Learners with
Exceptionalities
Learners with exceptionalities
• More than 6.5 million students are diagnosed as having
exceptionalities – learning or emotional needs that result in
requiring special help to succeed & reach full potential
• 95% general education classrooms (2009)
• Gifted and talented – learners with the abilities at the upper
end of the continuum
• Intelligence – ability to acquire & use knowledge, solve
problems & reason in the abstract and adapt to new situations
in our environments
• You will encounter students with various degrees of intelligences
Howard Gardner
• Multiple Intelligences – overall intelligence is composed of
eight relatively independent dimensions
• Linguistic - words/language
• Logical-mathematical – reasoning/patterns
• Musical – sensitivity to pitch, melody, & tone
• Spatial – perceive the visual world accurately
• Bodily-kinesthetic – fine-tuned ability to use body/handle
objects
• Interpersonal intelligence – other people
• Intrapersonal intelligence – knowing one’s self
• Naturalist – knowing the physical world
Emotional Intelligence
• Ability to manage our emotions so we can cope with our
world and accomplish goals
• Students who can manage their emotions:
•
•
•
•
Happier
Better adjusted
Better able to make & keep friends
Better students – focus their emotions of the learning task
• You can help!!!
• Openly talk about emotions & discussing strategies for dealing
with them
• Literature – read & discuss stories –
• Goals – students to become aware of their emotions , how
they influence behavior & learn how to control them
Learning Styles
• Our preferred way learning, studying or thinking about the
world
Special Education & the Law
• Historically, students with exceptionalities – separate classes
• U.S. Congressed passed Public Law 94-12, the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1975
• Guarantee of a free appropriate public education for all students
with exceptionalities was central to this act
• This act (combined with later amendments)
• Guarantees an appropriate education for all students with
exceptionalities
• Identifies the needs of students with exceptionalities through
assessment that doesn’t discriminate against any students
• Involves parents in decisions about each child’s educational
program
• Creates an environment that doesn’t restrict learning
opportunities for students with exceptionalities
• Develops an individualized education program (IEP) of study for
each student
Special Education & the Law
• The move toward inclusion
• Main-streaming – practice of placing students with
exceptionalities in general education classrooms, often
for selected activities only, was their first effort
• Usually without adequate support & services
• Unsatisfactory
• Inclusion - a comprehension approach to educating
students with exceptionalities that incorporates a
total, systematic and coordinated web of services
• Support of special educators to assist you students
Individualized Education
Program (IEP)
• Individualized Education Program (IEP)
• An assessment of the student’s current level of
performance
• Long and long term objectives
• Strategies to ensure that the student is making
academic progress
• Schedules for implementing the plan
• Criteria for evaluating the plan’s success
• Provides sufficient detail to guide general education
classroom teachers & special education personnel
Individual Family Service Plan
(IFSP)
• Provides the same type of planned care as an IEP, but targets
developmentally delayed preschool children
• 2 big differences:
• Targets the child’s family & provides supplemental services to the
family as well as the child
• Includes interventions & services from a variety of health &
human services agencies
Categories of Exceptionalities
• Learning Disabilities
• Difficulties in acquiring & using listening, speaking, reading,
writing, reasoning or mathematical abilities
• Communication Disabilities
• Interfere with students’ abilities to receive & understand
information form others & to express their own ideas or
questions
• Intellectual Disabilities
• Limitations in intellectual functioning & problems, as indicated by
difficulties in learning & problems with adaptive skills
(communication, self-care, & social interaction
• Behavior Disorders
• Display of serious and persistent age inappropriate behaviors that
result in social conflict, personal unhappiness, & school failure
Students who are Gifted &
Talented
•
•
•
•
Over 3 million students (slightly more than 6%)
Early identification & instructional modifications
Programs have declined over the years
Acceleration – keeps the curriculum the same but allows
students to move through it more quickly
• Enrichment – provides richer and varied content through
strategies that supplement usual grade-level work
• Failure to provide for:
• Gifted underachievers
• Social & emotional problems linked to boredom & lack of
motivation
You as the TEACHER
• Identify students you suspect have exceptionalities
• Collaborate with other professionals
• Modify instruction to meet students’ needs
• More demanding, but one of the most rewarding experiences
Identify students you suspect
have exceptionalities
• You work directly with them therefore you are in the best
position
• Discrepancy model
• Response to Intervention (RTI) model of identification
• Early screenings
• What should be done to correct it
• Teacher adapts instruction to meet student’s need
• Working with student one on one
• Small-group work
• Developing strategies (reading material aloud)
Collaborate with other
professionals
• Involves communication with parents and other
professionals (special education specialist, school
psychologists & guidance counselors) to create the best
environment for students
• Work closely with special education teacher to ensure
learning experiences are integrated into the general
education class
Modify instruction to meet
students’ needs
• Not than different as far as teaching method – you simply do it
better
• Small steps, detailed feedback on home work
• Calling on students as often
• Carefully model solutions to problems
• Provide outlines, charts, rubrics
• Increase time
• Use technology
• Teach learning strategies
• Provide additional support
• SUCCESS – essential for struggling learner
• Positive reinforcement & support
• Peer tutoring
• Home based tutoring
Assistive technology
• Set of adaptive tools that support students with disabilities in
learning activities & daily life tasks
• Required by IDEA