Commonsense Methods for Children with Special Needs and Disabilities

Peter Westwood

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000227208
• Edition: 8
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This fully revised and updated eighth edition of Peter Westwood's book offers practical advice and strategies for meeting the challenge of inclusive teaching. Based on the latest international research from the field, it offers practical advice on both new and well-tried evidence-based approaches and strategies for teaching students with a wide range of difficulties.

As well as covering special educational needs, learning difficulties, and disabilities in detail, chapters also explore topics such as self-management and autonomy, managing behaviour, and social skills. The book offers sound pedagogical practices and strategies for adapting curriculum content, designing teaching materials, differentiating instruction for mixed-ability classes, and implementing inclusive assessment of learning.

Key features of this new edition include:

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• Additional information on linking all aspects of teaching to a Response-to-Intervention Model

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• A focus on the increasing importance of digital technology in supporting the learning of students with special educational needs and disabilities

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• Up-to-date resource lists for each chapter, for those who wish to pursue a particular topic in greater depth

Reflecting cutting-edge international research and teaching practices, this is an invaluable resource for practising and trainee teachers, teaching assistants, and other educational professionals looking to support students with special educational needs and disabilities.

Chapter 1

Special educational needs, learning difficulties, and disabilities

It is appropriate to begin by delineating the population of students whose management, education, and development are the focus throughout this book. The first chapter provides essential background information on the nature of students’ special educational needs, and on the existing policies, guidelines, and models of support. The following four chapters describe various disabilities and impairments and how these may affect learning for some students in today’s inclusive classrooms. Attention is then given to the special needs of students who are gifted or talented. The remaining chapters of the book present practical approaches to supporting and teaching these students through early childhood, the school years, and into adulthood.

Who are the students?

In the UK, the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years (DfE/DoH, 2015) defines students with special needs in these terms:

A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age, or has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post-16 institutions.

(p. 15)

In the UK, students with special needs are those with intellectual impairment, a physical or sensory disability, health problem, attention deficits, reading and writing problems, or behavioural and social or emotional difficulties. Statistics issued in 2017 indicate that just over 14 per cent of the school population in England had been identified as having special needs (DfE, 2018). Under the policy of inclusive education, most of these students will be placed in mainstream classes and supported with additional resources. It is expected that the curriculum content and teaching methods will be adapted to enable the students with special needs or disabilities to participate, and they will follow the normal curriculum as far as possible (DfE, 2014a) (see Chapter 15). Those students with the most severe and complex needs may still need to be placed in a special school or unit to receive an appropriate educational programme. Advocates for ‘full inclusion’ in the UK and elsewhere argue that even students with the most complex needs should attend mainstream schools; but in 2020, data from 31 countries across Europe indicate that all countries still use some form of fully segregated settings for some learners (Ramberg & Watkins, 2020). The same is true of other countries outside Europe.

In Australia and New Zealand students are described as having special educational needs if they cannot learn in the same way as other children (AngloInfo, 2019). In Australia, the term disability encompasses children with an intellectual or physical disability, vision impairment, hearing impairment, language disorder, mental health condition, or autism (ACARA, 2014a; 2016a). A policy of inclusion also operates in Australia and the mainstream curriculum often needs to be modified to accommodate the needs of those students for whom additional support for learning is required.

Educators in the USA prefer the term ‘exceptional children’, rather than ‘students with special needs’ (CEC, 2019). Exceptional children are described as having differences that occur to such an extent that they require additional services and modification to school practices. In the USA some 14 categories of disability or special need are specified in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (US Department of Education, 2014). These categories are: autism, developmental delay, intellectual disability, orthopaedic impairment (physical disabilities), specific learning disability, speech or language impairment, traumatic brain injury, hearing impairment, deafness, deaf-blindness, visual impairment (low vision) or blindness, multiple disabilities, emotional disturbance, and health impairment. Under IDEA, individuals with special needs, as identified by appropriate professionals, are entitled to support between the ages of 3 to 21 years. Data from 2015–2016 indicate that some 13 per cent of the US public school population was being served under IDEA (NCES, 2018).

There are other students in every country who fall outside any official classification of ‘disabled’ or ‘exceptional’ but who experience learning difficulties, particularly in acquiring functional literacy and numeracy skills. In the past these students have been referred to by many different labels––‘slow learners’, ‘the-hard-to-teach’, ‘under-achievers’, ‘children who find school hard’ and ‘students who struggle.’ When these students are also taken into account together with those formally identified as above, it is estimated that in most countries about 20 per cent of school-age children have some form of special need, either long-term or short-term. The actual proportion in any one school varies greatly according to influences such as the socio-economic status of parents, parental standard of education, and level of socio-economic disadvantage in the catchment area served by the school.

In an attempt to simplify identification of the population of students with special needs in various countries, the OECD (2007) created three convenient categories. These categories of special need and exceptionality are addressed in the later chapters of this book where the nature of the support and teaching they require is considered. The categories are useful in that they neatly summarise the diverse group of students with learning problems and special needs found in inclusive classrooms today:

• students with identifiable disabilities and impairments;
• students with specific difficulties in learning, or with behavioural and/or emotional disorders;
• students with difficulties arising from socio-economic, cultural, or linguistic disadvantage (including those learning English as a second or additional language).

Other students not specifically named in most special education policies may also require additional support in schools. These students include those who are intellectually gifted or with a specific talent that needs to be developed. In the USA and Canada, gifted students are regarded as part of the population requiring special provision, but in the UK and Australia they are recognised instead in separate policies and curriculum guidelines, particularly in reference to providing early identification, acceleration, extension, and enrichment.

What are ‘special needs’?

The special needs of students with learning difficulties and disabilities tend to be associated with two main areas — those that relate to cognitive difficulties affecting learning and those that are termed psycho-social and emotional problems affecting a student’s personal development and social adjustment. The two sources of learning difficulty are not mutually exclusive and many students have problems in both areas (DfE, 2013c; GOV.UK, 2013; 2015).

Cognitive difficulties

Cognitive difficulties cause major problems in processing information, remembering, reasoning, and responding within a school curriculum. The difficulties can be linked to a variety of factors, including the level of a student’s innate intelligence, reasoning ability, verbal skills, perceptual abilities, information processing efficiency, attention and memory (Astle et al., 2019). These factors will be discussed in later chapters in the context of particular disabilities, and also as they relate to learning within particular areas of the school curriculum.

Psycho-social and emotional difficulties

Difficulties in psycho-social and emotional development are related to personal characteristics such as poor self-esteem, lack of confidence, anxiety, poor self-regulation, negative attitude, low aspirations, poor social skills, and limited resilience or hardiness (Schwab, 2019). Many students with special needs display at least some (often several) of these characteristics, which teachers must seek to change for the better. Schools that have the services of a student counsellor are fortunate because that person can also help with the psycho-social needs of all students and can work closely in tandem with teachers (Lindelauf et al., 2018).

Students’ special needs must be identified and addressed as early as possible to ensure that their time in preschool and school is profitable and that they maintain good motivation to learn (Lithari, 2019; Rose & Shevlin, 2020). When a student’s learning difficulty or disability results in frequent experiences of failure rather than success, then the path ahead can be daunting unless the student receives all necessary support and encouragement.

Learning difficulties

Children with learning difficulties fall into one of two possible subgroups: (i) those with general learning difficulties but with no disability or impairment, and (ii) those with a specific learning disorder (SpLD). Specific learning disorders may be further identified as either language-based or non-verbal. Children with general learning difficulties represent much the largest group of those needing support, at an estimated 12 to 16 per cent of the overall school population (Westwood, 2017). Children with a language-based specific learning disorder are fewer in number but include those whose learning difficulties may be associated with speech problems, receptive language weakness, and severe reading difficulties (dyslexia) (LDAA, 2019). The smallest group of students are those with a non-verbal learning disorder (NLD). Their difficulties are not associated with language but are mainly due to problems in fine motor coordination and spatial awareness.

As indicated in the following sections, the learning characteristics of these subgroups are rather different but they all share a common need for systematic and direct teaching, as described in later chapters. Almost all students with learning difficulties begin to exhibit their problems very early in their school life, so the sooner they receive targeted support the better for their long-term prospects.

General learning difficulties

The term general learning difficulties is used throughout this book when discussing students of average or a little below average intelligence who are not in any way intellectually disabled or with sensory impairments. In the past these students have often been labelled ‘slower learners’ or ‘low achievers.’ The IQs for this subgroup are typically reported to be between 80 and 100; but in the case of any students from disadvantaged backgrounds or with emotional or behavioural problems, their potential IQ can sometimes be well above 100. Poverty, disadvantage, and absenteeism in particular are known to be major causes of students’ general learning difficulties in school.

In some cases, the problems these students encounter are exacerbated by inappropriate or insufficient teaching; but the cause of general learning difficulty usually cannot be attributed to a single factor. Many learning problems arise from a complex interaction among variables such as the learners’ cognitive ability, effectiveness of the teaching received, perceived relevance of curriculum content, emotional and financial support from home, absences from school, the student’s confidence and motivation, and availability of individual support when necessary. Additional factors also contribute to a failure to learn, such as distractions in the learning environment, the health of the learner, the interpersonal relationship between teacher and learner, and social relationships within the peer group.

Until recently, teaching methods and instructional materials were rarely investigated as possible causes of a learning difficulty; but now it is readily acknowledged that inappropriate teaching and curriculum materials can present major barriers to learning. It has even been suggested that many of these students would not have learning problems at all if schools improved the overall standard of teaching and attended better to the needs of individual learners (Clarke, 2018; GOV.UK, 2014a).

While many cognitive, psycho-social, and environmental problems do exist for children with learning difficulties, these problems should not be viewed as obstacles that are too difficult for teachers to overcome. Rather they should be recognised as clear indications of areas of need that must be targeted through high-quality instruction. The evidence clearly shows that teaching for these students should involve clear presentation of information by the teacher, explicit instruction in skills and learning strategies, active engagement by learners, guided practice with feedback, independent practice, and frequent reviews or revision. Research evidence indicates that students with general learning problems do best in structured programmes of this type (Andres, 2019; Hattie & Yates, 2014; Masters, 2014). It is also clear that digital technology is increasingly proving useful for improving basic academic skills and motivation of students with general learning difficulties as well as those with disabilities (e.g., Cranmer, 2020; Lee, 2019; Mutlu & Akgün, 2019).

Specific learning disability

The Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDAA, 2019) defines a learning disability (or learning disorder) as a condition that interferes with an individual’s ability to store, process, or produce information. The Association indicates that this disability can affect an individual’s ability to read, write, speak, spell, and compute mathematically. A specific disability in reading is referred to as dyslexia, and in mathematics as dyscalculia (see Chapter 13). Some individuals also have problems with attention, memory, coordination, social skills, and emotional control. It is reported that various forms of behavioural problem are quite common in students with a learning disability (Horbach et al., 2020).

A learning disorder is experienced by some 3 per cent of students of average or above average intelligence (Lindstrom, 2019). In the USA, the category that has seen greatest increase in number of students over the years is that of learning disorders. These students now represent some 34 per cent of children served under IDEA (NCES, 2018). On the positive side, it is also important to note that in recent years there has been an increase in the number of students with a learning disability who are admitted to tertiary education. Many of these students, if adequately supported, go on to do very well in their studies.

The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (APA, 2013) now refers to a single classification specific learning disorder instead of the various sub-categories used previously. There was concern that these subtypes became too poorly differentiated and were difficult to use for accurate diagnosis. Rather than relying on the traditional single criterion of a significant discrepancy figure between measure intelligence (IQ) and the student’s scores on attainment tests, a learning disorder is now identified through a clinical review of the student’s developmental, medical, educational, and family history, test scores, teachers’ observations, and the student’s previous response to any remedial intervention...