Transcript Severely Disabled

Severely Disabled
Teaching students with severe disabilities
requires patience and creativity!
Defining Severely Disabled
1. Severity
 Require greater assistance than peers of a
similar disability
2. Combination
 Two or more disabilities whose individual
severity would not be classified as severe but
in conjunction, do constitute severe.
Approximately .5%-2% of population
Defining Severely Disabled
 Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act (IDEA) defines Severe/Profound
Mental Retardation as:
 “ …a child with “significantly sub-average
general intellectual functioning existing
concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior
and manifested during the developmental
period that adversely affects a child’s
education performance.”*
 *Individuals with disabilities Education Act
amendment of 1997, 105th Cong.,(1997).
Characteristics of Severely Disabled
Social development
Difficult interacting or may be oblivious to
others. Neither initiate or respond to
interactions. Difficulty performing self-help
activities such as dressing, feeding, and
grooming (or totally absent). May exhibit selfabusive acts or abusive behavior such as biting
or scratching.
Characteristics of Severely Disabled
Cognitive development
Exhibit a great deal of variation. If the primary
disability is orthopedic or health impairment,
cognitive function may not be affected. In
others, student may be unable or not respond to
simple commands, identify shapes/colors, or
symbols/words.
Categories of mental retardation
Characteristics of Severely Disabled
 Language Development
Common problems include delays inspeech
and language, speech clarity, and bizarre
speech patterns. Often unable to communicate
or utilizes noises such as grunts or shrieks.
Characteristics of Severely Disabled
 Motor Development
Delays are very common. Specific problems
may include difficulty walking or sitting without
support. Children may be unable to perform
basic tasks such as rolling over, grasping
objects, or holding their head up.
Characteristics of Severely Disabled
 May use a electric
powered indoor/outdoor
chair (EPIOC)
Dimensions of mobility, quality
of life and pain/discomfort
improved significantly
No significant improvement in
health state, independence
and social life (interesting)
 (Davies, Souza, & Frank,
2003)
Be careful, especially if student
is new to chair.
Cross-classifications
Students with severe disabilities (autism,
CP, ED, Down’s, LD, MS etc) often have
varying degrees of mental retardation.
Teaching PE to Severely Disabled
 Most will require specialized pull-out classes instead of
inclusion. However, this may change with the new
legislation being considered. There are drawbacks to
separation to pull-out classes including:
 Exposure to students without disabilities is absent
 Severely disabled students tend to learn “handicapped skills,
attitudes, and values” from their peers who are also disabled
 Teachers tend to pacify and just keep students busy at the
expense of developing functional community-based skills
 Skills attitudes and values of students without disabilities
often become more constructive, tolerant, and appropriate
(Brown et al., 2004)
Teaching PE to Severely Disabled
 Important concept – every student, regardless of
disability, can learn.
 Educational gains may be very small, if present at all.
Sometimes, your instruction may simply reduce the rate of
decline. It is your call whether the instruction is effective; if
not a change is necessary.
 Because severely disabled students learn at a slower
rate, extension activities become necessary.
 Give parents ideas that can be utilize at home (homework for
parents).
 You may need to communicate with simple statements,
gestures, or physical prompts. However, try and build
their communication skills.
Teaching PE to Severely Disabled
 What to teach
Determined by educational needs of each individual
student. There are few rules on what to teach,
some students may need a psychomotor focus
(balance, tracking objects), other a cognitive focus
(memory, directions), or affective (communicating,
peer relations).
Standardized assessments such as Brockport and
TGMD2 may not be applicable. There is a large list
of assessments in your text however gaining
access to them may be difficult.
Teaching PE to Severely Disabled
 Use various prompts to
communicate
Verbal, printed, gesture, and
physical prompts
 Communication boards –
picture which communicates
to student what is happening
next.
http://www.do2learn.com/pictu
recards/howtouse/schedule.ht
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Teaching PE to Severely Disabled
Teaching PE to Severely Disabled
 Analyzing the behavior
Task analysis:
 Terminal behavior: riding a tricycle
 Enabling behaviors: mounting the tricycle, balancing, holding
on, turning, stopping, pedaling, dismounting
 Break behaviors into even smaller steps
Teaching PE to Severely Disabled
 Behavior Management
 Positive (must be pleasurable): praise, hand clapping,
drawing, spinning, music, favorite equipment, favorite
activities, stuffed animal, flashing lights, etc. Communicate
with other teachers and parents
• Focus more of your energies on positive consequences
 Negative (must be unpleasant): removal of music, turn lights
on, no activity (stop). You must find what works.
Teaching PE to Severely Disabled
- activities vary greatly
Manipulative Patters
Throwing
Pushing a ball down a ramp, grasp and release
Catching
Tracking suspended balls, reaching for balloons
Kicking
Touching balloon taped to floor, push ball along with foot
Striking
Hitting ball off tee, hitting suspended ball, using only hand
Locomotor patterns
Running
Being pushed quickly in a wheelchair while keeping head up
Jumping/
hopping
Lifting head up and down while being pushed in a
wheelchair, moving body up and down
Galloping/
Skipping
Moving arms up and own while being pushed in a
wheelchair, using adapted mobility aids such as walkers
Teaching PE to Severely Disabled
- activities vary greatly
Perceptual-Motor skills
Balance
Propping up on elbows, making shapes on mats,
balancing objects in palm
Spatial
awareness
Moving arms in when going between, ducking head
when going under
Visual-motor
coordination
Tracking suspended objects, attempting to touch
switches that activate stimulating toys
Physical Fitness
Endurance
Continuous activity, movement body parts repeatedly,
perhaps even just going up and down on toes
Strength
Use stretch banks, isometric exercises
Flexibility
Perform range of motion activities (be careful)
Activities for Daily Living
Many severely disabled students have
difficulty with “simple” tasks we take for
granted such as seating themselves in a
chair, opening a door handle,
differentiating simple words, or walking
Some students are so low functioning that
working on object tracking or skipping does not
help them in their daily lives. In such cases,
coordinate with PT’s, OT’s, and speech
pathologists to extend their instruction.
YouTube Vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S0j2W
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