5 Categories of Exceptionalities
"A learning disorder characterized by specific _______ problems over such a period of time, and to such a marked degree, and of such a nature, as to adversely affect educational performance."
(Special Education in Ontario: Policy and Resource Guide K-12, 2017)
What is BEHAVIOURAL.
May be accompanied by:
a. an inability to build or to maintain interpersonal relationships;
b. excessive fears or anxieties;
c. a tendency to compulsive reaction;
d. an inability to learn that cannot be traced to intellectual, sensory, or other health factors, or any combination thereof.
(Special Education in Ontario: Policy and Resource Guide K-12, 2017)
"One of the most effective means of supporting children with autism spectrum disorder, it can be successful at mitigating behavioral challenges and improving communication, socialization, intellectual functioning, language skills, and daily living skills." (Barnett, 2022)
What is Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA)?
Real objects, Photographs, Line drawings and Words are all this type of support for a student with ASD.
Visual Representations
- “Several different types of visual representations are frequently used in homes and early childhood settings with young children with ASD. Parents, teachers, and other professionals should assess the child and then decide which type of visual representation would be the best for the target child.”
"For young children with ASD, visual supports are a fairly non intrusive intervention strategy that can be individualized easily to provide assistance in the areas of social and behavioral learning."
(Meadan et al., 2011)
These occur naturally throughout the day and many students with ASD struggle with these changes during the day.
What are Transitions?
Transitions - To help assist students with ASD, Transition Supports can be used to help, “increase predictability for students with ASD and create positive transition routines.”
“Implementing transition supports requires a relatively small investment of time and resources. The benefits of these supports include an improved quality in a student’s school experience as well as additional time for instruction.” (Hume, Sreckovic, Snyder and Carnahan, 2014)
Approximately this many children are diagnosed with ASD.
**An estimated 1 in 66 have been diagnosed with ASD in CANADA.
(Government of Canada, Infographic: Autism Spectrum Disorder among Children and Youth in Canada 2018, 2022)
**
“About 1 in 44 children has been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) according to estimates from CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network.” (2018 data)
(U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Data & Statistics on Autism Spectrum Disorder, 2022)
This exceptionality includes autism, deaf and hard of hearing, language impairments, speech impairments and learning disabilities.
What is COMMUNICATIONAL?
a. Autism - A severe learning disorder that is characterized by disturbances in rate of educational development, ability to relate to the environment; mobility; perception, speech and language.”
b. Deaf and Hard of Hearning - Diminished or non-existent auditory response to sound characterized by deficits in language and speech development.
c. Language Impairment - impairment of verbal communication that may be neurological, psychological, physical, or sensory factors. (example - delayed language or articulation development).
d. Speech - An impairment in articulation, rhythm and stress of language formulation.
e. Learning Disability - One of a number of neurodevelopmental disorders that persistently and significantly has an impact on the ability to learn.
(Special Education in Ontario: Policy and Resource Guide K-12, 2017)
"ABA’s basic strategy is to identify what happens before children engage in a particular behaviour and what happens immediately after they engage in that behaviour," it is sometimes called this strategy. (Barnett, 2022)
What are the ABC’s of behaviour?
Antecedent, Behaviour, Consequence. It aims to try and determine what is triggering and maintaining the behaviour, identify patterns and understand the behaviour, so as to teach appropriate replacement behavours. (Barnett, 2022)
"These can help students with ASD to anticipate the order of events and activities, and increase independence, they often take the form of the first/then approach." (Meadan et al., 2011)
What are Visual Schedules?
This first step in analyzing transitions requires you to consider transitions between staff members, activities/subjects and locations.
Identify Problematic Transitions
"The first step requires assessing when, where, and with whom the challenging transitions occur. There are three types of transitions to consider and observe: transitions between staff members; transitions among activities, subjects, and instructional formats; and transitions between locations." (Hume, Sreckovic, Snyder and Carnahan, 2014)
These are some of the characteristics a person with ASD may exhibit.
- Sensory overload
- Difficulty understanding other's perspectives
- Adherance to rigid routines and rules
- Lack of eye contact
- Social isolation
- High Anxiety
- Speech lacking tone and pitch.
It should be noted that, "characteristics can vary greatly from person to person, so it is difficult to profile someone with an ASD." (Polacek, Remy and Seaman, 2014)
A range of severe learning disorders to an unusually advanced degree of ability.
What is INTELLECTUAL?
Includes -
a. Giftedness, an advanced degree of general intellectual ability,
b. Mild Intellectual Disability, a learning disorder where the student may benefit from being in regular class with considerable modifications or benefit from a small class placement.
c. Developmental Disability - A severe learning disorder where the student will need an accommodated special education program and there is limited potential for academic learning, independent social adjustment and economic self-support.
(Special Education in Ontario: Policy and Resource Guide K-12, 2017)
Research suggests that this group of people should receive some basic training to in an effort to know how to best support students with disabilities. (Barnett, 2022)
Who are teachers and other school staff?
These are 4 reasons for using visuals in the classroom, at home and the community.
What are:
Increased reliability (know what to do).
Encourage independence
Structure and predictability
Orderliness in the environment which can provide a sense of stability. (Hodgdon, 1995) (Meadan et al., 2011)
The second step is to Select Appropriate Transition Supports, and they can be presented in these 2 ways before, during and after a transition.
What are Visual supports and Auditory Supports?
These characteristics of someone with ASD highlight the strengths they can bring to a classroom or work setting.
In an effort to move away from a deficit model of thinking, students with ASD may have many strengths.
- Normal to outstanding intelligence
- Strong verbal skills and rich vocabularies
- Deep curiosity and willingness to ask critical questions
- Adept at noticing details, remembering facts
- Astute observers
- Good note-takers
(Polacek, Remy and Seaman, 2014)
A severe limitation or deficiency that requires special assistance which will assist in providing the student with the same opportunities to meet academic expectations as students who are the same age and without exceptionalities. This exceptionality may also include students with partial or total impairment of sight or vision.
(Special Education in Ontario: Policy and Resource Guide K-12, 2017)
What is PHYSICAL?
Despite the documented efficacy of ABA-based interactions, these are 4 reasons why many may be reluctant to use ABA. (Barnett, 2022)
What are...
Limited knowledge of Educators,
Scarcity of qualified ABA professionals and teachers,
Lack of teacher education programs,
Expense of services in some areas.
(Barnett, 2022)
These are written scenarios, skits, or examples that children can use to initiate conversations and interactions with others.
What are Visual Scripts and Social Stories?
Writing common scenarios for day to day events to help assist students interact with their environment and other students and adults (How to ask for something or to go somewhere? Or how to brush teeth or use the washroom).
These are examples of Visual Transition Supports.
Visual Transition Supports:
Priming and cueing - Previewing an event before it occurs. Can use pictures, photographs, videos, visual schedules, First/Then boards, timers or social stories. Cueing refers to signaling a transition and it can be verbal and/or visual.
This is the technical term for when an individual leaves an unsupervised area or runs away.
What is ELOPEMENT?
“When individuals elope from a supervised area, they are more likely to be involved in traffic-related injuries or drowning incidents, or have parents and teachers unable to locate them (Piazza et al., 1997; Shavelle, Strauss, & Pickett, 2001).
(Phillips, Briggs, Fisher and Greer, 2018)
A combination of Learning or other disorders impairments or physical disabilities that is of such a nature as to require for educational achievement the services of one or more teachers holding qualifications in special education and the provision of Support Services appropriate for such disorders impairments or disabilities.
(Special Education in Ontario: Policy and Resource Guide K-12, 2017)
What are MULTIPLE EXCEPTIONALITIES?
Under this code, people have the right to equal treatment with respect to services and to treatment without discrimination on the basis of a number of grounds, including disability. Education is considered to be a service under the code, and service providers have an obligation to accommodate a person's needs, unless doing so causes “undue hardship” for the provider, “considering the cost, outside sources of funding, if any, and health and safety requirements, if any.”
(Special Education in Ontario: Policy and Resource Guide K-12, 2017)
What is the Ontario Human Rights Code?
Visual representations of expectations for behaviour in an effort to learn what is acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour.
What are Rule Reminder Cards?
Another visual representation that can assist a student with ASD in learning appropriate behaviour.
These are examples of Auditory Transition Supports.
- Verbal Advance Warning - Explicitly telling ALL students and making sure to specifically address your students with ASD - "We will be having snack in 2 minutes."
- Timers, music, singing.
- High Probability Requests - A directive that a student is likely to follow, followed by a low probability request. “Give me a high-five! Okay, now unpack your bag, please.”
“Research has shown that an easy–hard sequence seems to decrease resistance to following through with difficult tasks, establishing behavioral momentum.” (Hume, Sreckovic, Snyder and Carnahan, 2014)
This group of people should learn more about ASD.
Who is EVERYONE!
“Providing more effective, relevant, and individualized instruction to all adults is critical to enhancing their academic achievement and success.” (Housel, 2019)