© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 1  Describe major characteristics of students with learning disabilities.  Explain key issues and challenges related to including students with learning disabilities in general education classrooms.  Describe effective practices for addressing the needs of students with learning disabilities in elementary and secondary classrooms.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 2  Students with learning disabilities exhibit an uneven pattern of academic development, including unexpected underachievement in one or more academic areas.  This underachievement is not explained by another disability or by environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 3  The severe discrepancy approach examines the discrepancy between a student’s actual and expected achievement levels and then using the exclusion clause to eliminate possible causes for the severe discrepancy. It also includes documenting the need for special education and related services.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 4  Criticisms  The method requires that a student fall significantly behind grade level academically before a significant discrepancy exists.  The methods that are used to determine a severe discrepancy are not reliable or valid.  Professionals lack a systematic method for determining whether a student’s academic difficulty was due to a lack of good teaching or a persistent learning disability.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 5  Continues to emphasize the use of unexpected underachievement as the primary criterion for student identification. The steps are described as Tiers 1, 2, and 3.  Tier 1: Students receive high-quality instruction in the general education classroom in core content areas.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 6  Educators use screening measures to determine students who struggle academically, in spite of high-quality instruction in the general education classroom.  Tier 2: For students who struggle academically, teachers provide secondary prevention instructions. This may include systematic, structured teaching, small group instruction, peer tutoring, etc.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 7  Tier 3:  Teachers monitor progress for those who receive Tier 2 instruction. ▪ For those who continue to struggle, teachers provide Tier 3 instruction, which includes intensive, individualized interventions using highly effective instruction and frequent monitoring of student progress.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 8  For students who do not respond to Tier 3 instruction, poor teaching has been eliminated as a possible cause of the student’s low achievement.  These students are then referred to a multidisciplinary team for possible identification with a disability.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 9  Learning disabilities is the largest disability group.  Nearly one-half of all students with disabilities are identified with learning disabilities.  At least one student with a learning disability is included in most general education classes, and most have more than one student.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 10  The major characteristic of the learning disability category is its heterogeneity.  The main characteristics that educators use to identify students with learning disabilities is underachievement  The most common learning disability is in the area of reading. Math and written expression are other deficit areas.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 11  Attentional problems ▪ Difficulty selectively attending to information and sustaining attention over time. ▪ Problems related to impulsivity when presented with both oral and written problems or questions in class. ▪ Difficulty sitting still in class and may be easily distracted.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 12  Reading difficulties often relate to problems with word recognition, spelling, reading fluency and automaticity, and/or reading comprehension.  Reading difficulties can cause problems with all subject areas. Reading difficulties become increasingly challenging for adolescents with learning disabilities as content becomes more complex.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 13  Some students with learning disabilities have difficulty with written expression. They produce written products with technical errors, poor organization, and limited development of ideas.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 14  Some students with learning disabilities also have difficulty in learning mathematics. Problems may relate to difficulty with math computations or math problem solving.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 15  Social problems ▪ Lack of skills needed to build social relationships. ▪ Exhibiting aggressive actions or negative verbal behavior. ▪ More attention-seeking or disruptive behaviors ▪ Displaying more insensitive, and less tactful or cooperative behaviors when interacting with others (Bryan, Burstein, & Ergul, 2004)

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 16  A major challenge relates to the higher expectations students with learning disabilities face in general education classrooms.  Another challenge is helping students with learning disabilities understand their disability and how to get things done in spite of it.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 17  Employ strategies to increase student attention to and engagement in tasks.  Break a long task into shorter parts.  Use distributed practice.  Use strategies to make tasks more interesting.  Alternate tasks that are high interest for students with those that are low interest.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 18 Increase active student learning through high-access instructional strategies that (Feldman & Denti, 2004):  Provide thinking time for students  Assume different levels of knowledge and skill regarding content  Create low levels of threat  Carefully structure student interactions  Provide for differentiated instruction based on student skill levels and learning needs.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 19  Provide students with supports by using strategies such as scaffolding as they learn complex content.  Scaffolding occurs as a teacher breaks down a problem into steps, provide students with background information regarding how to solve each step, and then combines all steps to solve the problem.

© 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 20  Provide students with strategies for learning information.  Mnemonic devices has proven effective in improving the memory of students with disabilities.