Chapter 4

Educational Psychology
Fourteenth Edition
Cluster 4
Learner Differences and
Learning Needs
Copyright © 2019, 2016, 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Learning Objectives
4.1 Describe current theories of intelligence including the advantages and
disadvantages of labeling, hierarchical and multiple theories of intelligence,
how intelligence is measured, and what these measurements tell teachers.
4.2 Explain how creativity is defined, assessed, and encouraged in the
classroom.
4.3 Discuss the values and limitations of considering students’ learning
styles.
4.4 Discuss the implications of the IDEA and Section 504 protections for
contemporary education.
4.5 Understand and address the special educational needs of students
with learning challenges.
4.6 Recognize and respond to the special educational needs of students
who are gifted and talented.

Outline
• Intelligence
• Creativity: What It Is and Why It Matters
• Learning Styles
• Individual Differences and the Law
• Students with Learning Challenges
• Students Who Are Gifted and Talented

Intelligence
• Controversy over labels of disorders, disabilities,
giftedness
– Lead to false assumptions about appropriate teaching
strategies and materials
– Can become self-fulfilling prophecies
– Promote false stereotypes and stigmas
– Limit guidance with course selections, pathways
– Misused as explanations for behaviors
• Benefits of labels
– Provide access to assistive programs, finances
– Protect child in some situations

Disabilities and Handicaps
• Disability: Inability to do something specific
• Handicap: Disadvantage in certain situations
• Avoid turning one’s disability into handicap
– Avoid language of pity
▪ Examples: “Confined to wheelchair” or “victim of disease”
– Become familiar with disability etiquette
• Use person-first language
– Students with special needs not special needs students
– Students receiving special education not special education students
– Students diagnosed with autism not autistic students
– Some individuals “claim” their disability, want the label

Possible Biases in the Application of
Labels
• Racial-, ethnic-, and language-minority students
– Underidentified as having disabilities
– Underrepresented in special education
– May point to overidentification of White students
• Are these minority students being well served by schools?
• Do biases interfere with needed services?
• Important to gather a range of information about each
student
– Level of English proficiency
– Unusual stressors for child/family

What Does Intelligence Mean?
• Intelligence: Ability or abilities to acquire and use knowledge for
solving problems and adapting to the world
• One ability or many? Intercorrelations among scores on all cognitive
tests suggest one ability
• General intelligence (g): A measure of general cognitive ability
• Theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence
– Fluid: Mental efficiency, reasoning ability; increases through
adolescence
– Crystallized: Ability to apply learned skills and knowledge; can
increase throughout life span
• Widely accepted current view: Many facets to intelligence; hierarchy of
abilities (g at top; specific abilities lower)

Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences
• Howard Gardner: Multiple intelligences (MI), 8 separate abilities
– Logical-mathematical, linguistic, musical, spatial, bodily-
kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist
• Individual may be high in one or several intelligences
• Values of intelligences vary with cultures and eras of history
• Criticism of MI: Lack of strong valid research evidence
– Abilities are correlated, may not be 8 separate abilities
– Some viewed as talents/personality traits, not intelligences
• Gardner’s response: Theory based on wide range of research in
several fields including psychology, anthropology, biology

Multiple Intelligences Go to School
• Misuses of MI theory in schools
– Intelligences not ethnic based
– Including all 8 in a lesson is overly simplistic,
inappropriate
• Two lessons for teachers
– Differentiate instruction to connect with each student
– Use variety of representations to teach skills, concepts
• Focus on 6 entry points (rather than MI) in curriculum
design: Narrative, logical-quantitative, aesthetic,
experiential, interpersonal, existential/foundational

Sternberg’s Successful Intelligence
• Cognitive processing approach to understanding intelligence
• Sternberg: Triarchic theory of successful intelligence
• Emphasizes more than measuring cognitive ability with tests
• Three parts: Thinking processes, coping with new experiences,
adapting to context
– Analytic skills: Analyze, judge, compare/contrast to deal with
familiar problems
– Creative skills: Use insight (deal with novel situations) and
automaticity (process without much mental effort)
– Practical skills: Adapting to environment to succeed in
practical matters (career choice, social skills)

Neuroscience and Intelligence
• Previous theorists described content of intelligence
• Emphasis of cognitive psychology – information processing
• Differences in g due to differences in neural plasticity
– How well brains form connections in response to experience
– Neural connections for fluid intelligence peak near age 16
▪ Critical for development of intellectual abilities
– Teachers need to take advantage of plasticity (developing
intelligence)
• Continued debate about what intelligence is
– Agreement: Intelligence related to learning in school

Measuring Intelligence
• Binet and Simon: Testing to determine mental age of child
• Binet’s test revised at Stanford University (Stanford-Binet)
– Added concept of IQ score–Intelligence quotient
– IQ: Score comparing mental and chronological ages
– Deviation IQ compares individual’s performance with
average performance of others in age group
• Score based on 100 as average (50% score 100 or lower)
– Individually administered tests more accurate than
group

Intelligence and Achievement
• IQ test scores relate to academic achievement
– Measure only analytic IQ, not practical or creative IQ
– IQ scores predict standardized test scores
– But measures of self-regulation are a better predictor of
grades in school
• Tendency: Higher IQ people get more education, higher-status
jobs, higher incomes
• Flynn effect: Steady rise of IQ test scores over decades
– Effect of better nutrition/medical care, smaller families,
increased complexity of environment, better schooling
• IQ scores – only estimates of aptitude for learning

Gender Differences in Intelligence
and Achievement
• Few differences between boys/girls (infancy through preschool)
• Some differences in specific abilities (school years/beyond)
– Boys: More variable scores; more learning disabilities diagnosed
• Caution: Differences very small; race/ethnicity not accounted for
• Recent international assessments on academic achievement
– Girls higher in reading literacy; few differences in mathematics
– Girls higher in technology/engineering literacy at 8th grade
• Differences—result of both heredity and environment
– IQ tests include cultural content, some built-in biases
• Intelligence: Current state of affairs—affected by past experiences,
open to future changes (always improvable)

Creativity: What It Is and Why It
Matters
• Creativity: Imaginative, original thinking or problem solving
– Any subject can be approached in creative ways
• Assessing creativity: Verbal and graphic tests
– Divergent thinking, coming up with many possible solutions
▪ Unlike common convergent thinking – single solution
– Scores based on originality, fluency, flexibility of ideas
• Indicators of creativity in students: Curiosity, adaptability, high
energy, humor, nonconformity, interest in complex/mysterious
• Creativity/critical thinking needed for solving society’s problems,
coming up with new or better ideas (not trapped by dogma)

What Are the Sources of Creativity?
• 3-component model of creativity (Teresa Amabile)
– Domain-relevant skills: Talents, competencies in a domain
– Creativity-relevant processes: Work habits, personality traits
– Intrinsic task motivation: Deep curiosity, fascination with task
• Creativity and cognition: Extensive knowledge, ability to
restructure problem, realize a solution (w/incubation period)
• Creativity and diversity: Varying patterns among groups
– Focus of creativity research – white males (not women and
minorities)
– Multicultural experiences and being on the outside of
mainstream society encourage creativity

Creativity in the Classroom
Guidelines for applying and encouraging creativity
• Accept and encourage divergent thinking, metacognition
• Tolerate dissent; question assumptions; play with ideas
• Encourage students to trust their own judgment, take risks
• Emphasize that everyone is capable of creativity
• Provide time, space, materials to support creative projects
• Capitalize on technology; use free apps
• Be a stimulus for creative thinking and brainstorming
– Students generate ideas without evaluating and criticizing them
– Students build on others’ ideas; encourage wild ideas

Learning Styles
• Learning styles—characteristic approaches to
learning/studying
• Cautions about learning styles
– Little research to support some concepts of learning
styles
– More accurate term – learning preferences
– Matching instruction to learning styles has no effect on
learning
– May lead to illusion of understanding (make learning
seem easy, but students don’t process deeply)

Value of Considering Learning Styles
• Richard Mayer: Research support about visual/verbal learners
• Explores 3 facets to visual/verbal learning
– Cognitive spatial ability (low or high)
– Cognitive style (visualizer versus verbalizer)
– Learning preference (visual learner versus verbal learner)
• Exposes complexity of identifying a learner’s effective style
• Value of considering learning styles
– Help students think about how they learn, develop new
patterns
– Help teachers differentiate instruction effectively
– Presenting information in multiple modalities may be useful

Individual Differences and the Law
• IDEA: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
– Requires states to provide free, appropriate public education
(FAPE) for all students with disabilities
– Zero reject: No child can be denied
• Defining disability: IDEA list of 13 categories
– Most students have “specific learning disabilities”
• Least restrictive environment (LRE): Educate each child with
peers in general education classroom as much as possible
– Mainstreaming: Include in regular classes as convenient
– Integration: Fit child into existing class structures
– Inclusion: Integrate all students into regular classes

Individualized Education Program (IEP)
• IEP: Agreement between parents and school about services to
be provided to student; revised annually
– Drawn up by teachers, parents, specialists, and student
• Components of IEP
– Present level academic achievement, functional performance
– Annual goals, objectives; how progress will be measured
– Statement of services to be provided
– Justification for any part of program not in regular classroom
– Assessment plan with state/district tests
– Behavior intervention plan (functional assessment) if needed
– Transitional services to prepare for adult life

Rights of Students and Families
• Rights specified by IDEA
– Procedures to maintain confidentiality of student records
– Nondiscriminatory testing practices for students from
different cultural backgrounds
– Parents’ right to see child’s testing, placement, teaching
records
– Parents’ right to obtain independent evaluation for child
– Parents’ right to bring advocate/representative to IEP
meeting
– Surrogate assigned if parents are not available for planning
– Written notice before any evaluation or change in placement
– Right to challenge program; protected by due process

Section 504 Protections
• Section 504 – part of Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973
• Prevents discrimination against people with disabilities in any
program funded with federal money
• Covers children with special conditions not covered in IDEA
– Medical/health: Diabetes, drug addition, severe allergies
– Students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
• Procedures/plans developed by individual schools
• Protections extend beyond schools (library, restaurants, stores,
transportation, theaters, and other settings)
• Additional accommodations from Americans with Disabilities Act

Students with Learning Challenges
• Neuroscience and learning challenges
– Injuries, diseases of brain lead to disabilities
– Research focused on working memory capacity
▪ Problems using working memory to hold verbal and
auditory information while working with it
– Difficulty retrieving information from long-term memory
▪ Unable to hold onto information and transform new
incoming information simultaneously
– Difficulty holding visual-spatial information in working
memory

Students with Learning Disabilities
• Learning disability: Problem with acquisition and use of
language; difficulty in reading, writing, reasoning, or math
– Not intellectual disability, emotional problems, or
educational disadvantages; normal vision, hearing,
language
– Both physiological and environmental bases
– No precise definition
• Common characteristics: Academic difficulty, poor coordination,
attention problems, impulsivity, and others
• Most common learning disability – reading difficulties
• Second most common – math computation, problem solving
• Inability to focus on relevant info, apply learning strategies

Teaching Students with Learning
Disabilities
• Early diagnosis important to prevent high frustration
• Prevent learned helplessness (expectations of failure)
• Three approaches to teaching (effective when used together)
– Direct instruction: Clear explanations, demonstrations, small
steps with practice, immediate feedback, support
– Peer tutoring
– Strategy instruction: Rules for focusing attention,
accomplishing tasks
• General strategies: Multiple examples, repetition, self-monitoring,
memory strategies, short/simple verbal instructions

Students with Hyperactivity and
Attention Disorders
• ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder): Overactivity,
excessive difficulty sustaining attention, impulsiveness
– 2 to 5 times more boys than girls
– Usually diagnosed by age 7
• Main problem: Directing/maintaining attention
– Inattention to class activities, details of work, directions;
can’t organize work; easily distracted, forgetful
• Hyperactivity/impulsivity: Fidgets, squirms; can’t stay seated;
blurts out answers; talks excessively; can’t move slowly
• Controversy over treating with drugs
• Effective behavior treatments: Self-regulation, shaping, time-out

Lessons for Teachers: Learning
Disabilities and ADHD
• Give small assignments at a time
• Help them develop “skill and will” to improve, self-monitor
• Discover/use child’s strengths to identify solutions
• Suggestions from students with ADHD:
– Use visual clues to help them learn
– Recognize cultural, racial identity
– Offer choices, avoid extensive homework
– Allow them to walk around the classroom
– Give them more recess; be patient
– Notice when they are doing well
– Don’t tell other kids they’re on Ritalin

Students with Communication Disorders
• Second largest group served by special education
• Speech disorders: Inability to produce sounds for speaking
– Articulation disorders: Pronunciation difficulties
– Fluency disorders: Stuttering
– Voicing problems: Inappropriate pitch, quality, loudness, intonation
• Language disorders: Problem understanding/expressing
– Seldom speak, use few words, rely on gestures
• Encouraging language development in children
– Talk about things that interest children; follow their lead
– Avoid too many questions; give them time to respond
– Use pleasant voice; don’t make fun of their language
– Encourage participation; listen to their ideas

Students with Emotional or Behavioral
Difficulties
• Behaviors/emotions that deviate from norm, interfere with
child’s growth/development and/or lives of others
– Inappropriate behaviors, unhappiness, depression,
fears, anxieties, relationship difficulties
– IDEA specifies characteristics of emotional disturbance
• Use applied behavior analysis, teach self-regulation skills
• African American students overrepresented in this group
• Disorders may be combined with other disabilities
• Structure environment, schedule, activities, rules/routines

Guidelines: Disciplining Students
with Emotional Problems
• Follow due process rights of students
– Communicate expectations/consequences in writing
• Limit punishments that remove child from class for long periods
• Punishments must serve clear educational purpose
– Use written behavior contracts; provide rationale
• Make sure rule and punishment are reasonable
– Consider age and physical condition of student
• Keep records; document punishment and precipitating behavior
• Use positive consequences in conjunction with negative ones
(ways to regain lost points, for example)

Suicide
• 10% of adolescents attempt (both genders)
• More likely by Native Americans, students in rural areas
• Risk factors: Depression, substance abuse, family history of suicide,
impulsive or perfectionistic tendency, rejection
• Warning signs: Change in eat/sleep habits, weight, grades,
drug/alcohol use, less interest in friends/activities
• Act on suspicions; talk to student directly; show interest
• Facts about suicide
– People who die by suicide usually talk about it first
– All types of people commit suicide; most don’t want to die
– Talk about suicide with person who is suicidal
– 3rd leading cause of death ages 15-24

Drug Abuse
• % of students reported using illicit drugs in past 30 days
– Nearly 7% of 8th graders; 24% of 12th graders
– Marijuana and alcohol most popular drugs
• Dangerous for African American males
– 33% who abused drugs died by age 27 compared to 3%
White males in a study
• Many experiment without becoming regular users
• Prevention
– Engaging them in school, forming positive relationships,
connecting them to caring adults and peers
– Programs with scare tactics are ineffective

Students with Intellectual Disabilities
• Intellectual disability—preferred term (over mental retardation)
• Also referred to as cognitive impairment, general learning disability,
developmental disability, cognitive disability
• Significantly below-average intellectual and adaptive social behavior,
IQ score below 70
• Teaching students with intellectual disabilities
– Develop specific learning objectives stated simply
– Work on practical skills, break into steps, skip no steps
– Present same idea in verbal, visual, hands-on ways
– Focus on few behaviors/skills; help them overlearn
– Help them socialize; set up peer tutoring
• Transition programming prepares for life after high school

Students with Health and Sensory
Impairments
• Cerebral palsy: Range of motor or coordination difficulties due
to brain damage; often with spasticity and secondary handicaps
• Epilepsy: Seizures caused by abnormal electrical discharges in
the brain; require teacher’s help to avoid injury
– Focal: Brief seizures, occurring in one area of brain
– Generalized tonic-clonic: Severe, involving both sides of
brain
– Absence: Very brief, involving small part of brain
• Other concerns: Asthma, sickle cell disease, diabetes
• Talk to parents about handling these health problems, signs of
developing situations, resources available to student

Students with Vision Impairments,
Students Who Are Deaf
• Vision impairments – 1 in 2,500 school-age children
• Low vision: Limited to close objects; read large print
• Legally blind: 20/200 vision; severely restricted peripheral vision
– Special materials/equipment aid in classroom functioning
– Room arrangement must accommodate student’s safety
• Deaf or hard of hearing – 1 in 1,000 school-age children
• Deaf community – group with own culture and language
– Students use lip reading (oral), sign language (manual)
– Trend: Combine oral and manual methods

Autism Spectrum Disorders and
Asperger Syndrome
• Also called pervasive developmental disorder (PDD)
• 1 in 45 children, problems with verbal and nonverbal
communication, moderate-to-severe intellectual disabilities
– Characteristics: Avoid eye contact, don’t share feelings or
interest in others, often nonverbal, need regularity
• Asperger syndrome: High functioning autism spectrum disorder
– Trouble with social relations; speech may be fluent but
unusual, average/above-average intelligence
• Early intense intervention in communication, social relations
– Without intervention, behaviors increase with age
• Teacher tip – incorporate student’s interest into class activities

Response to Intervention (RTI)
• RTI: Systematic process of assessing and providing appropriate
instruction/support for students with learning problems
• Main goal: Effective research-based instruction and support as
soon as possible, before students fall behind
• Second goal: Systematic documentation of interventions tried
• May be used to determine who needs more intensive learning
support
• Commonly used three-tiered system to reach RTI goals
– Tier 1 schoolwide, grade-level research-based instruction
– Tier 2 targeted supplemental instruction in classroom
– Tier 3 intensive support by specialists

Students Who Are Gifted and
Talented
• Outstanding aptitude, competencies in one or more domains
• 3-part conception of giftedness: above-average general ability,
high creativity, high motivation to achieve
• Origin of gifts: Nature, hard work, parents’ investments in
development of child’s gift
– Gifted in math, music, visual arts – enhanced development
of right side of brain
• Problems often faced by gifted adolescents: Depressed, bored,
frustrated, isolated
– May be viewed as show-offs, impatient (waiting on teachers
to move ahead); may have adjustment problems

Identifying Gifted Students
• Characteristics to observe in identifying gifted students
– Read early, read with expression, interest in reading
– Elaborate story writing, advanced sentence structure; writes about
many ideas/topics; uses descriptive language
– Speak early with high-receptive vocabulary; uses similes,
metaphors, analogies in daily conversation
– Curious about quantitative aspects, spatial relationships; reason
analytically, deductively, inductively; transfer learning
• Gifted with learning disability: Look at longitudinal achievement
• Adolescent girls: May reject giftedness, focus on “fitting in”
• Gifted living in poverty: Use alternative assessment, creativity tests,
multicultural strategies

Teaching Gifted Students
• Accelerated: Skip grades or accelerate in particular subjects
– Take college courses and stay with peers concurrently
• Enrichment: Add higher-level work, stay with age-mates
• Curriculum compacting: Teach only for goals not yet reached; add
enrichment, sophistication, novelty
• Methods/strategies: Abstract thinking, creativity, high-level reading,
independence
– Imaginative, flexible teaching with challenges and supports
– Opportunities outside school: Summer institutes, work with faculty
and other professionals, museums, special projects/programs
• CLEAR model: Continual formative assessment, clear Learning goals,
data-driven learning Experiences, Authentic products, Rich curriculum

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