Special Considerations

General Guidelines

The provision of special consideration is an issue that all teachers need to be aware of if they are to ensure the curriculum is inclusive for students with learning disabilities.

Special consideration in its broadest sense simply means taking into account the special needs of individual students, and can be applied across all aspects of the curriculum. In terms of assessments, special consideration can involve special arrangements for school generated tests, assignments, practicum and other assessments. It also may include exemptions from assessment.

Assessment is an integral part of effective teaching and learning. Schools need to ensure that their means of assessment are fair and equitable to all students. For students with learning disabilities this may mean the application of special consideration to ensure they have an equitable opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. Special consideration does not provide the students with an advantage over their peers but enables them to demonstrate the full extent of their learning.

Two Broad Types of Special Consideration

1.  Education Queensland Policy

Education Queensland (EQ) has certain policies regarding the management of students with various forms of disability.  Students with learning disability are included in their published information.  However EQ states explicity that learning disabilities such as Dyslexia and ADHD are not formally recognised and therefore not formally funded.

For further information try the Education Queensland http://education.qld.gov.au.

2.  School and Classroom Based

For students with learning disabilities and other disabilities that are not formally recognised or supported by EQ the school and individual classroom teachers can still make a significant difference.

For this to be effective it is important to realize that special considerations are not the same as learning support.  Special consideration is essentially an individual classroom teacher's response to the needs of the student with a learning disability.

Every school and every teacher is able within their sphere of influence and responsibility to provide a certain level of special consideration for children in their classroom for whom special consideration is warranted.

Special consideration can be thought about in two ways:

1.  The Policy Level

This means that parents and teachers meet together to formulate a set of statements that will guide what the child does and how he or she does it.  Such a policy is, by enlarge, founded on the principle of empathy.  In other words there exists a basic belief by teachers and parents that the child requires a certain level of support and assistance tor eles they will be significantly disadvantaged .

2.  The Practical Level

At this level the teachers and parents work out a number of specific strategies including do’s and don’ts that will be directly employed with the individual child at the classroom level.

The following Six Key Areas of Special Consideration should be investigated:

• Academic and Scholastic (This further breaks down to Classroom work and Homework)
• Tests and Reporting
• Mental Health
• Learning Support
• Home Agendas
• Peer Group

These areas are explained in detail in the following Document: Special Considerations Policy and Agenda

It is hoped that this document can be used as an agenda item for a meeting between parents and teachers. There is space on the document to record decisions about some of the more important considerations. By doing this it makes both the school and parent clear on what is needed and what can be adequately achieved. It also gives impetus to a follow up meeting to check on progress.

The Following Document is also helpful:

Guidelines for Special Considerations in Assessment

Modifying Curriculum and Instruction

Purpose of Modification : The purpose of modification is to enable an individual to compensate for intellectual, behavioural, or physical disabilities. Modifications allow an individual to use existing skills while promoting the development, acquisition, or improvement of new skills.

Purpose of Accommodation : Accommodations are modifications to the delivery of instruction or to the method of student performance. In general, accommodation does not change the conceptual difficulty or content of the curriculum.

Concept of Partial Participation : Partial participation is a modification of the curriculum so that an individual has some active level of involvement in the instruction and instructional activities. This concept is particularly applicable to students with more severe disabilities who may never learn the same skill at the same level as students without disabilities.

Good modifications should:

• Fit into the classroom environment
• Lend itself to meeting individual student needs
• Optimize understanding for each student
• Work well with instruction activities

Accommodation: A modification to the delivery of instruction or the method of student performance that does not change the curricular content or conceptual difficulty.

Example: Listening to a novel rather than reading it.

Adaptations: A modification that changes the delivery of instruction or the conceptual difficulty and content of the curriculum.

Example: Providing picture cards for key words in a story.

Parallel Instruction: A modification to the delivery of instruction or method of student performance that does not change the content but changes the conceptual difficulty of the curriculum.

Example: Most students are completing addition problems and this student is completing a worksheet with problems that have counting circles.

Overlapping Instruction: Modifications to the student's performance expectations while all the students take place in shared delivery of instruction. It is assumed that there is a difference in the content and the conceptual difficulty of the curriculum.

Example: A student is responsible for recognizing pictures of Newton and Einstein from a video on physics while most students will be expected to write short biographies.

Parallel Agendas - Defined Roles and Shared Responsibility

There are four separate but linked agendas that should be 'run' concurrently for the student with a learning disability.  The following two charts help define the two notions of 'parallel' and 'shared' responsibility.

 Agenda 1 Learning Support

Generally speaking for the child with a learning disability Learning Support needs to be provided across the default curriculum.  If possible support measures should be jointly negotiated between parents and teachers and formalized through a written plan.  The presence of a plan usually implies regular meetings between teachers and parents.  Learning support plans should never be considered as “set and forget strategies”. The Learning Support Teacher is the key person in this regard.

Agenda 2 Individualised Special Consideration Policy

The formulation of a Special Consideration Policy should be done as an additional notion to learning support.  See Classroom Based Considerations discussed above.

 Agenda 3 Assistive Technology

The possibility of purchasing, training in and implementing some form of Assistive Technology should be explored for the student with a learning disability.  Assistive technology requires the parent to negotiate with both a service provider and the school.  It is important that the classroom teacher embraces the technology and that the piece of software or hardware that is chosen is just right for the child and can be used at both school and home.  There are three main service providers in Brisbane. 

Agenda 4 Direct Remediation

The student with a learning disability who is still at the age where effective recovery can happen should be offered intervention.  See the section on Scientific Evidenced Based Interventions. 

The school may wish to investigate ways that they can provide Direct Remediation.  See Criteria for Schools.

School decision makers need to think seriously about purchasing, training in and implementing a scientific and evidenced based intervention in their school.  There are now numerous programs that meet the acceptable criteria.  Many are from overseas but there are some Australian program.

However, there are many reasons why school cannot provide intervention.  If the school cannot provide the right intervention at the right time then private professional help is probably the only other option.  The Literacy Care Service exists for this reason.

Putting it All Together

For the student with a learning disability to have their best chance at recovery all four agendas need to be put in place and run concurrently.  In the main they will involve four different professionals. The parents need to have an ongoing coordinating role.