IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) was initially passed in 1975 by Congress to help those students who suffer from some kind of disability. It was amended in 1996 and again in 2004.
It is estimated that more than 6 million children fall into that category; they receive special services that allow them to participate successfully in regular and special classrooms. But there are millions more who have not been diagnosed and/or discovered, or who simply do not qualify even though they are in desperate need of specialized help.
There are two types of help available to those students according to the extent of their disability or disabilities. Yes, some students have more than one; for example, I have a 15 year old female student who suffers from severe hearing loss, speech disorder and mental retardation. However, the most common disability is without a doubt SLD or Specific Learning Disability. SLD is determined by comparing the child’s performance on several tasks with his actual potential. If the discrepancy is more than 15 points in any given area, for example reading comprehension or mathematical calculations, the student is classified as SLD.
The help is categorized as either Accommodations and/or Modifications. The first has to do with the way teaching is delivered to the student, for example giving him/her a written skeleton of the topic covered that day. The second is actually changing the contents of the lesson to make it more accessible and understandable. For example, the student may be given a word bank with simple explanations that are easier to understand. The main purpose is simply to level the playing field with the other students who do not have a disability.
Many parents are however bewildered by the technical terms used by the schools to explain what is being done to their sons or daughters who suffer from SLD or other learning problems. There are many good sites they can refer to and find answers to their questions. Of course, you can email me with your questions and I’ll be more than happy to try and answer every doubt to the best of my ability.
As a teacher in the special education field, I have discovered that many classroom teachers not only do not understand the concept of Learning Disability, but also reject the presence of challenged learners in their classroom. It is true that not all students with disabilities can function adequately in the general classroom; they can learn much more in special settings. But that is true only for the extreme cases, such as the young lady mentioned above who was diagnosed with three different problems.
I have worked as an inclusion teacher for 6 years, which means that I am present in the classroom to help those challenged students follow and understand the regular teacher. It is essential that I work closely with the regular teacher in coordinating our teaching strategies. It has been shown that special education children function much better when they are given the opportunity to work with other students their own age in a regular classroom. It not only helps them learn the core skills needed in life, Math, Science, English and Social Studies, but also the social skills that are essential in reaching a certain level of success in the community.
The strategy of including another teacher in the regular classroom may be an inconvenience for some regular teachers. Sometimes there are clashes between the two due mostly to incompatible personalities, which of course results in learning deficiencies for the students. Some teachers are insecure; others fear that the inclusion teacher will report their inadequacies to the administration. But the inclusion strategy is here to stay and schools must take into account the teachers’ preferences when pairing them. Unfortunately, very few schools actually give the necessary importance to the inclusion process to make it a success. The only people hurt as a result are the learning challenged students and that is unacceptable.
By: Jacques Sprenger
Posts Tagged ‘Reading Comprehension’
The Future of Challenged Students
February 27th, 2010Opening Mental Doors
February 18th, 2010
When I first met Jose as a junior in high school, he had spent his first two years in resource (special education) classes where the teachers are specialized in addressing different types of learning disabilities (LD). LD is a very inclusive term that characterizes thousands of challenged students whose main difficulty lies in reading comprehension and/or math calculations. Jose was a very slow reader who had trouble understanding the concepts described in his textbooks. Needless to say, his self-esteem was very low and he often experienced severe mood swings from elation to total despair. He was sure that he could never graduate.
Acquiring Concepts
Teens usually acquire second degree conceptualization during puberty, building on the first degree concepts obtained at a very early age that we can call conceptualization of concrete objects. Piaget, the famous Swiss biologist whose research on the development of intelligence established a cornerstone upon which the whole cognitive theory is built, named the ability to remember objects the “Internal Representation System” which occurs according to the scientist between the ages of 18 and 24 months. In other words, a child that age begins to remember the toy even when it has been hidden under the rug for example. The baby doesn’t need to see the object to “know” that it exists. What seems to be so obvious for adults is actually a tremendous feat that will eventually culminate in our higher order of thinking or second degree conceptualization. As an example, if we ask the question ‘What is life?’, a child 8 or 9 years-old will usually respond in very concrete terms, such as ‘The opposite of death’ or he may actually be stumped for a answer. Now ask a teen between 15 and 18 and you will get a much more sophisticated answer.
Closed Door
Unfortunately, for some teens, that second degree of conceptualization never opens. For some reason, and that it the case for Jose, some adolescents remain at the childhood level of concrete concepts or ‘Internal Representation System’. Some argue that low levels of intelligence prevent some people from passing to the higher level; others claim that these youngsters were never exposed to adequate stimuli as children and that too much television did not allow for the practice of concept forming offered by the written text. Thus, whatever the reason, the door to higher order of thinking remained closed. Schools struggle to tailor instruction to such students, even though the curriculum is the same. Resource classes are smaller, usually between 6 and 10 students, and the teaching strategies must take into account the learning disabilities. There is however a trend to eliminate special education classes and mainstream challenged students into regular classrooms. This would eliminate the stigma of being separated from regular students, an emotional problem that led Jose to an ‘I don’t care’ attitude.
Opening Other Doors
As I started working with Jose in his junior year (he had been promoted to a regular class), I noticed that the transition was extremely difficult for him. My role as an inclusion teacher consists mainly in working with special education teens as a support for the regular teacher. This requires a close cooperation between the two instructors so as to make sure that students like Jose are not left behind. Both teachers must employ special strategies acquired in training courses throughout the year. But in order to motivate students like Jose who feel totally inadequate, teachers have to open some emotional doors that have been closed as defense mechanisms: “If I say I can’t do it, maybe the teacher will leave me alone.”
We have to find the key that will open these doors and that requires the establishment of trust with the youngster. One tactic that has worked well for me is humor, the kind type. Once I had managed to make him laugh, often at my own expense, I had broken through his resistance. Another one is sharing a passion, for example a sports team, a famous athlete or some kind of non-academic activity. In Jose’s case, we both discovered that we loved soccer: He favored Chivas (a Mexican team) and I favored America (a classic rival). We spent hours outside of class (of course) discussing the merits of each team and thus a bond was formed that transcended the considerable difference in age and culture.
Graduation At Last
Even though Jose will not go to college, he is quite capable of taking a 2-year technical course which will offer him a chance to be productive and successful. He finally graduated this year and had trouble believing that he was walking on the dais to receive his diploma. This success will do more to boost his self-esteem than any word of encouragement I may have provided over the last 2 years. He knows that he can achieve his goals because he has learned to plan according to his skills and potential. There are many Jose’s out there who need special attention and that is the main role of special education teachers.
By: Jacques Sprenger
