Thread: Children with special needs

Lucy,
I think this forum topic is a wonderful idea. In my 23 years of teaching, I spent 3 years teaching DH (developmentally handicapped) students. I taught students from 3rd grade to 8th grade. I had to be careful that I didn't have more than a 5-year age span difference between any 2 students who were in the room together. I had no planning time -- there was no time during the day that students weren't in my room, except for lunch. It was hard. I wasn't educationally prepared, nor did I have any personal experience with students with special needs. I felt like a failure all the time. There was no professional support, except for the principal telling me what a great job I was doing -- I think he just wanted to keep me in there.
When I did get a "regular" classroom, I realized that in the 30+ students in any particular class, there were DH students sitting right there day after day -- they just weren't "labeled" as such. Being able to meet their needs along with the needs of the other students was almost overwhelming. With "inclusion" being the buzz word right now in relation to special education, it's becoming more and more challenging to develop lesson plans that are broad enough to meet all the student's academic needs. Are there suggestions out there that any of you feel do a good job at this? I'm curious to hear what you may have done that worked successfully. I taught language arts and social studies up until this year -- now I'm the computer teacher. But I'd still like to hear your suggestions. I'm mentoring the new teacher who took my place -- I'd love to share with her any suggestions you might have.

You might check the specific ideas on these pages:

[url]http://adhd.kids.tripod.com/adhd.html[/url]

[url]http://adhd.kids.tripod.com/groups.html[/url]

I've found that structuring the class in groups (not just "doing group work") is really helpful to the students and the teacher.

Laurie

Don't you think that more training in the nature of learning disabilities, along with language and cultural issues, should be included in teacher-education curricula?

Classroom teachers encounter all of these issues in the inclusive classroom, yet not much pre-service training is offerered in many cases.

Amy

Amy,
I totally agree with you that more preparation at the college level is needed to train prospective teachers in dealing with students who have special needs. We encounter these students daily -- some can really be a challenge. I realize that there are many different topics a new teacher needs to be introduced to, thus increasing the load of educational classes (thus an extra burden of costs), but this is one area that definitely should be expanded. I had no college classes to prepare me for my 3 years teaching developmentally handicapped students, and I was horrified that I was not meeting their needs. But after spending those 3 years teaching those students, I had a totally different outlook on teaching altogether.
I've been out of the college scene, except for finishing my masters degree in computer education. What exactly are the requirements now for new teachers? How many classes/hours do universities require in special education for new teachers?

Dear Amy,

In Massachusetts all teachers are required to have special education training, even for a regular education teaching certificate, just for the reasons you mention in your posting.

To see what colleges in MA are offering, check with Lesley University in Cambridge, MA for a list of their classes. It appears that regs. in MA are constantly changing with the national trend towards testing for a diploma (THAT'S another issue altogether!) but their catalog should give you a good idea of the upcoming trends in special education teacher training.

As for cultural training, I've learned that as a fun part of who is in my class. Families are usually very willing to teach about their culture along with there being lots of information on the internet. I'm guessing that with state regs., there's only so much that can be fit into a 4 year program!

Hi Amy,

I saw that you were from Kentucky and I think they use electronic portfolios to chart student progress and for yearly parent IEP meetings. Do you know people who use this format? We are just delving into it here and I was just curious...

I went to a meeting about the portfolios and it was said that the document is approximately 45 pages or so. Yikes!! With all the other documentation we have to do in MA that was enough for me not to investigate it any further!

Originally Posted by Laura

Dear Amy,

>In Massachusetts all teachers are required to have special education training, even for a regular education teaching certificate, just for the reasons you mention in your posting.

Thanks for this information! Such requirements seem to vary widely from state to state. I find all of this quite intriguing.

>As for cultural training, I've learned that as a fun part of who is in my class. Families are usually very willing to teach about their culture along with there being lots of information on the internet. I'm guessing that with state regs., there's only so much that can be fit into a 4 year program!

Yes, this is quite true. However, a working knowledge of the process of second-language acquisition is also important for classroom teachers who have LEP students in their classes.

Then there is the issue of LEP students who may also have learning disabilities ...

Amy

Originally Posted by Laura

Hi Amy,

I saw that you were from Kentucky and I think they use electronic portfolios to chart student progress and for yearly parent IEP meetings. Do you know people who use this format? We are just delving into it here and I was just curious...

I went to a meeting about the portfolios and it was said that the document is approximately 45 pages or so. Yikes!! With all the other documentation we have to do in MA that was enough for me not to investigate it any further!

I'm not yet familliar with this, but I will be. My son began preschool in 2000 with an IEP (atypical autism, very high functioning); this school system, at least, has not yet implemented this. I'm also weaving in special-ed concerns into my doctoral reseach on teacher-ed curricula (along with ESL and gifted issues). All of the actual practices and experiences mentioned here are extremely helpful and interesting. Thanks!

Amy

I am a school psychologist who is a consultant to our elementary program for students with behavior disorders. We have an excellent program which consists of two classrooms (K-2/3-5) each in two buildings. Although the four teachers meet as a group once a month, they are still fairly isolated from other teachers who work with BD kids. I've always wanted to start an interactive website so that they can communicated with teachers across the country to exchange ideas. Maybe this is the place. Any other BD classroom teachers out there???