The Different Types Of Disabilities

There are many different reasons that students may need additional assistance to be successful academically. Students may have a difficulty reading, or English may not be their primary language. They may have suffered a traumatic brain injury or may have been born with Autism. Students might even have difficulty socially interacting with teachers and peers or due to some physiological impact in their young lives might have other emotional impairments. No matter what the cause for the disability, special education services and interventions are vital to success of these special students.

“Disability is a natural part of the human experience and in no way diminishes the right of individuals to participate in or contribute to society. Improving education results for children with disabilities is an essential element of our national policy of ensuring equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities.” (Department of Education, nd.).

In the recent years, there has been an increase with the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2007), 1 in 150 children are said to be autistic and according to many states ASD is seen as an epidemic. The problem with these numbers is how to teach these children affectively in the best academic environment. In 2005-2006 it was reported that 31% of autistic students were placed in general education classrooms and around 40% in separate classes, typically referred as autistic support classrooms (U.S. Department of Education, 2007). Characteristically, the student will be placed in an autistic support (AS) room because the general education room is not the least

The article that I am critiquing as part of my exploration of research topics is called Literacy for Students with Severe Developmental Disabilities: What Should we Teach and What Should we Hope to Achieve? The article is from the journal Remedial and Special Education and the authors are from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and West Virginia University. I chose this article because I am interested in researching the best methods to teach literacy to students with special needs, and this article caught my interest.

According to scholastic article, Impact of Setting and Instructional Context for Adolescents With Autism (2010), “Providing students with autism with an appropriate education is a growing challenge. The prevalence of autism is increasing rapidly, with as many as 1 in every 150 children diagnosed with the disorder (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2007)” (Kurth and Mastergeorge, 2010, 36).

Those individuals who have a disability and are not able to read or write is discussed throughout this journal article. Education that is inclusive is suppose to guaranteed to those students who are disable. They have the right to be in a program within the school that offers them support. Resources offered in the community school aren’t given to adults, so children need to take advantage of these services being offered. Yes, education as a child is very important, but at the same time adults need to be given the chance to be provided with services in the community that will help them learn. Disable adults need just as much thorough effort to the rise of being able to have the readiness to the easy services as it pertains to literacy and proficiency.

The two options for identifying students with disabilities are RTI model and the IQ-Achievement discrepancy model. The RTI model is a multi-tiered approach to identifying students with disabilities. With this approach the amount of students who are identified as having a learning disability has decreased because of the support students receive at different tiers and it eliminates inadequate instruction as the reason for reading problems. Universal screening and high quality teaching is done for all students. Students who show that they need additional help receive tier 1 services where frequency and intensity increases. Students are monitored and receive research based instruction in the general education classroom. Some students may still struggle and have to receive more intensive and frequent service. Those students will receive supplemental support from an educational professional. Tier 3 services are provided to students who still struggle and need even more intensive service. Students may also qualify for special education services. The IQ-Achievement discrepancy model is used to determine if a disability is present. Standardized tests are used to eliminate low intellectual ablity as a determining cause for reading problems. With this model, a professional assess whether there is a discrepancy between a student’s scores on an iq test and scores obtained from areas

Therefore, one might have students with the above disabilities however, discouragement does not have to be their ‘word of the day’. Education is key, for when one learns teaching strategies based on research to add to what they already know then they are encouraged. Become a teacher who never stops learning because student’s need educators who are a step ahead of the

Autism was added as a disability category to the act in 1990 and the latest revisions and improvements to the act made in 2004. Implementing the act has caused a change in roles for special education teachers, general education teachers, and paraprofessionals. Author of Exceptional Children William Heward (2013), explains "the law reflects society's concern about treating people with disabilities as full citizens with the same rights and privileges all other citizens enjoy" (p. 16). IDEA is comprised of six major principles including zero reject, nondiscriminatory evaluation, free appropriate public education, least restrictive environment, procedural safeguards, and parent participation and shared decision making (Heward, 2013). Inclusive classrooms fall under the least restrictive environment category. Heward (2013) details least restrictive environment as follows:

Growing, developing and learning are the facts of life for all children. Each day children are faced with many new concepts and various challenges. Can you imagine how it feels for a child to face not only new challenges life has, but to face these challenges while living with a learning disability? These challenges are met not just when they begin school either. Students suffer from learning disabilities from the moment they begin learning, not when they start school. Learning disabilities are real and they affect millions of people. “One such disability that affects over approximately 15 percent of the total American population is dyslexia” ( Nosek 5).

Students with disabilities require programs and special attention that is generally overshadowed by labels. Students with special needs face an ever-growing range of challenges that few educators can address. Disability has many labels… dysfunction, retardism, disorders. They all come down to one thing which is that humans label differences and that is where we have gone wrong. Research has found that “75% of students with learning disabilities will have underdeveloped social skills” as compared to students of normal or average intelligence. (Darrow

In 2002, the President’s Commision on Excellence in Special Education report stated that many students are “placed in special education are instructional casualties and not students with disabilities. They noted that almost half of all children in special education were identified as having a learning disability, and this group has grown since 1976. 80% of those students with learning disabilities are there “ simply because they haven’t learned how to read.” Thus, many children receiving special education because they weren’t taught to read, and few close the achievement gap (President's Commision on Excellence in Special Education, 2002).

Most students with disabilities (approximately 85% or more) have disabilities that may create barriers to their learning but do not prevent them from learning to the same standards as other students, if they receive appropriate supports and accommodations (*citation reference 2).

I focused my reading this week on the topic of disabilities in the classroom. I chose to do this as I witnessed such examples in Mrs. Low’s classroom this past week and then read the chapter from Educational Foundations. The first piece of advise from chapter six that really stuck out to me was how they noted that students do not all learn the same way, especially students with disabilities and other learning differences. The author made it clear that students with learning differences are common and it is not as difficult to help such children succeed academically, despite what was thought

Education, for both youth and adults in the United States has been labeled to have extreme importance. The United States is blessed to have the right to a free education and access to resources to help develop further education. This right is not restricted to those with a learning disability or special need. Students found to have a special need (i.e. autism, down syndrome etc.) are given the same opportunity to be educated. By attending schools with children who have these challenges, it is noticeable that specific students are treated differently based on their condition, specifically, autism. These students should be educated based on the extent of their condition, but should not be denied the opportunity to be with their peers. Being