Article on ASD

Constable, S., Grossi, B., Moniz, A., & Ryan, L. (2013). Meeting the Common Core State 

            Standards for students with autism: The challenge for educators. TEACHING

            Exceptional Children, 45(3), 6-13.

            This article explained the challenges and considerations that teachers will face in addressing the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts for students with autism.  The author describes the following three psychological theories and their implications with autism: delayed theory of mind, weak central coherence, and impaired executive function.  The lack of theory of mind relates to the inability to understand the feelings and intentions of others around you.  This applies to CCSS when students with autism have difficulty understanding a character’s motives.  In addition, the weak central coherence relates to students’ abilities to focus on a specific detail in the text, like a minor character of a horse, but not grasp the big picture ideas.  The impaired executive functioning of students would be relevant to prioritizing, learning new strategies, and organization.  Therefore, teachers need to assist students in addressing these concerns through accommodations in the classroom.

            I found that the Social Story aspect of this article definitely related to the Autism Module.  The teacher used a Social Story to teach the student about the particular character’s thoughts and feelings during the reading.  It allowed the student to use a familiar behavior strategy as a way to access curriculum at the grade level state standards.  Another strategy addressed was using Comic Strip Conversations to help a student understand a charter’s perspective.  The article related to the book, because it mentioned that students with ASD generally do not seek help from peers.  The author suggests using Peer Mediated Instruction and Intervention (PMII) as a way for students to help the student seek help by identifying behaviors that the child might display when he is in need of assistance.  Although I do not teach any students with ASD, I felt that the PMII model would be useful in helping students who have trouble beginning a task.  I could position the students’ seats so that a responsible student could monitor another student to see if he or she has her materials ready, such as a graphing calculator or pencil.

            I found the article to be very useful, because it reaffirmed many of the strategies given in the Autism Module.  In particular, the social narratives seem to be good ways for students with autism to relate to a particular text’s characters.  The hope is that the skills will assist students with disabilities in understanding their peer’s motives and feelings as well.  I liked how the author addressed the need for students with ASD to use graphic organizers as a means to initiate a difficult task of writing a response to a question.  The example included a para-educator helping the student begin the task by allowing the student to use his sensory tools while planning his paragraphs. 

Article on Emotional and Behavior Disabilities

Solar, E. (2011). Prove them wrong: Be there for secondary students with an emotional or                       behavioral disability. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 44(1), 40-45.

            This article gives strategies for regular education teachers in addressing the needs of students with emotional or behavior disabilities (EBD).  The author stresses that active listening is the key for educators to assist with the needs of these children by looking relaxed, showing interest through body language, allowing the student to speak, being open-minded, asking questions, observing the child’s body language, summarizing the student’s message for clarification, and using positive reinforcement.  Teachers can offer advice in the following ways: allowing the student to write or draw his or her feelings, checking in with the student, asking for the best way to interact with the student, providing a safe and relaxing environment, helping manage stress, and reinforcing the student’s choices. The author also suggests creating a safe environment through the physical layout and decorations of the classroom to promote collaboration and relaxation.  Some suggestions include maximizing natural sunlight, grouping desks in clusters, and displaying the teacher’s own accomplishments and family pictures.

            The author uses the same description as the book for classification of students into the EBD category of special education as created by the IDEA.  The author also points out that teachers should work to promote the student’s self efficacy, which corresponds with the book’s reference to students with EBD having significantly high drop-out and unemployment rates.  By building up the child’s self confidence, a teacher can help him or her succeed in the real world.  I found that many of the strategies given were ones that I already used in the classroom for students whether or not they have a disability.  Teenagers, especially, want to know “why” and “how,” and I feel that many educators dismiss these questions and reply to them with authoritarian demeanors.  Students are inquisitive, especially ones with EBD, and I feel that giving them the rationale behind many of the classroom and school activities makes them more willing to participate and accept them.  This was apparent last week in my classroom when a student with an emotional disability asked for the reason behind the evacuation drill.  I made sure to explain that it is practice in case of an emergency, and that it is good for us all to be prepared.  I hope that my explanation alleviated some of the stress involved in the process for her. 

            I like how the article does not try to sugar coat the disability.  It gives real life examples of the trauma that the students with an emotional or behavior disability have experienced with real life approaches for establishing a relationship with them as a teacher.  It brought up the point that some students with EBD have endured life experiences well beyond their age.  On a positive note, these experiences actually give them more wisdom that an average high school student.  I think that is a very useful tool to incorporate in the classroom by allowing the student to act as a leader and give his or her perspectives on different ideas.  In addition, I think that the most useful piece is to never give up on a student with EBD, because an educator can make a big impact on their students’ goals.

Article on Intellectual Disabilities

Hudson, M. E., Browder, D., & Wakeman, S. (2013). Helping students with moderate and 

          severe intellectual disability access grade-level text. TEACHING Exceptional 

          Children, 45(3), 14-23.

            The article that I read gave suggestions for supporting students with intellectual disabilities in the general education classroom.  The focus was promoting grade-level reading for students with intellectual disabilities with supports.  The studies included adapting the text through shortening the length of the passage to accommodate the individual student’s attention span, adding pictures and repetitions of the main idea to build comprehension.  Other suggestions included adding definitions for unfamiliar words and writing summaries for the student’s current Lexile level.  The authors also support the idea of textual dependent comprehension questions, meaning that the student must read or hear the story in order to answer the questions.  Possible selections for the student to choose can be false but plausible answers to promote the idea that the correct answers can only come from the text.

            The article connected with our class subject matter because it emphasized including students without intellectual disabilities as resources for students with intellectual disabilities.  The method is called shared story reading, where a partner reads the text aloud so that the other partner can listen for comprehension.  This is particularly effective for students with disabilities who are just beginning to read.  It is an important way for students to access grade level text.  According to our readings, students with intellectual disabilities do not have the academic skills of students at their particular age group, so giving extra supports in the forms of visual representations and summaries helps those students access the same content with accommodations and modifications.

            In addition, I found some of the strategies useful in my own classroom.  The use of graphic organizers is a good way for all students with and without disabilities to succeed in the classroom by being able to organize main ideas across all content areas.  I also found it interesting to read that the amount of text presented at the middle and high school age for students with intellectual disabilities can be expanded to two or more paragraphs per page for accessibility.  It shows the progress that the students can make from starting with only one or two sentences per page. 

Article on Learning Disabilities

Doabler, C. T., Cary, M., Jungjohann, K., Clarke, B., Fien, H., Baker, S., & ... Chard, D.

                       (2012). Enhancing Core Mathematics Instruction for Students at Risk for Mathematics 

                       Disabilities. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 44(4), 48-57. 

            Students with learning disabilities related to math have difficulties developing math proficiency, which includes both conceptual and procedural knowledge.  A student demonstrates conceptual knowledge by relating abstract symbols to real world representation.  Procedural knowledge relates to route memorization.  The authors advocate for Explicit and Systematic Instruction, which incorporates unambiguous teacher models, sequenced examples, scaffolding, timely feedback, and cumulative review.  In the elementary schools in Oregon who adopted these procedures, there was a reduced achievement gap among students at risk for poor performance based on their mathematical disabilities, or MD.

            The article points out that teachers need to facilitate opportunities for students to communicate their mathematical thinking in order to enhance instruction for students with MD.  I have experiences in my algebra courses in which verbalizing mathematical thinking was a key component to rebuilding our curriculum to align to the Common Core.  I am happy to see that our district is heading in the right direction to meet the needs of exceptional learners.  The authors also suggested that teachers use questioning appropriately.  They should avoid simple “yes” or “no” questions in order to give students the opportunity to explain their thinking.

            I think the eight guidelines for incorporating the instructional procedures were particularly strong.  They reaffirmed the methods that I currently use and gave me new ideas to incorporate in the classroom.  In particular “I do it.  We do it.  You do it.” is a good memory device for teachers to incorporate scaffolding in the classroom.  I found it interesting that teachers should introduce regular teen numbers like 16 and 17 before 11 and 12 because of the irregularities in the names.  I would have never imagined learning numbers out of chronological order, but it does bring up a valid point, especially for children with MD.  A conflicting point in the article was related to cumulative review; my previous supervisor did not advocate for reviewing previously learned material.  He thought that it was a waste of instructional time.  This could be a discrepancy between regular education and special education teaching methods.  I also find it difficult to use as much modeling as the authors advocate.  I feel that it is easier to find manipulatives like place value charts in the elementary grades.  Many topics that we teach in the secondary level are more abstract with fewer demonstrative models available.