Essential Strategies for Teaching Students with High-Incidence Disabilities

STUDENTS WITH HIGH-INCIDENCE DISABILITIES
STUDENT SUPPORT TRAINING
FOR EDUCATORS
Module THREE – characteristics of exceptional learners
Course TWO
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-INCIDENCE
DISABILITIES
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Module 3 - Session One - Quiz Answers
1 (a.) True
2 (b.) False
3 (e.) All of the above
4 (a.) True
5 (a.) Changes to the content and curriculum
6 (b.) False
8 (b.) False
9 (c.) Learning Support Staff, Resource personnel, Volunteers

STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
INCIDENCE DISABILITIES
Introduction:
• High-incidence disabilities are generally recognized
to be students with:
• emotional disturbance,
• mental retardation,
• specific learning disabilities
• speech or language impairments.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Learner Objectives
• Upon completion of this course, you will:
• Define high-incidence disabilities
• List characteristics of students with high-incidence
disabilities
• Describe strategies that are useful in teaching
students with high-incidence disabilities
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Emotional Disturbance

STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Emotional Disturbance:
• Teaching can be a challenging and demanding task.
• Some students may display behavioral problems
that demand attention and consume the majority of
a teacher’s time and energy.
• Many terms have been used to describe students
with emotional, behavioral, or mental disorders.

STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Common characteristics of students with an
emotional disorder is described as:
• a behavior that goes to an extreme – that is more
than just slightly different from the usual;
• a problem that is chronic – one that does not
quickly disappear; and
• behavior that is unacceptable because of social or
cultural expectations.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• It is important to remember, students may display
these characteristics but do not necessarily fall into
this category.
• To fit the definition, a student must exhibit duration
and intensity of the disturbance and impact
educational performance.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Emotional disturbance can be defined as:
1. An inability to learn that cannot be explained by
intellectual, sensory, or health factors
2. An inability to build or maintain satisfactory
interpersonal relationships with peers or teachers
3. Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under
normal circumstances
4. A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or
depression
5. A tendency to develop physical symptoms or
fears associated with personal or school
problems.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
1. The term also includes schizophrenia.
2. The term does not apply to children who are socially
maladjusted, unless it is determined that they have
an emotional disturbance."
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Facts and Characteristics
FACTS ABOUT STUDENTS WITH EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCE
• Boys outnumber girls in this category about 4 to 1
• A diagnosis of emotional disturbance may be
temporary or permanent.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Research finds that most educators and parents can
learn to be effective in helping students with
emotional disturbance.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Assessments commonly used to evaluate students
for emotional disturbance are:
• Rorschach and Draw a Person (psychological tests);
• Interviews with family and teachers; teacher checklists;
• AAMR Adaptive Behavior Scales, Children's
Depression Scale,
• Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (Adaptive tests).
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Students may function two or more years below
grade level in reading, math, spelling, and writing
• Students with emotional disturbance are at great risk
for dropping out of school.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• There is no known reason why some students
develop emotional disturbances.
• The following variables are believed to be
associated with the disorder:
a) Biological – genetic, biochemical and
neurological, i.e. brain disorder
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
a) Family – domestic violence, use of alcohol and
drugs by parent, attachment disorder
b) School – inconsistent expectations and structure
c) Cultural – peer groups
d) Nutritional deficiencies
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
CHARACTERISTICS OF STUDENTS WITH EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCE
• Students with emotional and behavioral disorders
exhibit several overlapping characteristics and
represent a range of severity. These include:
• Hyperactivity (short attention span, impulsiveness)
• Aggression/self-injurious behavior
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
CHARACTERISTICS OF STUDENTS WITH EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCE
• Withdrawal – failure to initiate interaction with
others; retreat from exchanges of social
interaction, excessive fear or anxiety
• Immaturity
• Learning difficulties
• Unfocused in classroom
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
In extreme cases, students may exhibit distorted
thinking, excessive anxiety, bizarre motor acts, and
abnormal mood swings.
Educators can promote appropriate behaviors by
preparing the environment and providing
instructional supports.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Classroom strategies for working with a student with
emotional disturbance:
• Provide emotional and behavioral support - helping
the student master academics, develop social skills,
and increase self-awareness, self-control, and self-
esteem.
• Design positive behavioral supports such as
behavioral contracts.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Create a structured environment with clear and
explicit rules and consequences
• Create a schedule showing class activities
• Enforce consequences consistently
• Develop a good rapport with student
• Provide praise to student for approximation of the
desired behavior
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Arrange for removal of student if necessary and
appropriate
• Become aware of student's signals of impending
loss of control
• Provide social skill training for the student who is
withdrawn or unable to make friendships
• Re-direct student
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Provide models of tolerance, acceptance, and
persistence
• Provide opportunities for student to assume class
responsibilities
• Provide role playing of social situations
• Teach self-control, self-monitoring, and conflict
resolution techniques
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• It is very important for educators to be aware of their
own tolerance levels and temperaments when
working with students with emotional disturbances.
• The behaviors of these students are very
challenging and may not respond to typical
classroom management techniques.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Mental Retardation

STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Mental Retardation:
• Mental retardation is often used to describe a
person who has certain limitations in mental
functioning and in skills such as communicating,
taking care of themselves, and interacting socially.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Mental Retardation:
• These limitations will cause a child to learn and
develop more slowly than a typical child and often
meet the following two criteria:
• low intellectual functioning,
• low adaptive skills
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
FACTS ABOUT STUDENTS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION
• Persons with mental retardation have the capacity to
learn, to develop, and to grow.
• Many will hold jobs in competitive employment,
perhaps through supportive employment situations,
in which a job coach helps them and their employer.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
FACTS ABOUT STUDENTS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION
• Intellectual functioning is commonly measured with
the Stanford Binet (V) and Wechsler-Intelligence
Scale for Children (III) (intelligence tests)-(WISC III).
• Adaptive functioning is measured using the Adaptive
Behavior Inventory for Children.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Characteristics:
• Although researchers are unable to determine the
cause of mental retardation, most cases of severe
retardation can be attributed to genetic irregularities
or chromosomal abnormalities (Nielsen, 2002).
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Characteristics:
• Some other variables that have been associated
with mental retardation are:
• Genetic conditions: sometimes caused by
abnormal genes inherited from parents, i.e. Down
syndrome, fragile X syndrome, and
phenylketonuria (PKU).
• Problems during pregnancy.
• Problems at birth.
• Health problems: measles, or meningitis can
cause mental retardation (NICHCY, 2004).
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Characteristics:
• Down syndrome is the most common condition
associated with mental retardation.
• This syndrome is caused by a chromosomal
abnormality:
• An accident in cell development results in 47 instead of
the usual 46 chromosomes.
• This extra chromosome changes the orderly
development of the body and brain.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Characteristics:
Characteristics of Students with Mental
Retardation
• The most common characteristics of children with
mental retardation include:
• “slower pace of learning,
• lack of age appropriate adaptive behavior and social
skills,
• below-average language and academic skills”
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Characteristics:
Other characteristics associated with students with
mental retardation are:
• Slower development than peers
• Deficits in: attention, memory, language
development, self-regulation, social development,
and motivation
• Difficulty remembering things
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Characteristics:
• Inability to understand life skills, i.e. how to pay for
things
• Difficulty understanding social rules
• Inability to see and understanding the
consequences of their actions
• Difficulty problem solving
• Difficulty thinking logically
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Strategies for the Classroom
• Many regular classrooms have students with
generally mild to moderate retardation.
• Teachers should set realistic and age-appropriate
goals for these students so the students will feel
successful in their endeavors.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Employ cooperative learning strategies wherever
possible to promote effective learning by all students
• Support verbal assignments and instruction with
body language, such as using gestures and pointing
• Label objects, schedules, and routines in the
classroom
• Help the students interact with other students in the
class
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Introduce new concepts slowly and teach the same
concepts and skills in many situations so skills are
generalized
• Allow extra time for the students to respond to a
question or situation
• Involve the students in tasks which increase the
probability of success
• Use one-step instructions and check frequently for
understanding (ICQ’s & CCQ’s)
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Use concrete or real materials whenever possible,
but keep materials age-appropriate; show pictures of
new vocabulary and provide hands-on materials
• Focus on making small achievable gains
• Use continuous repetition of concepts
• Establish well defined classroom routines
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Give instructions, briefly summarize and ask
students what is to be done (ICQ)
• Teach appropriate ways of getting help and/or
getting attention
• Assign tasks that are personally relevant, carefully
sequenced from easy to difficult, and allow the
learners to be highly and frequently successful
• Break tasks into small steps; demonstrate the steps
and have students do the steps, one at a time
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• View students with mental retardation as children
who can learn.
• Recognize the students' strengths and weaknesses
and maintain high expectations for their educational
performance.
• Focus on their similarities with other students rather
than their differences.
• Teach students life skills such as daily living, social
living, occupational awareness
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Specific Learning
Disability

STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Specific Learning Disability
• These students have extreme difficulty learning
academic and other skills, despite their average or
above-average mental capacity.
• A general definition of learning disabilities is a
dysfunction that interferes with someone’s ability to
store, process, or produce information.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• It is a disorder in one or more of the basic
psychological processes involved in:
• understanding or using language, spoken or written,
• may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen,
think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical
calculations.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Most current definitions include the following
criteria:
• Irregular development of the central nervous
system
• May be a lifelong condition
• Disorder affects academic areas including
reading, writing, math, and language
• Identified by an ability-achievement
discrepancy
• Not a sensory condition
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• The term includes such conditions as:
• perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain
dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.
• The term does not include:
• learning problems that are primarily the result of
visual, hearing, or motor disabilities; of mental
retardation; of emotional disturbance, or of
environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
FACTS ABOUT SPECIFIC LEARNING DISABILITY
• The term specific learning disability (SLD) was first
introduced in 1963.
• SLD occurs in all cultures, nations, and language
groups.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Five to ten percent of all children in the general
population have learning disabilities
• Students with learning disabilities have an average
to above-average IQ.
• Terms such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia
are commonly used to describe different types of
learning disabilities.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Recent medical advances using CAT scans and
MRIs are being used to diagnose learning
disabilities.
• Students with learning disabilities may also develop
problems in social/emotional areas.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Boys outnumber girls about 3 to 1 - however
research indicates that a gender bias may exist in
referral issues
• Assessment – standardized achievement tests
(Wechscler Individual Achievement Test IV - WIAT
IV), (Woodcock Johnson III).
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Standardized achievement tests do not give
specific information about the student's
academic difficulties.
• Informal and authentic assessments give
teachers a better idea of the particular strengths
and weaknesses of a student.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Learning disabilities is generally believed to be due
to a brain dysfunction.
Other variables considered possible:
a. Organic – size and function of brain during
development of brain
b. Genetic – family heredity of reading disabilities
c. Medical - premature birth
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Learning disabilities are characterized by a difference
between the child’s overall intelligence and
achievement in the following areas:
• Spoken language: delays, disorders, or
discrepancies in listening and speaking; difficulty
with phonemic awareness
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Written language: difficulties with reading,
writing, and spelling; difficulty beginning and
completing written tasks
• Arithmetic: difficulty performing arithmetic
functions or comprehending basic concepts
• Reasoning: difficulty organizing and integrating
thoughts
• Organization Skills: difficulty organizing all
facets of learning
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• The majority of students with learning disabilities are
served in the general education (Inclusive)
classroom.
• Some students may be assigned to self-contained or
resource classrooms.
• Regardless of setting, students need a well-
structured environment and set high expectations for
these students.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Direct teaching of daily routines and schedules
displayed in the classroom
• Provide immediate, positive and corrective feedback
to the student
• Provide strategies to assist with academic tasks
• Use a variety of learning modalities or styles
(auditory, visual, or kinesthetic -movement) for
teaching concepts
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Demonstrate and model organizational skills
(organizational notebooks)
• Teach study skills
• Question student frequently to check for
understanding (CCQ’s & ICQ’s)
• Provide clear directions and accessible goals
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Use cooperative learning and peer tutors when
appropriate
• Work with student's strengths
• Use short sentences and a simple vocabulary
• Use concrete or real materials whenever possible to
teach concepts
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Provide advance organizers
• Provide opportunities for success to help build self-
esteem
• Use mnemonics (memory enhancing strategy)
• Use direct instruction
• Use real-life situations that are meaningful to the
students.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Speech or Language
Impairment

STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Speech or Language Impairment
• A communication disorder is defined as:
• “An impairment in the ability to receive, send,
process, and comprehend concepts or verbal,
nonverbal, and graphic symbols systems.”
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• A general rule to differentiate between types of
communication disorders is:
• An individual with speech problems has difficulty
only with expressive skills
• A person with a language disorder has difficulty with
both the expression of ideas (talking) and reception
of language (listening and understanding).
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Speech or Language Impairment is defined as a
language impairment or a voice impairment, that
adversely affects a child’s educational performance."
• There are four basic components of speech:
1. articulation,
2. phonation,
3. resonance, and
4. rhythm.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Articulation is “the ability to make specific sounds,
• Phonation is the actual utterance of words.
• Resonance is the reinforcement and prolongation of
sounds by vibrations.
• The rate and timing of speech is the rhythm with
which it is spoken”
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Many children have difficulties with speech and
language that are developmental in nature.
• The student with a speech or language disorder has
difficulty combining speech sounds for
communication and using or understanding
language for communication.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
FACTS ABOUT SPEECH OR LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT
• Speech problems are more prevalent than language
problems.
• About one fifth of all children identified for special
education - receive services primarily for speech or
language impairments.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Stuttering usually starts before the age 8
• 75% of people who stutter stop by the time they
reach adolescence (Stuttering Foundation of
America).
• Delays and disorders range from simple sound
substitutions to the inability to understand or use
language or use the oral-motor mechanism for
functional speech and feeding
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• Some variables that are associated with
communication disorders are:
• medical - speech disorders are common with
children who have had a cleft lip or cleft palate;
some researchers believe that stuttering may be
the result of brain damage; voice disorders can be
caused by growths, or infections of the tonsils or
sinuses;
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
• genetics - heredity often plays a strong part in
students who develop stuttering;
• psychological - some researchers believe
stuttering may be the result of psychological
variables; and
• hearing loss.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
Allow time for students to respond to questions
(applicable to all students, not just students with
speech disorders).
• Ask questions that don’t require in-depth
responses.
• Allow students to use alternative or augmentative
communication devices – communication boards,
gestures, computer-assisted devices.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
ACTIVITY #1:
• Which of the disabilities that we have discussed in
this course do you think would present the biggest
challenge to you as a teacher, and Why?
(Be sure to include characteristics of the disability in
your response).
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
ACTIVITY #2 - STUDENT SCENARIO:
• Carmen is in fourth grade. She appears bright and
works hard but often misunderstands directions of
assignments.
• Often, this causes Carmen to fail to complete all of
the class work. Carmen is shy and doesn’t ask
questions in the class. When called upon to answer
a question, she stops and starts and seems
confused.
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
ACTIVITY #2 - STUDENT SCENARIO:
• Carmen’s family requested an evaluation. Carmen
was found to have a speech language impairment.
• How could you assist Carmen in the classroom now
that her unique learning needs are understood?
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STUDENTS WITH HIGH-
ACTIVITY #3:
• Some students with specific learning disabilities
have developed "learned helplessness."
• The article was given as an advanced reading
handout.
• You will be required to know this information to
complete the quiz.
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ADAPTING CURRICULUM
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Essential Strategies for Teaching Students with High-Incidence Disabilities

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