I have a 13 year old daughter who has an auditory processing disorder. She has been receiving special education services since 2nd grade. She has been in the regular ed class and has received supports, aide, modification of assignments, etc. Each year she has done well and has always achieved the goals written in her iep. This year, her first year in middle school has been extremely difficult for her. The modifications she used to get for her work, are pretty much non-existant even though her teacher insists she is doing them. The school staff is telling me that they cannot modify too much because it then changes the curriculum. Would giving my daughter 6 vocabulary words, with simple definitions as opposed to 15 or 20 words with more complex wording, be changing the curriculum? What about assignments from textbooks? If a child has a comprehension problem, shouldn’t the text assignments be revised for them so that they can better understand the material? They are insisting that this cannot be done and have suggested that I place my daughter in a self-contained class. My daughter has alot of anxiety and they have attibuted her academic failure to this problem. She has come a long way socially and feels very comfortable in her current school. The self contained class that they want to move her to is in the other middle school in this district. They feel that she would do better academically and socially in a self contained environment. I feel the exact opposite. She gains so much from being with her peers and to take her out of inclusion, I feel, would be a mistake. Any suggestions? Especially with the inclusion modifications? Thank you
Re: Modifications in inclusive classroom
Thanks Connie, I will definitely look into what you have mentioned. I also believe that they simply don’t know how to teach her, or as you said, don’t want to.
It sounds as if the school does not know how to modify the curriculum. I would ask for an educational consultant, which would be considered a supplementation/accomodation under IDEA. You need to stipulate that general is LRE (least restrictive enviornment). Under the IDEA and per the OSEP clarification LRE is clearly defined as the place where the child would be with the general education students….etc Take a look at the link below from Wrightslaw and LRE faq… http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/lre.osers.memo.idea.htm
It clearly defines what least restrictive enviornment. As far as the modifications on the curriculum you need to get a hold of your state standards and benchmarks and see what she is able to do based on those standards. If she has an instructional assistant in the classroom then together with the teacher and a special education teacher as consult there is no reason why they cannot get to the “goal” of the standard and be able to adapt the curriculum. If they claim they don’t know how or are unable to I would ask them why not? They need to look at the goal of the standard not how to get there. They just don’t want to work or just don’t plain understand how to do it. Either way is not acceptable. Carol Ann Tomlinson has a FANTASTIC book out on differentiated instruction and how to apply it to the classroom. Check it out or email personally and I can send you the information. Good luck.