with exceptionalities in it.

In today’s world there are more and more children coming into the general education classes having a disability. More general education teachers have to take on a bigger responsibility than what they signed up for, but that is part of being a teacher. I feel as long as the teachers collaborate with each other they will be putting the student’s needs first.

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

I had the pleasure of interviewing Mrs. Elisabeth Brantley who is the Special Education Lead Teacher at Yorktown Elementary School, Yorktown, VA. She has 23 years teaching experience in the field of Special Education. Mrs. Brantley is sincere and I would describe her as a winning, warrior/advocate when it comes to meeting the needs of the students she serves. It is obvious that she implements many of the strategies used in our text. When teaching, it is important to have a strong educational team when searching for methods to ensure student success. Mrs. Brantley knows her students well, and as stated by Ackerman (2011), "a teacher who gets to know his or her students will recognize where assistance can be found and will be creative in utilizing the help of others. Though challenging, positive, intentional, effective, and explicit instruction is modeled regularly so student achievement is the result.

We need to adjust the classroom with hands on materials that are in reach for the child and fit their specific developmental aspects. Most importantly, we need to make sure they are included in the classroom and treated like the other students. This will help them social, emotionally, and physically. By having children with special needs in the classroom with those of general education, this allows the teacher to get training on ways to teach to all of the children and help them feel like one. Instead of pushing children with special needs off and into another classroom, it is important to keep them with the other children and allow them to grow and learn along with others. Teachers need to remember different approaches, time frames, and be flexible. Everyone learns differently and we need to be patient and understanding of the diversity among the students. The first and most important thing though is to make sure that the child is being seen by a professional or even having an aid in the classroom with them, this provides extra hands and different teaching approaches, to assure that all of the children are

“All children with disabilities must have an individualized education program (IEP), a free and appropriate public education, and be served in the least restrictive environment” (Esteves and Rao, 2008, p.1). Children whom have a leaning disability are looked at differently in society unfortunately, so we need to be there to help them learn that the negativity is not them. We need to help and support families and their children to understand we can help them be successful, it may take longer to get there, but what’s the rush after all we all learn on different paths and, levels. So why judge them if they need more time to process information, we can find avenues to assist them, which are parents like myself that have children in special education, it is just a classroom setting not a label that prevent them from being productive citizens, we need to be there resource as their educators, we not only educate the students, but we help educate the families to help their

All teachers dream of the classroom filled with fifteen tranquil, enthusiastic students, all with their note books out and pencils prompt for note taking. This is the classroom where everyone works together, at the same pace, and without any interruptions or distractions. This is the ideal classroom setting. The only problem with this picture is that it does not exist. Students are all different. Kids all learn different ways, and at varying paces. Both Physical and Learning Disabilities can hinder a child’s learning speed and hold them back from the rest of the class. It can be very difficult to identify a child with a learning disability because students can often be misunderstood and labeled as unmotivated and lazy. These students

in their ability to learn because of their disability. Prior to reentering the classroom, the teacher

Berry, the most challenging areas of special education are the times where you have to deal with so many kinds of disability each and every day. And the worst of the worse is facing the moments of lack of support. Sometimes if the school is facing financial deficits it goes on backs of the district teachers. The teachers’ salary cuts down and there is nothing they can do about it. I think that the most challenging area is the lack of support, which Mrs. Berry mentioned to me first. Teachers should have more attention and care from the government and school districts. It’s a very hard moment to think and see how unsupported you are when helping hundreds of students get educated to change the world later after you allow them to graduate and let them move on. Also, the teacher will be dealing with so many stressful students who just can’t get the idea that is trying to be understood by them. Or somethings the students just don’t want to learn and it’s the teachers’ job to make them learn no matter what are the reasons after all. I think that this is a very challenging situation when having to come up with a way that you can attract students in your learning. And not any students but special students where everything is harder than normal. We should not forget the behavior disability students, because when dealing with these students the job doubles. The first job is to control their behavior, and the second is to teach them what they are supposed to

In conclusion, people with disabilities is an important sector of our population and the rate is increasing in our days. In the United States the Federal Law of Special Education recommends and encourages to professionals to find and work with children with disabilities at early ages. It is imperative to implement early interventions to individuals with disabilities. One of these disabilities is the autism. As a special education teachers, we can use an augmentative intervention in order to help children with autism in their lack of communication skills. I would like to recommend the use of one of the most important interventions when we are talking about lacking in communication skills, PECS. Several studies have demonstrated that PECS is

In my opinion the education departments are not doing enough to encourage schools and explain to the teachers the benefits of inclusion to both the children with disabilities and the rest of the students (Ashman & Elkins, 2009). Children are our future and it is important that through inclusion they learn to understand that differences make us who we are. I think it also further teachers the message to booth the children and the rest of the community that of social justice which says just because your different doesn’t mean you don’t deserve fair treatment (Ashman & Elkins, 2009).

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

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

In every school proper accommodations should be set for the students. (“Transition Planning “6) . Not only knowing the needs of the children but also knowing how to inform curriculum planning helps on the relationship that happens at home and at school with our children. (Lightfoot 77).There is two acts the,” The No Child Left behind Act” in 2002 and the “Individuals with Disabilities Improvement Education Act “in 2004 these both acts state that children who have a disability have the access to general education curriculum. Unfortunately there are some children with severe intellectual disabilities where multi-level curriculum and instruction is no help towards them. Curriculum overlapping allows children to participate in a wide variety of age appropriate activities that

Being a special educator, there are different roles and responsibilities separate from a general education teacher. As a special ed teacher, you need to be able to be more flexible and open-minded when it comes to teaching. These students, whether in a self-contained classroom or an ICT class, will have such differing needs than their counterparts. While they may still have some same needs, most of them will be different and individual. Even though we may have several students with the same disability in our class, that doesn’t mean that we can treat them the same; each student has differing abilities that we must figure out individually. This is one huge problem that I see prevailing in schools today. Teachers tend to think that if a child has autism, they have the same issues and needs as another child with autism but this is not the case. One child might need headphones for noise-canceling features while the other child might be ok with sound but need more social interactions skills. The ability to discern what a child needs based on their own performance is a crucial aspect to supporting every student equally. As a special educator, we need to not only look at their deficits but their capabilities as well. To define someone by what they can’t do is such a negative point of view. If we go into the classroom trying to find what is wrong with a child, we may never notice what exceptional skills they may have. For example, in class when Mark Sarabian came to talk about the