July 13, 2012
Draft
Fidelity In Educational Programs for Students with Significant
Intellectual Disabilities
Lou Brown, Professor Emeritus
University of Wisconsin
A concert pianist played a beautiful song on a perfectly tuned piano in a sound
controlled recording studio. The music she produced was recorded on “state of
the art” equipment. Then it was copied onto a compact disc. The pianist took the
disc to her home and played the music she recorded. The sound she heard in her
home was exactly the sound she produced and heard in the recording studio.
This is an example of 100% or Perfect Fidelity. If the music she heard in her home
was slightly different, but close to the sound she produced and heard in the
studio, high but not perfect fidelity could be claimed. If the sound she heard in
her home was dramatically different from the sound she produced and heard in
the studio, low or zero fidelity could be claimed.
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (P L 107 - 110), The Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997 (P L 105 - 17), The Individuals with
Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (P L 108 - 446) and the U.S.
Department of Education (2005) required that students with disabilities have
access to grade level general education academic curricular content and
participate in district and state level accountability assessments. It was also
required that students with disabilities be assessed in the same grade level
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academic content areas as all other students and that the assessment strategies
utilized “mirror” those used with all other students. The major purposes of these
requirements were to ensure that students with significant intellectual disabilities
were included in statewide accountability systems and to encourage academic
achievement. It was hoped that if district and state level accountability was
required, instructional practices, academic achievement and educational
outcomes would improve. Finally, gains in academic achievement were to be
followed by financial and other rewards or sanctions. The absence of
demonstrated gains in academic achievement was supposed to result in the
reduction of subsequent resources (Harr - Robins, et al, 2012).
Requiring that educational achievement standards be the same as or closely
“linked” (High Fidelity) to general education grade level academic curricular
content was devastating for students with significant intellectual disabilities.
Consider the following.
Jonas, a student with significant intellectual disabilities, was in a high school
English class that was studying idiomatic expressions, the multiple
meanings of words, contained in Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”. The
curricular “linkage” made for him was to try to teach him to match a word
card to a picture of a tube of bologna (the luncheon meat) as well as to a
picture of inflated balloons (Kleinert, Kearns and Kleinert, 2011).
Wakeman et al. (2011) report that a student with significant intellectual
disabilities could be taught such “linked” History content as touching a card
with the word “constitution” printed on it in response to a teacher
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provided verbal cue when presented with four cards that contain different
words. They also provide the “linked” Science example of teaching a
student point to the core and the crust on a topographical model of planet
Earth in response to a verbal cue to do so.
Ahlgrim - Denzell, Rickelman and Clayton (2011) consider teaching a
student with significant intellectual disabilities to use a graphic illustrator to
sequence a series of pictures about the life of Paul Bunyan in chronological
order an acceptable “linkage.”
Courtade, Taub and Burdge (2011) suggest the “linkage” of having a
student with significant intellectual disabilities in a high school Science class
match a picture of a rock to an actual rock.
Are those skills “linked” to grade level academic curricular content? Yes. If we
were asked to list 1000 of the most important skills we need to teach students
with significant intellectual disabilities by school exit, would they be on our list?
No. Consider the “linked” grade level academic science skill of teaching a student
with significant intellectual disabilities to touch a rock when presented with a
picture of that rock in a high school Science classroom. Were measures of
generalization required or taken? No. Where else but in the Science classroom
would the student be required to perform the skill? We cannot think of one.
How often would he need to practice it so he would not forget it? Probably daily.
Would this skill be important in his post school life? No. Is there an alternative
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that would yield better returns on scarce and valuable educational resources?
Definitely.
Fortunately, each state is allowed to generate alternative assessment strategies
and alternative achievement standards for students who cannot participate
meaningfully in general education assessments, even with accommodations. In
addition, students with disabilities are still legally entitled to IEP’s and
individualized school to post school transition plans that address “additional” or
nonacademic needs and skills associated with their disabilities. Nonacademic
refers to needs and skills generally considered functional, social, motor,
vocational, communication, travel, shopping, personal maintenance, domestic
living, etc. This individualization mandate and the option to create and utilize
alternative assessment strategies and alternative achievement standards afford
legal license to engender reasonable departures from rigid and myopic adherence
to confining instructional content to that appropriate for more intellectually able
students. In short, the achievement portfolios of students with significant
intellectual disabilities at school exit should include meaningful grade level
academic and many other kinds of skills that allow them to live, work and play in
integrated society. Their education is too important to be reduced or confined to
the grade level academic curricular content appropriate for much more
intellectually able students.
Service Fidelity
There must be reasonable and clear relationships - High Fidelity - between the
services reported in the IEP that will be provided and the actual services being
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provided. 100% fidelity, in this context, means that every service promised in the
IEP is being provided in the ways they were promised.
Are there clear relationships between the services required in the IEP and those
that are actually being provided?
____ Yes
____ No
____ I cannot determine from information available.
If Yes, report the evidence that supports your judgment.
____ I read the IEP and he/she is being provided the services described therein.
____ I observed her/him at school and he/she is receiving all the services
promised in her/his IEP.
___
If No, provide the evidence that supports your judgment.
___
I read the IEP and he/she is not being provided the services required
therein.
___
She/he is being provided some but not all of the services required by the
IEP.
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____ He/she is being provided services required by the IEP, but not in the
appropriate amounts.
____
Curricular Fidelity
If the lowest intellectually functioning 1 - 2 % of students in a naturally distributed
school district experienced the exact same curricula as all other students, 100% or
Perfect Fidelity would be operative. Few, if anyone, would so require or
recommend. An important issue then becomes, “How far from the curricular
experiences offered students without intellectual disabilities can we depart and
still be in compliance with the letters and spirits of relevant state and federal laws
and administrative codes. We argue for substantial and individually determined
flexibility based upon the integrated post school outcomes wanted and the
individualized accommodations and related experiences needed to realize them.
If a skill is closely “linked” to general education grade level academic
curricular content (High Fidelity), important for a student with significant
intellectual disabilities and if she/he is capable of learning it, we should
attempt to teach it.
If a skill is closely “linked” to general education grade level academic
curricular content (High Fidelity), important for a student with significant
intellectual disabilities but she/he is incapable of learning it, we should not
attempt to teach it.
If a skill is closely “linked” to general education grade level academic
curricular content (High Fidelity), not important for a student with
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significant intellectual disabilities and she/he is capable of learning it, we
should not attempt to teach it.
If a skill is not closely “linked” to general education grade level academic
curricular content (Low Fidelity), important for a student with significant
intellectual disabilities and she/he is capable of learning it, we should
attempt to teach it.
Are there clear and reasonable relationships – High Fidelity - between grade level
academic curricular content and the actual instructional content to which the
student is exposed.
___
Yes
____ No
____ I cannot determine from information available.
If Yes, report the evidence that supports your judgment.
____ I examined the IEP of the student. He/she is supposed to be instructed on
the grade level academic curricular content he would be experiencing if not
disabled.
____ I observed the student in her/his classrooms. He/she is being instructed on
the grade level academic curricular content he/she would be experiencing if
not disabled.
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____ Her/his teachers have working knowledge of relevant grade level academic
curricular content.
____ The student is being educated in integrated chronological age appropriate
classrooms and classes. All who interact with him/her know how to modify
grade level academic curricular content for her/him appropriately.
____
If No, provide the evidence that supports your judgment.
____ I examined her/his IEP. He/she is not being instructed on the grade level
academic curricular content he would be experiencing if not disabled.
____ I observed the student in her/his classrooms. He/she is not being
instructed on the grade level academic curricular content he/she would be
experiencing if not disabled.
____ Her/his teachers do not have working knowledge of relevant grade level
academic curricular content.
____ The student is being educated segregated classrooms and classes. It is quite
doubtful that those who interact with him/her know how to modify grade
level academic curricular content for her/him appropriately.
____
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Report the percentage of the curriculum offered the student that is grade level
academic content.
____ 0 - 10%
____ 10 - 20%
____ 20 - 30%
____ 30 - 40%
____ 40 - 50%
If substantial departures from High Fidelity Curricular content are operative, are
they individually appropriate?
___
Yes
___
No
___
I cannot determine.
If Yes, report why substantial departures that are operative are acceptable.
___
___
___
If No, report why the substantial departures that are operative are not
acceptable.
___
___
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Fidelity of Objectives
There must be clear reasonable relationships between the objectives, stated in
the IEP and the actual instruction being provided. 100% or Perfect Fidelity, in this
context, means that instruction is being provided on every objective specified in
the IEP in the ways that were promised.
Are there clear and reasonable relationships between the objectives stated in the
IEP and what the student is actually being taught?
___
Yes
____ No
____ I cannot determine from information available.
If Yes, report the evidence that supports your judgment.
____ I read the IEP and he/she is being instructed on the objectives described
therein.
____
If No, provide the evidence that supports your judgment.
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___
I read the IEP and he/she is not being instructed on the objectives
described therein.
___
She/ he is being provided instruction on some but not all of the objectives
required by the IEP.
____ he/she is being provided instruction on objectives required by the IEP, but
not appropriate kinds and amounts.
___
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