Competency 003 (Student with Disabilities and other special needs) Flashcards
Competency 003
The special education teacher understands and applies knowledge of procedures for planning instruction for individuals with disabilities.
Planning Instruction for Special Needs Students
-Utilizing student IEPs to assess student strengths and needs is a good place to start when planning instruction for special education students. Having a good understand of the TEKS will help develop IEPs that can be used effectively to plan instruction.
Read the Current Levels of Performance of the PLAAFP section of the IEP to begin to identify a student’s strengths and weaknesses:
-Analyze student needs and strengths in relation to instructional demands, the setting in which instruction will take place, the time allotment, and the resources that match instructional objectives
-Determine which instructional techniques, materials, and activities address student IEP goals most effectively
-Simultaneously build motivation through engaging instruction
Effective Methods for Implementing Accommodations in the Regular Education Environment
The accommodations should be as simple as possible. Try using accommodations that require the least amount of time and effort to have the desired, positive effect. When simpler accommodations do not produce the desired effect, try more complex or increasingly more complex method of accommodations.
-It is easy to confuse instructional accommodations when the issues is behavioral on nature. For example, if a student isn’t finishing work on time, determine whether that student requires extra guidance, adding additional time, or behavioral intervention because he or she is choosing to not complete the work requirements. Sometimes a student’s behavior doesn’t stem from disability.
-Special Education teachers can also help to provide accommodations within regular education setting by working with regular education teachers to plan accommodations. Some are quite simple and can be effective for more than one student. For example, you can accommodate students with attention problems by asking them to sit near the front.
Instructional Accommodations
Instructional accommodations are generally defined as changes that are made to help successful learning in most educational environments. Instructional accommodations are often confused with instructional modifications. Instructional modifications are changes made to the content that students are learning, so that the content becomes different somehow.
-Do not necessarily have to be identified on IEPs
Targeted Instruction
Targeted instruction should be defined through IEP objectives. This type of instruction occurs typically in a small group setting and focuses on areas of weakness that are identified through achievement, cognitive assessments and skill-based assessments.
Instructional Strategies/Techniques
Use concrete materials and visual aids with instruction
-Include real-life models and life-skill tasks to illustrate concepts and practice skills. Examples can include the following:
-Measure ingredients in a recipe
-Determine the number of gallons of paint needed to paint a bedroom
-Read a map at a shopping mall and navigate to the store of choice
-Use a multisensory approach to introduce or practice concepts. Visual, auditory, or kinesthetic approaches work very well.
-Repetition of key concepts
Strategies for Addressing Learning Needs in the Regular Education Environment
Relate class to personal real-life skills and experiences
-Limit expectations to two or three concepts per unit
-Evaluate projects rather than doing traditional testing
-Plan and teach with student strength’s in mind
-Use concise directions when teaching
-Incorporate flexible learning groups
-Preteach concepts, information, and key vocabulary using a variety of graphic organizers
Strategies for Students with Writing Needs
Permit students to use a tape recorder to dictate writing
-Permit students to use computers for outlining, word processing, spelling and grammar check
-Use guided notes for note taking
-Use collaborative writing activities
-Use flowcharts for writing ideas for prewriting
-Use multimedia alternatives to traditional writing
-Don;t penalize for errors in mechanics and grammar, unless that is the objective being taught
Strategies for students with Reading Needs
Allow students to subvocalize quietly reading aloud
-Teach self-questioning, previewing, searching for context clues, predicting, and summarizing comprehension strategies
-Summarize key points when reading notification
-Identify nonfiction features such as main ideas, details, sequencing, cause/effect, and compare/contrast
-When reading nonfiction, teach story elements
-Allow highlighting of texts, passages, keywords, or concepts
-Preview any vocabulary
-Use prereading and post reading strategies
Strategies for Students with Expressive Language Needs
Use visuals
-Use built-in time for processing
-Use cues for speaking in public
-Phrase questions with choices embedded in them
-Use choral reading or speaking
-Use rhythm or music
-Allow practice opportunities for speaking in small group settings to encourage success
Strategies for Students with Retaining and Accessing Information Needs
Teach concepts and information use a multisensory approach (tactile, visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and so on
-Teach frequent repetition of key points
-Teach instructional segment
-Color-code to demonstrate key concepts and relationships
-Use mnemonics as a memory tool
-Sequence information into categories and lists
-Organize information visually, showing connections between key ideas and concepts
Strategies for Students with Organization Needs
Teach how to use planners and calendars
-Teach time management skills when working on long-term assignments for projects
-Teach how to use different folders, notebooks, and planners and maintain these in an organized fashion
-Teach how to keep storage spaces organized
-Use daily assignment planner for homework, due dates on assignments, upcoming tests or quizzes, and for recording important events and dates
Strategies for Students with Attending Issues
Use preferential seating
-Measure on task behavior and plan accordingly
-Incorporate movement within a lesson
-Teach self-monitoring strategies
-Incorporate breaks
-Provide reminder cues or prompts
-Reduce assignment length or break down assignments into achieveable segments
Teaching in Alternative Settings
Alternative education programs have been proliferating in this country, especially in the past 15 years.
-Half of all districts with alternative with alternative programs and schools reported that any of the following was a sufficient reason for transferring at-risk students from regular school
-Alcohol and drug use: 52 percent
-Physical attacks or fights: 52 percent
-Chronic truancy: 51 percent
-Continual academic failure: 50 percent
-Possession or use of a weapon other than a firearm: 50 percent
-Disruptive verbal behavior: 45 percent
-Possession or use of a firearm: 44 percent
Models of Alternative Schools
Restructured Schools: These relate closely to current charter or independent schools. While they are not designed for at-risk students who struggle in mainstream public schools
-Disciplinary Programs: These schools and programs utilize a mix of highly intensive, daily behavior modification and close, person student-teacher interaction. Typically, violent or highly disruptive students are sent to these schools and programs
-Problem-Solving Schools and Programs: Problem-solving schools and programs are positive and nonpunctive. These schools and programs provide assistance for unsuccessful mainstream students by providing a network of academic, social, and emotional programs and instruction. Often, academic remediation and rehabilitation are the key tenets of these programs.
Qualifications for Teaching in Alternative Programs or Schools
All teachers in any alternative setting must be highly qualified. This includes any juvenile centers, correctional institutions, and any other alternative placement under the state law.
-The teacher must hold a bachelor’s degree and has demonstrated subject-matter competency in each of the academic subjects in which the teacher teaches
Positive Behavioral Strategies for At-Risk Students in Alternative Programs and Schools
Opportunities to forge relationships with caring adults, coupled with engaging curriculum, prevent discipline problems
-Discipline this is fair, corrective, and includes therapeutic relationship building opportunities reduces the likelihood of further problems
-Strategies that maintain appropriate social behavior make classrooms and schools safer
-Positive solutions address student needs, environmental conditions, teacher interactions and matching students with curriculum
Collaboration with Occupational and Physical Therapists
The roles of a SPED teacher within this model would involve:
-provide information before and after a student’s therapy
-help the therapist devise a therapy schedule
-participate in facilitating in-class therapy sessions
-plan and conduct activities that promote the student’s motor, sensory, and perceptiual skills while in the classroom setting
-positive feedback to the therapist as needed
-learn proper procedures for lifting students with physical impairments as well as proper techniques for positioning students appropriately during classroom activities
-exchange information and expertise with therapists to help plan future therapy sessions, give and receive feedback
Visual processing problems
Arise when students have difficulty processing visual input
Dyslexia
Difficulty processing language
Dyscalculia
Difficulty with math
