Special Considerations
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.
Special Arrangements
Special arrangements involve a practical adjustment of how the task is presented and/or how the students are expected to respond in order to demonstrate knowledge and skills. When determining the type of special arrangements required, teachers must consider the student's individual needs. When making such decisions principals and teachers should request advice from professionals in the impairment area.
Queensland school are bound by the relevant policies of Education Queensland in relation to the provision of Special Consideration. However every school and every teacher is able within their sphere of influence and responsibility provide a certain level of special consideration for children in their classroom for whom special consideration is warranted.
The following Six Key Areas of Special Consideration should be investigated:
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.
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