Week 2 Modules

Articles #1 & 2:
1. What are the social and mental implications for children with learning disabilities? Learning disabilities can lead to emotional distress, low self-esteem, depression, loneliness, poor self concepts, anxiety, acting out (i.e. tantrums, aggressions, etc.), problems with social behavior and coping skills, etc. Teachers play a significant role with students with learning disabilities and helping with these problems. Such as, teachers can employ different teaching strategies such as multisensory methods. They can also praise a child for their efforts, boost self-confidence, and provide opportunities for the children to be involved with other children. Teachers can also increase the student’s adaptive skills by building social skills.
2. Think back to when you were in school. What strategies do you remember the teaching using (academic or behavioral). Think about how a child with L.D. would respond. Comment/explain. Thinking back when I was in school, teachers used verbal warnings and cues, redirection, privilege losses, sent to the hallway or principal’s office, etc. When thinking about students with learning disabilities, I don’t believe they would respond as well as other students. They don’t or wouldn’t seem to comprehend them as well. Although, some would be able to respond to the verbal warnings and cues better than others. Redirection might be a bit tricky and take a few attempts. Overall, I believe privilege losses would be the most difficult for the student with L.D. to respond to. Working with these type of children, I see first-hand how they respond to such. It takes many attempts for the children to understand what is happening and what needs to be done. They don’t comprehend stuff as fast and as normal as us. Slowing down and explaining yourself and/or the situation may be of most importance.
3. How will you refine your practices to address the social needs of students with disabilities?
Overall, you need to help the students with their social skills. These are very important for everyday life. Interaction with other students is crucial, giving praises often and increasing the appropriate skills needed (manners, greetings, turn taking, etc.) Just getting the social skills of the students up to an appropriate level is the main focus.

Articles 3
1. How has the evolution of medical technology changed the way we look at disabilities? The evolution of medical technology has opened up many doors. With this, we can actually pin-point the exact location in the brain where the problem is occurring. This technology has even given us the opportunity to catch exactly where the problems are before it is too late. For teaching, it can now help with the instruction for the students because it will now tell us just where the student(s) are having the difficutly, and basically give/help us with the strategies we need to implement.
2. What implications will this new outlook have on teaching and mandated legislation?
This new outlook will give teachers of now and the future a better understanding of the instruction and curriculum that needs to given. Since we can know find out the exact reading problems, levels, etc of the children, the correct intervention can happen.

Articles 4 & 5
1. ‘The Disproportionate Representation of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Children in Special Education is a significant issue in education’. After reviewing the article:
a. List some of the issues surrounding this topic?
i. Drop out rate has significantly increased for white students.
ii. Many ELL students are named “special education” students.
iii. Cultures deemed “emotionally disturbed.”
iv. Students being tested in English instead of native language.
v. Overrepresentation of culturally/linguistically diverse children
vi. The use of Relative Risk Ratios
b. Discuss how legislation has attempted to ameliorate this problem
i. State and local monitored every two years.
ii. 1997 amendments of IDEA has requirements that states collect data for monitoring.
c. Describe the problem as you see it.
i. Children being wrongly identified/mislabeled.
d. Make a suggestion…What is the solution as you see it?
i. Before labeling a child, you need to make 100% certainty that it is correct. Data needs to be collected and monitoring of the student is crucial.