Week 7: Educating Students with Mild Disabilities

Week Seven Discussion

Assisting Students with Mild Disabilities

Cari McKee

How can we meet the needs of students with mild disabilities?  I think in order to answer that question we need to first focus on what is considered a mild disability. Beard divided mild disabilities into three different categories.  These categories are mild, intellectual and
emotional/behavioral disabilities.  Regardless of the classification of the student's disability, all of these categories can affect how successful a student is in the classroom if not addressed properly by both the teachers, students, individual and parents.  I do not believe a disability is solely for one person to manage but rather a community of people to help support that individual. Without the support I believe it is more difficult for the student to be successful.

Beard’s chapter five talked about a student who had a mild disability.  Unfortunately,
mild disabilities are the most common targeted disability in the classroom setting today.  When assisting students with mild disabilities such as Mike in chapter five, one must look at the student’s IEP suggestions as well as the student’s behavior.  In Mike’s case, he was having difficulty with reading and writing.  Mike reminds me of students in my current classrooms.  Most of the students try and “mask” their disability by acting out.  These are the types of students who are usually in a general education classroom and do not usually receive the assistance they need.

The teacher plays a big role in the success of the student through proper teaching practices and student engagement without peer judgements.  I also believe the proper assistive technology can help the students in general education with mild disabilities through various ways.  Not only does the assistive technology need to be accurate for the students current needs but also needs to be agreed upon by the IEP team.  The chapter talked about many different types of assistive technology to use in the classroom.  Some other programs I feel would benefit some of these students with mild disabilities are the following:

1. Co:Writer: A program that adds word prediction, grammar, and vocabulary to the students interactive devices. FlexSpell is offered in the program to help assist students helps students spell
2. EZ keys: A program that enhancing prediction. The program showcases common words beginning with the letter as the student begins to type.
3. Gus!Word Prediction: This program is intended to help improve typing speed of the students.
4. WordQ2Writing: The program provides students with spoken feedback and suggests words to help students with their writing skills.

In Alper’s article, hardships and barriers were discussed.  The article talked about how not all groups and school systems have equal access to assistive technology devices due to financial burdens.  It was also suggested that another hardship is the lack of equipment and lack of knowledge from the teachers and surrounding support staff.  He also suggested a lack of ongoing support.  All of these areas need to be addressed in order for the individual to adequately receive the proper assistive technology and the support necessary for success.  Ellis and Lenz discussed three main areas of learning are necessary for each student to become a successful learner. These areas include gaining of knowledge, expressing, and organization of the information.  They also stated the school system and IEP team need to recognize the pros and cons of each assistive technology device before suggesting the device to the student. Delivery redesign and a way to ensure accountability both on the student, teacher, and assistive technology device. By doing this constant “update”, the device can be critiqued on whether or not it is still useful to the student.  If the device seems not useful, another more useful device should be considered in its place.

Resources:  

1. Akpan, J. (n.d.). National Social Science Association. Retrieved May 17, 2015, from
   http://www.nssa.us/tech_journal/volume_3-1/vol3-1_article2.htm    
2. Alper, S., & Raharinirina, S. (2006). Assistive technology for individuals with
   disabilities: A review and synthesis of the literature. Journal of Special Education Technologies, 21(2), 47-64.
3. Beard, L. A., Carpenter, L. B., & Johnston, L. B. (2011). Assistive technology: Access for all students (2nd/3rd ed.). Toronto: Pearson Education.
4. Edyburn,D. L. (2000). Assistive technology and students with mild disabilities. Focus on Exceptional Children, 32(9), 1-23.