What Special Educators Need to Know about Students with Learning Disabilities - Research Paper Example

Special Education: Students with Learning Disabilities Conflicts between district policies and the CEC code of Ethics and Standards for the Professional Practice for Special Educators Students with learning disabilities have always received special education at the institution. The attention given to them is not the same as that given to other students. District policies are usually set up by institutions in order to set standards that are to be followed when conducting operations in the schools. These policies are usually aimed at protecting the students from any form of abuse, segregation or oppression from both the teachers and other members of staff. However, with regards to special education of the students with learning disabilities, some of these district policies usually find themselves in conflict with the CEC code of ethics. This creates a dilemma for both the teachers and the students under these policies. An example of such a conflict comes in with regards to the code of ethics outlining the disciplinary measures to be taken against students when they break the laws laid down by the institutions. According to the district policies, in the event of a discipline case, all the students are meant to receive the same kind of punishment without any form of biasness (Council for exceptional children, 2012). However, the code of ethics dictates that special consideration should be given to the students with learning disabilities. Their involvement in the disciplinary cases may not have been entirely their fault. This scenario presents a point of conflict between the district policies and the code of ethics. Another example is the evaluation of the students academically. This presents a conflict with the district policies, all the students are supposed to be evaluated on their merit based on the same rubric. However, the code of ethics clearly stated that these students with learning disabilities are supposed to be evaluated individually (Council for exceptional children, 2012). Their condition does not allow them to be evaluated on the same basis as other students. This presents a conflict in this issue. Characteristics of Children with Learning Disabilities While looking at the characteristics of students with learning disabilities, it is very important that we do not overlook the fact that some of these students actually possess more than one of these characteristics. However, not all of the characteristics are commonly shared by the students. The uneven development of academic skills has been identified as being the only characteristic that is mostly shared by these students. This means that the children who are suffering from learning disabilities naturally have significantly lower levels of achievements with regards to their academic performances when compared with the other students. Reading is the most common academic difficulty that these students have to deal with. Apart from this characteristic, the other children do not greatly show signs of possession of the other characteristics related with learning disabilities. There are quite a number of learning disabilities that these students have to deal with. These include mathematics disabilities as well as the students who have language difficulties. Therefore, in reviewing these characteristic exhibited by these students, it is important to break them down and classify them according to their signs and manner in which they affect the said individual. Academic Difficulties 1. Reading Most students who have a learning disability usually succumb to underachievement in their academic. This is one of the primary characteristics of a child who has learning disabilities. As a result, this student ends up having an uneven development in his or her academic skills. For most of these students, they usually have a difficulty in the reading area of their academics. More than 60% of the students with the learning disability have been found to greatly struggle when it comes to this area. There are many reasons as to why students with learning disabilities find it hard to read in their academic studies. According to research by Lyon and colleagues (Gina & Melinda, 2011), the results pointed out that most of those students who progresses with ease had certain characteristics. The students who progressed easily found it very easy to understand the representation of the sounds of speech in sentences. Thus, it was very easy for them to apply the information that they acquired in the classrooms, and this improved their fluency in decoding words. Because of their ability to decode the words and apply enough vocabulary and language skills, these students could very easily and fast relate whatever they were reading with the experiences they went through each day as well as their background knowledge. Thus, research here showed that in order for these students with learning disabilities to be assisted with their reading skills, a lot of attention needs to be paid to them. Most of the students who have learning disabilities do not have these language skills. This is in return makes it very difficult for them to understand what they are reading. These students end up having trouble decoding words and they cannot understand a simple text. Phonological processing largely contributes to this factor, too. Thus, oral training for most of these students will largely assist in their academic growth. They would be able to read and understand different words and make meaning out of a comprehension (Gina & Melinda, 2011). 2. Mathematics Difficulty in mathematics is another characteristic associated with the students with learning disabilities. These students find this area to be very hard in their academic lifestyles. There are certain areas that usually present learning difficulties in mathematics for these students. These are: 1. Learning math facts. They are thus not able to have quick and automatic response. 2. Coming up with new strategies to allow quick completion of math calculations. These students find it very hard to be creative in this area. 3. Comprehending and understanding math equations that relate to word problems, for instance algebra. 4. Learning and understanding the strategies that they can implement in order to complete word problems (Gina & Melinda, 2011). As a result, these students have difficulties in comprehending the mathematical equation and the word problems. These difficulties in learning and understanding mathematics may be related to the word initial difficulties that they had in learning the basic concepts of mathematics intended to prepare them for the higher level. Most of the students who suffer from mathematics problems actually have a problem when it comes to their reading as well. Because of this, the instructions from the teacher are not conveniently communicated to the students. They are not able to understand the instructions being directed at them in the booklets. Thus, a difficulty in reading also contributes greatly to difficulties in these children being able to understand mathematics (Gina & Melinda, 2011). 3. Written Expression Written expression is the third area in which students with learning disabilities portray characteristics. Most students, who suffer from this disability, however derive it from the reading disabilities as well. The poor reading skills of these students result in having the problem of comprehending information and as a result, they are not able to develop very good writing skills. This difficulty in writing makes it very hard for these students to speak aloud. In order for a student to have good written expression skills, that student needs to be able to plan what he is going to say and actually know how he is going to say it (Gina & Melinda, 2011). Next, he needs to know how to actually translate these plans that he has into a written text and be able to review the same, such that it does actually make sense. For the students who have learning disabilities, they are not able to follow up this process. They seem to have a shorter and condensed form of expression. Such students need help in making their approach to their expression more sophisticated. Cognitive Skill Deficits Memory Problems Memory deficit is a very common characteristic of students who have learning disabilities. Most of these students with learning disabilities are not able to keep a long-term memory. They experience a lot of frustration in their attempts to try to learn basic information. This is because they are not capable of rapidly retrieving the information that they have gathered in their memory when it is required with their school activities. These students thus find it very hard to comprehend facts since they cannot memorize these facts as they are presented to them. They might be able to remember these facts for a day, but the day after they will forget almost everything relating to these facts. The most common problem for these students with regards to the memory issues is having a working memory. This is the ability of a student in relation to the abilities to see something, think about it, and react according to the information that he has gathered from his observation. Having a working memory entails a lot of complex processes. This is even more difficult to comprehend by the fact that these students are already experiencing difficulties by not having a good memory to begin with. The lack of good memory in these students makes them develop learning disabilities when it comes to mathematics, reading and written expression (Gina & Melinda, 2011). Attention Problems Attention problem is another cognitive characteristic of students with learning disabilities. Research on this issue has indicated that about 60% of the students who have learning disabilities find it very hard to pay attention while in class (Gina & Melinda, 2011). These students are not able to orient towards some important activities that occur in the classroom. A typical example is when a teacher gives an illustration of a mathematical problem on the board. A student with learning disability will be busy staring out of the window at the other children playing outside. The student may also not be able to sustain his attention for a given period of time. These students get distracted very easily by what is going on around them. These attention problems are very harmful to the students since they have got no idea of what they are supposed to concentrate on, and at what given time. This makes these students miss out a lot of information that is being passed on them at the classroom. As a result, they end up performing very poorly academically. The attention problem usually affects the speed at which the students develop academically and this may pose a huge threat to their progress compared to the other students. The students with learning disabilities find themselves not being able to learn at the same speed as their colleagues. As a result, they are left behind and this is not good for their development (Gina & Melinda, 2011). Instructional and assessment plan for developing learning strategies for children with learning disabilities Case Study: 1. Learning Disability of the Student: The student cannot pay attention to what is going on in the classroom. 2. Characteristics of the student The student is constantly paying attention to what is going on outside the classroom instead of what is going on inside. He cannot focus on the orientation that goes on in the classroom and when he does, it is only for a limited amount of time before his attention shifts back to elsewhere. 3. Age of student: 15 years old 4. Instructional plan This student has been identified to have an attention problem. He is not able to completely pay attention to the activities that are going on in the classroom and is constantly getting distracted by other activities around the classroom. Thus, in order to help such a student, there are steps that the teacher or instructor needs to follow to help this student: a. The teacher needs to constantly engage the student in questions relating to what he is teaching in the classroom (Keller, 2011). b. The teacher needs to do a follow up on the studies of the student after every lesson. This will enable the teacher to know how much information the student has gathered from the classroom c. The teacher needs to introduce random quiz tests at the end of a lesson. This quiz will be based on what has been taught on that particular lesson. The quiz will help the teacher to know how much attention the student is paying in the classroom based on how well he answers the questions (Keller, 2011). d. The teacher needs to check up whether the student is taking notes in class as the lesson goes on. Taking notes usually engages a student and he is able to concentrate and pay attention with a lot more ease. Making a follow up on the steps above in the instruction plan will help the teacher have an easy time in getting a solution to help the student with the attention problem. From this plan, it will be easy to assess the situation and establish why the student has a concentrating problem in the classroom. From the questions posed randomly to the student through the quizzes as well as engaging the student in discussion of how his academic life is fairing on, the teacher will easily assess the situation of the student. After establishing the problem, the teacher will be able to come up with strategies on how to engage this student more in the classroom affairs and improve the concentration. Such strategies can include measures such as moving the student to a front desk away from the window, asking frequent questions to the student as the lesson progresses, and even setting up more class discussions in order to get the attention of the student in the academic affairs by making the topic more interactive (Keller, 2011). Standard federal qualities and competency roles of special educators Every mature special education professional has to be willing to abide to a certain set of ethical principles. As experts who are serving individuals with exceptionalities, these professional have to watch how they conduct themselves when they are with these patients. There are professional principles and practice standards that have been put in place to help these special educators learn how to relate with the students with learning disabilities. These principles set standards that allow the students with learning disabilities to not feel segregated when it comes to their methods of study (Council for exceptional children, 2012). In helping with the provision of quality education for these students who have exceptionalities, these professionals are required all times strive to: i. Identify and come up with effective methods that will allow these students to be able to effectively acquire knowledge like the rest of their colleagues. ii. Take full participation in selecting the appropriate material and equipment that will make the learning of these students more effective and easier. iii. Make sure there is a safe and effective learning environment for these students. This will stimulate better learning attitudes within these students. iv. Maintain the appropriate class size for these students that will ensure that they all get the required attention from the teacher (Council for exceptional children, 2012). v. Base the grading rubric for the performance of the students on the individual goals and objectives as achieved by the individual student. vi. Provide accurate records for monitoring the progress made by these students individually. These records are important in coming up with the strategies to help these students improve. vii. Keep the information about a student strictly confidential except in scenarios where there is a written consent about the release of this information. viii. Apply disciplinary methods which are in conformity with the basic human rights of persons with exceptionalities. ix. Clearly state and specify the importance of certain goals and objectives for the practices that have been put in place for these students with exceptionalities. This should especially be given consideration when it comes to the individualized education program. x. Conform to the policies, statutes, and rules that have been laid down by the local agencies. This applies to the acceptable judicial disciplinary methods and behavioral procedures (Council for exceptional children, 2012). The above standards and procedures are important in making sure that the special educators do not abuse or oppress the students with learning disabilities in any way. These students need to be treated with the same respect as those who are not exceptional. This is important in order to make them feel equal to their colleagues and avoid making them growing up stigmatized by their conditions. References Council for exceptional children. (2012). CEC Code of Ethics for Educators of Persons with Exceptionalities. Retrieved 23 March 2012 from < http://www.cec.sped.org/Content/NavigationMenu/ProfessionalDevelopment/ProfessionalStandards/EthicsPracticeStandards/CEC_Code_of_Ethics_for_Educators_of_Persons_with_Exceptionalities.htm>. Gina, K. & Melinda, S.A. (2011). Learning disabilities. Retrieved 23 March, 2012 from < ww.childtrendsdatabank.org/pdf/65_PDF.pdf>. Keller, E. (2011). Strategies for teaching students with learning disabilities. Retrieved 23 March 2012 from < http://www.as.wvu.edu/~scidis/learning.html>. Read More