Learning Disabilities

Key Points
● Different brain organization (strengths and weaknesses)
● Reason most kids are in special education in the United States
● 5% of school population
● Disorders affect reading (most common), writing, listening, speaking, reasoning,
calculating, sensory processing, and memory

Common Characteristics of Children with Accommodations/Modifications that may help

Disability student be more successful

● Trouble in school ● Audiobooks

● Dyslexia: ● Word processing programs
○ Trouble discriminating the 45 ● Tape record lessons
phonemes in English ● “Smart pens”
○ Strong visual-spatial skills ● Speech-to-text software
○ Trouble reading ● Text-to-speech software
○ Low reading level ● Reading words while listening
● Environment that maximizes strengths
and minimizes printed words

Strategies
● Share positive role models
● Multi-sensory strategy
○ Draw letters with chalk
○ Use tiles to form letters
○ Write picture captions
○ Visualize reading
● Let students read about their interests
● Sing/chant
● Use video to teach specific content
● Provide students with a camera or camcorder to record their experiences
● Draw pictures or use graphic organizers to illustrate concepts or content
● Use reading material that includes rich visual representations like photos, flowcharts,
decision trees, and diagrams
● Teach creative thinking techniques to your students
● Teach mind mapping strategies for note taking or use mind mapping software
● Provide software that makes use of visual-spatial skills
● Allow students to draw while they listen
● Find pictures that illustrate vocab and concepts
● Color code text
● Art integration
● Use 3D materials to illustrate concepts
ADHD
 Key Points
● Affected 10% of all kids in 2010
● Some kids are misdiagnosed when they’re just creative

Common Characteristics of Children with Accommodations/Modifications that may help

Disability student be more successful

● Hyperactivity ● Educational software that’s exciting,

● Distractibility/inattention animated, gives choices, and provides
● Impulsivity quick feedback
● Neoteny ● Clutter Cloak
● Trouble with organizing ● Readability
● Pace Care
● Software dedicated to organizational
skills, time management, and task
completion
● Neurofeedback training
● Peer tutoring
● “Green” environment
● Physical activity
● Active learning

Strategies
● Focus on relationships
● Learning strategies should:
○ Be delivered in short, dynamic segments
○ Have high emotional content
○ Deal with some aspect of creativity
○ Activate the child’s imagination
○ Employ humor
○ Provide immediate feedback
○ Relate to personal life
○ Utilize novel situations
○ Involve frequent “state changes”
● Physical movement
● Hands-on learning
● Use color to highlight learning content
● Teach self-talk skills
● Teach physical relaxation skills to focus and discharge energy
● Use guided imagery to teach lessons
● Give instructions in attention-grabbing ways
● Play appropriate background music
● Give students choices
● Establish consistent rules, routines, and transitions
● Offer students real-life tasks to complete
Autism
Key Points
● Affects 1 out of 88 children
○ Affects 1 out of 54 boys
● There is a spectrum
● High heritability
● People with autism prefer machines and systems to people

Common Characteristics of Children with Accommodations/Modifications that may help

Disability student be more successful

● Struggle with communicating basic ● Use of computers/tablets… especially

needs, socializing with others, and touchscreens
understand other perspectives/POV ● Apps for communication
● Hand flapping, emotional meltdowns, ● Robots that teach social skills
avoid eye contact (negatives) ● Get a class pet
● Good at perceiving details ● Have a place for the student to move
● Enhanced perceptual functioning (swing, spinner…)
● High sensitivity ● Sit next to window or incandescent
● Systemizers lighting
● Extreme interest in a subject (fixation)

Strategies

● Establish positive social interactions

● DIR/Floortime Model
● Peer learning
● Involve students in their special interest areas
● Teach curriculum using special interests
● Visual instead of auditory
● Visual materials
● Emphasize details
● Allow students to work alone
● Provide a “quiet area” where the student can periodically get away from the stimulation
of the classroom
● Make sure the student has a clearly defined space in which to put school work and
personal belongings
● Offer a variety of ways in which the student might express himself according to his
strengths while learning something new
● Model appropriate behavior using role play, video, or photos depicting social cues,
appropriate responses, and self control strategies
● Use board games as a way to practice social interactions
● Bring in different machines or mechanical devices for the student to explore
● Use multisensory learning to teach academic skills
● Make sure the student has frequent opportunities for communication in the classroom
Intellectual Disabilities
Key Points
● Chief obstacle is limiting expectations
● Generally people with ID are kept from living a full, productive life by other people
● Includes Down Syndrome, williams Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome, Willi-Prader
Syndrome, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Common Characteristics of Children with Accommodations/Modifications that may help

Disability student be more successful

● IQ score of 70 or below ● Word processors

● Impairments in daily functioning ● Calculators
○ Communication ● Books on tape
○ Self care ● Apps
○ Social interactions ● Augmentative and Alternative
○ Academic Achievement Communication Programs
● Interactive mimetic digital game
platforms
● Virtual Reality
● Don’t modify your interactions with
them versus other students!!
● Make sure they get chances to work
with others
● Way-finding aids throughout school
building
● Pictures to designate specific
functions and tasks

Strategies
● Should be experimental, vivid, hands-on, down-to-Earth
● Emphasize the intelligences of students
● Teach through games
● Connect lessons to personal life
● Use interesting artifacts
● Project based learning activities
● Memory mnemonics
● Role play
● Use real-life experiences as opportunities to learn
● Employ self-paced learning materials that allow students to work through academic skills
at their own level, receive immediate feedback, and make steady progress
● Be dramatic when presenting new learning material
● Develop the students’ emotional intelligence by asking them to reflect on their feelings as
they learn new material
● Teach the same concept in many different contexts so that the learning becomes
generalized
● Listen carefully to what students say
● Integrate music into the curriculum
Emotional Disorders
Key Points
● Half of these students drop out
● 20% are arrested before leaving school
● 9-19% of all school children meet criteria, but less than 1% have been identified

Common Characteristics of Children with Accommodations/Modifications that may help

Disability student be more successful

● Mental illness and/or trauma ● Take pictures and videos of student

as they behave appropriately and
inappropriately
○ Show them a positive learning
environment
● Self monitoring strategies with goals
● T2MoodTracker
● Let student create multimedia
presentation
● Structured, positive, predictable
environment
● Crisis mode retreat
● Self paced learning program with
instant feedback
● Nurturing network of people [team
approach → wraparound]

Strategies

● Frequently offer specific and immediate praise

● Keep students engaged with lesson
● Reinforcing positive behavior, provide regular feedback
● Show how to monitor behavior
● Teaching self talk skills
● Make goals
● Expressive arts
● Daily journaling
● Create a behavior contract co-created and signed by the student, teacher, and parent
that includes positive goals, a set span of time for reaching them, and contingencies
decided upon in advance
● Use (and let students use) a handheld microphone
● Hold class meetings during which all students have a chance to express feelings, solve
problems, and generate solutions for running an efficient and positive classroom
● Train students in peer mediation to manage disputes involving classmates
● Use role play to model different solutions to problems that occur in the classroom
● Provide students with choices
● Use LifeSpace Crisis Intervention to deal with emotional meltdowns, aggression,
depression, and other emotional problems that directly affect the classroom environment