Adapting Your Teaching
for Persons With Physical
Disabilities
SAMUEL TELEMAQUE
Adapting Your Teaching for Persons
With Physical Disabilities

Adapting space and equipment.

Arrange the room for easy access by
persons who use wheelchairs.

Wheelchairs should fit underneath
tables or lap boards should be
provided.
Adapting Your Teaching for Persons With
Physical Disabilities

Shelves, drawers, sinks, and hangers
should be within easy reach.

Adapting doorknobs and drawer pulls
for ease of use.

Provide Adaptive equipment such as:
chairs; wedges; bolster seats; corner
seats.
Adapting Your Teaching
for Persons With Physical Disabilities

Adapting materials.
 Loop scissors or double layering
scissors may help the student whose
coordination skills demand extra
assistance.
 Lap boards, writing boards,
 or trays with clips attached will help
secure the student’s work.
Adapting Your Teaching for Persons
With Physical Disabilities


Pencil grips will enable the student
whose fine-motor skills are not
sufficiently developed to secure a firm
grasp
A suction grip could enable the student
with severe motor control problems to
steady himself by holding the grip with
one hand while using the other hand.
Adapting Your Teaching
for Persons With Physical Disabilities

A glue stick might be easier to
manipulate than a bottle of glue.

Communication boards consisting of
pictures, words, and symbols to which
the student can point will enable her to
communicate with others.
Adapting Your Teaching
for Persons With Physical Disabilities

A light pointer or head pointer stick
could be used by nonverbal students to
make choices among vocabulary or
picture cards.
Adapting Your Teaching
for Persons With Physical Disabilities

Simply taping material to a work
surface can help turn a frustrating
situation into a successful activity.

Computers, augmentative
communication aids, and electric
typewriters with keyboard guards
could facilitate the nonverbal student’s
ability to respond to questions.
Adapting Your Teaching for Persons With
Physical Disabilities


Velcro can be placed on objects to
secure them to wheelchair trays and
tables or to permit objects to be held by
hand.
Wheelchair trays with a small raised
border, or simply an inverted box top,
can provide boundaries to contain
materials that otherwise might roll off
onto the floor.
Adapting Your Teaching
for Persons With Physical Disabilities

Adapting switches permit easy on-andoff control of battery operated toys and
electric devices.
Adapting Your Teaching
for Persons Who Have Physical
Disabilities

Be sure the person is positioned
properly, comfortably, and securely.

Allow more time for the completion of
each activity.

Make your church user friendly.
Adapting Your Teaching
for Persons With Physical Disabilities

Are extra wide parking spaces marked
for disabled persons? Are all doors at
least 32 inches wide?

Are all exterior doors and interior floors
accessible with ramps and elevators?
Are hallways at least 48 inches wide?

Can someone in a wheelchair use the
rest room?

Can someone in a wheel chair use the
drinking fountains?

Are all light switches no more than 48
inches from the floor?
References

Adapting your teaching to persons who
are physically disabled. Available at
http://www.lifeway.com/n/Ministries/Speci
al-Need