Who Are Students With Communication Disorders?

1. Who Are Students With Communication Disorders? • Two Major Types • Language disorders include formulating and comprehending spoken messages. • Categories: disorders of form, content, and use • Speech disorders consist of problems related to the verbal transmission of messages. • Categories: phonological and articulation disorders, fluency disorders, voice disorders, and motor speech disorders

2. Who Are Students With Communication Disorders? • Prevalence • These are students whose primary IDEA category is speech or language impaired and they represent 22% of all students receiving IDEA services. • Many students classified as having other disabilities have communication disorders as secondary disabilities.

3. Who Are Students With Communication Disorders? • Service Delivery • Most young children (3 to 5 year olds) who receive services for communication disorders are in inclusive early childhood settings. • Most school age children with communication disorders are served in the general education classroom.

4. What Are Major Characteristics of Students With Communication Disorders? • Academic and Cognitive Performance • A speech disorder does not necessarily have an impact on learning ability. • A language disorders may result in • inconsistent skills across language domains • problems with social skills, behavior, and attention • difficulty with grammatical production, difficulty with comprehension, word finding problems, slow vocabulary development

5. What Are Effective Practices For Elementary Students? • Strategies to Achieve Social Success in Classrooms • Create positive social communication opportunities • Promote appropriate social and positive communicative interactions in different situations • Reinforce appropriate use of speech and language skills • Use positive behavior support principles

6. What Are Effective Practices For Secondary Students? • Strategies to Achieve Academic Success • Allow adequate time to express ideas • Reinforce correct language use and positively redirect inappropriate communication techniques • Directly instruct students in key communication skills in separate sessions • Consider alternatives to oral responding for some students

7. What Are Effective Practices For Secondary Students? • Strategies to Achieve Social Success • Develop positive student-teacher relationships • Identify student’s perceptions of embarrassing situations and try to avoid them • Teach meaning of words describing emotions and give practice using them • Identify students’ interests and encourage them to purse learning in these and related areas • Encourage students to engage in conversations and use appropriate pragmatics

8. Who Are Students With Sensory Impairments? • IDEA defines deafness as • Severe loss of hearing with impaired ability to process linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplifications. • IDEA defines hearing impairment as • a loss of hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating that adversely affects educational performance but that is not included under the definition of deafness.

9. Who Are Students With Sensory Impairments? • Hearing loss can be described in terms of decibels (db) or the volume require. • Normal hearing is able to hear sounds at 0 to 20 db. • Types of hearing loss include • conductive • sensorineural • mixed • central auditory processing disorder

10. Who Are Students With Sensory Impairments? • IDEA defines visual impairments including blindness to mean an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child’s educational performance. • Degree of visual loss is described according to • visual acuity and visual field

11. Who Are Students With Sensory Impairments? • Blindness as defined by IDEA and legal blindness are not the same. • Deaf-blindness • means concomitant hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and education needs that can be accommodated in special programs solely for children with deafness or blindness.

12. Who Are Students With Sensory Impairments? • Most children with sensory impairments will be identified very soon after birth. • Most states use universal newborn hearing screening procedures. • Pediatricians are most likely to determine that a child has a visual impairment and will then refer them to the state’s Child Find services.

13. Who Are Students With Sensory Impairments? • According to the U.S. Department of Education, there are relatively few individuals with sensory impairments eligible for public school special education services. • Services for students with sensory impairments may be provided in different types of settings.

14. What Are Major Characteristics of Students With Sensory Impairments? • Academic and Cognitive Performance • Many are academically gifted and talented. • For others, conditions that occur during prenatal development that result in sensory impairments can affect central nervous system development and impact cognitive development and learning ability.

15. What Are Major Characteristics of Students With Sensory Impairments? • Academic and Cognitive Performance • Acquisition of literacy skills may be impacted for children with hearing impairments. • Students who are blind are particularly challenged in learning concepts that are difficult to comprehend without vision.

16. What Are Major Characteristics of Students With Sensory Impairments? • Behavior Performance and Social Skills • Social skills will often be impacted because of a lack of experience resulting from the student’s sensory loss. • Spontaneous relationships and friendships may not occur as frequently as for others.

17. What Are Effective Strategies For Including Elementary Students? • Strategies to Achieve Academic Success • Students in general education classrooms are supported by itinerant or consultant special education teachers with specific professional preparation to meet students’ needs.

18. What Are Effective Strategies For Including Elementary Students? • Strategies to Achieve Social Success • Use direct instruction and natural opportunities, or create social situations, in which students with sensory impairments can interact with their peers without disabilities.

19. What Are Effective Strategies For Including Secondary Students? • Strategies to Achieve Academic Success • Success depends on the degree to which students have developed basic academic skills during earlier school years. • Differentiated instructional strategies can be helpful in building specific skills.

20. What Are Effective Strategies For Including Secondary Students? • Strategies to Achieve Social Success • Help student understand what they cannot see or hear, how they stand within their social world, and how they can participate in social ways like other students. • Help students find ways to remove or work around barriers or find substitutes for them.