RESEARCH THAT BENEFITS CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

RESEARCH THAT BENEFITS CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

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I have to share Special Needs; this is a special subject due to my experiences with the laws and policies which enable one of my children to be mainstreamed into the classroom due to his special need. Once we understood our child’s diagnosis and the effects it will have on his education, we were able to seat down with the doctors, teachers, and school aids. An IEP (Individualized Education Program) was developed for my child which enable us to support his needs. Organizing skills enable my son to tailor his school work to meet his unique needs. He is now a very successful individual for his age of 23. He struggled in the beginning because we didn’t know what was wrong, as a very young toddler only I could understand what he was trying to say. He had made up his own language, and would be very fussy because others could not understand him. The doctor’s told us his brain was thinking too fast, so he would be a visual learning. We as a team support his learning abilities to meet his needs throughout his school years. By the time he was in eighth grade his skill for organizing became a great blessing to him. As a high schooler, he excelled, and was on the basketball team throughout his four years, and received honors.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a federal law enacted in 1990 and reauthorized in 1997 and 2004. It is designed to protect the rights of students with disabilities by ensuring that everyone receives a free appropriate public education (FAPE), regardless of ability. Furthermore, IDEA strives not only to grant equal access to students with disabilities, but also to provide additional special education services and procedural safeguards (IDEA, n.d.)

Special education services are individualized to meet the unique needs of students with disabilities and are provided in the least restrictive environment. Special education may include individual or small group instruction, curriculum or teaching modifications, assistive technology, transition services and other specialized services such as physical, occupational, and speech therapy. These services are provided in accordance with an Individualized Education Program (IEP), which is specifically tailored to the unique needs of each student (IDEA, n.d.)

IDEA also grants increased parental participation and protection for students.

Research Based Strategies for Special Needs Students - Graphic Organizers

January2008

            Are you looking for a way to help students improve their learning potential? You may want to consider using graphic organizers. Graphic organizers are a visual representation of knowledge that structures information by arranging important aspects of a concept or topic into a pattern using labels (Bromley, et al., 1998). They can be used in a variety of ways to help students organize information, stay focused on the content material, reinforce previously learned material and help relate new concepts to ones previously learned. More specifically, the visual representations help students by:

• Representing abstract ideas in more concrete forms,

• Depicting the relationships among facts and concepts,

• Organizing ideas, and

• Storing and recalling information (Billmeyer & Barton, 1998).

Many variables can impact on the determination of which type of graphic organizer will work best for a specific population. Grade level, learning styles, level of disability, curriculum and principle to be learned can make one type of graphic organizer more feasible than another. Typical graphic organizer styles include:

• Hierarchical organizers - present main ideas and supporting details in rank order,

• Comparative organizers - depict similarities among key concepts,

• Sequential organizers - illustrate a series of steps of place events in a chronological order,

• Diagrams - depict actual objects and systems in the real world of science and social studies (Marchand-Matella, et al., 1998),

• Cyclical organizers - depict a series of events that have no beginning or end,

• Conceptual organizers, include a main concept with supporting facts, evidence, or characteristics (Bromley, et al., 1998)

For example, if you want to show a series of items, you would probably choose a sequential framework or cycle diagram. If you want to show a comparison, you’d probably choose parallel lists or a Venn diagram, etc. Regardless of the style you decide to use, research (Baxendell, 2003) has identified three factors (the 3 C’s) for successful implementation of graphic organizers in the classroom. The factors you should always incorporate are being:

• Consistent

o Create a standard set of graphic organizers

o Establish a routine for implementing them in a classroom

• Coherent

o Provide clear labels for the relationship between concepts in graphic organizers

o Limit the number of ideas covered

o Minimize distractions

• Creative

o Use during all stages of lesson design

o Incorporate during homework and test review

o Add illustrations

o Implement with cooperative groups and pairs

For additional information, there are many online resources available for those interested in incorporating graphic organizers into their “tool kit.” Below is a list of some of those resources.

• Education Place - http://www.eduplace.com

• The Graphic Organizer - http://www.graphic.org

• Teach-nology - http://teachers.teach-nology.co

• Education World - http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/03/lp322-04.shtml

• NCREL - North Central Regional Educational Laboratory - http://www.ncrel.org, search for “graphic organizers”

 

This series is based on a presentation by Charles A. Hughes, Ph.D. and Marisa A. Macy, Ph.D. of Penn State University, who find these to be research-based best practices. The findings of this study are under review and have not been released by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). The information provided here is not endorsed by IES.

©PSEA,

References

Research Based Strategies for Special Needs Students ... - PSEA

 

www.psea.org/.../Special%20Ed%20Graphic%20Organizers.p..

 

IDEA (The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act)

www.help4adhd.org/education/rights/idea

Other supporting web sites

IDEA & U.S. Dept of Education
Federal site for information about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

User's Guide to the 2004 IDEA Reauthorization
The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) has prepared an analysis of recent IDEA changes. This is a long (63 pg) and technical document designed for use by public policy professionals. Parents and educators should scan the table of contents for sections of greatest interest. (in PDF)

Families and Advocates Partnership for Education
The Families and Advocates Partnership for Education project is part of the IDEA Partnership and strives to improve the educational outcomes of children with disabilities. It facilitates communication between families and advocates and focuses on IDEA.

IDEA Partnership
IDEA Partnership funded by the US Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), informs families and educators about IDEA and strategies to improve educational outcomes for students with disabilities.

A Guide to the Individualized Education Plan (IEP)
Department of Education guidance assisting educators, parents, and state and local educational agencies in implementing the requirements of Part B of the IDEA regarding IEPs for children with disabilities, including preschool-aged children.