Characteristics of students with disabilities
1. Ted is fifth grade boy in your class. He is slow and shows language difficulties but is
pleasant to work with and willing to try. He has below average level reading skills
and his IQ is 75. Sometimes, he says inappropriate things and does not always greet
people or pay attention to what others are saying. He does, though, become frustrated
rather easily when unable to understand. Specifically, what changes would you make
to help this child succeed in class and improve his interpersonal relations?
2. Greg is 16 years old but is functionally illiterate. His level of skill development is not
an accurate reflection of his cognitive capabilities. Although he can’t read a book, he
is able to comprehend the delicate interaction of the characters and events if he sees
the movie or TV drama. During elementary school, Greg was a shy introspective
child, but as his academic and social failure became more severe, he reacted by
striking out at others. During the school day, Greg spends a lot of time daydreaming
and doodling. He often sits in the back of the room, attempting to be as innocuous as
possible. He rarely participates actively in class activities and almost always appears
to be disorganized and disoriented.
3. Nancy is an eighth grade student who is poor in reading and her progress slow. She is
usually ignored by the rest of the classmates, although she has a few friends in the
class. Her social skills appear reasonable good. She is somewhat shy, but no more
than a few other children in my class without disabilities. Her IQ is normal but her
motivation is poor. Her past attempts at academic work were below average; she
became more withdrawn and rarely spoke, even when called on by teachers. She does
not do her assignments, often does not pay attention to her work in school, daydreams
instead of staying on task, and does not appear interested in any of her work. She does
not act out in class.
4. Will is a student in your kindergarten classroom and his fine motor development is
delayed compared to other students. He does not perform bi-manual dexterity
activities requiring hand rotation and precise control. He has an emerging control for
pre-writing activities. He does not know how to snip with scissors. He has difficulty
with visual perceptual motor skills such as, simple puzzles and block design.
5. Peter is an eleventh grader who is quite unpopular in class. He has a learning
disability; however, it does not seem to be his lack of academic progress that is
hindering his social interactions but rather his own conduct. Peter does not seem to
know how to interact. For example, if a group of students are talking, Peter pushes his
way in and makes a comment off the topic in a forceful manner. He does not greet
people in the class and does not listen to the desires of others, always concentrating
on what he wants to do. Peter is not physically aggressive. He seems to realize that he
is rejected, and this causes him to become more insistent and his manner becomes
more forceful.
6. Kristin is a student in your tenth grade class. She is disruptive, rarely finishes her
work, and frequently daydreams. Her parents are having difficulties with her at home
as well, since she often lies about finishing her work and does not appear to be happy.
She frequently yells and takes things away from others. Sometimes, she is
cooperative, but often she acts aggressively. She acts out in class, is discourteous,
gets into arguments with other students, and generally makes it difficult to teach.
7. Jackson is a courteous second grader who appears to have good friends and a good
relationship with his parents. The problem is that whenever he makes a mistake or
finds the work difficult, he simply gives up, puts his paper and pencil down, and sits
there dejectedly. Whenever he encounters the first obstacle, he gives up and says that
he cannot do it. Although Jackson is maintaining a passing grade, the trend is a
disturbing one since the difficulty of work is increasing and Jackson’s giving up is
occurring more often.
8. Jane is a seventh grade student and very intelligent. She has finished her assignment
in a few days and the quality of the work is excellent. She seems to know everything
in the text and has read widely. However, she is shy and has few friends. Even some
classmates call her as ‘teacher’s pet.’ She seems bored by the class. The school has no
gifted class, and so she must remain in your class. What could you do to enrich the
subject matter as well as develop her social skills?
9. Chris is an active and restless, displaying a seemingly insatiable curiosity as a fifth
grade student. He has an unusual ability to understand and talk about abstract,
complex concepts such as time, distance, and ecology. By fourth grade, his classroom
behavior had become problematic. He had discovered that math was easy, fun and a
way to earn praise from teachers. However, he discovered that learning to read was
nearly impossible, although he was able to hide this from his previous teachers by
becoming the class clown, delighting when his classmates laughed at his antics. No
longer able to pretend that he could read, Chris rapidly grew to hate all language artsrelated assignments. His written work had missing words, atrocious handwriting, and
spelling based on a system that only Chris can understand.
10. Donald is in your seventh grade classroom and he lacks responsiveness to other
people and sometimes shows some rocking and repetitive behaviors. He is somewhat
stubborn and his language skills are developing, although he is somewhat behind the
other children. He does not make eye contact and resists being hugged. Although he
is not aggressive toward others, he has tantrums on occasion and it was stated in his
file that he engages in self-injury behaviors like hitting his head against a wall. He
scores unevenly on tests and his IQ is slightly below average.
11. Mike is a third grade student who never completes assignment nor turns them in. His
lack of follow through does not seem intentional, but due to attention problems and a
lack of concern as to the importance of the work he is asked to do. In most cases
Mike can do the work or some of it, he does have significant reading problems (reads
at a first grade level) and is distracted easily by movement in the classroom and by
background noise that exists in the common elementary school environment. He acts
silly and gets other students to react to him. He seems confused by the assignments
and lessons in class. How can you support him?
12. John is a sixth grade student and since he was at school, he never finishes his works
during the class nor turns the assignments in on time. He is able to read and write at
grade level and he can work normally when he is allowed to move in classroom for
activities such as group projects, gym activities, and discussion activities. However, it
is only for a short time that he does work positively, and most of the time, he shows
attention problems and disturbs other students. Because of his attention problem, he
concentrates poorly on his work and does not follow the directions give by the teacher
during class.