SPED 343 Anchor Assignment: March 13, 2015

Compilation of Research

and Website Creation by:

Tiana McFarland

What is IDEA?

IDEA stands for Individuals with Disabilities Act, and is a law that was passed by Congress in 1975 in order to eliminate discrimination against peoples with disabilities in public education settings. It outlines that every student has the right to free and appropriate education that is tailored to individual learning needs. This law was tailored in 2010 in order to change the term "mental retardation" to "intellectual disability" in all federal laws.

(Turnbull, Turnbull, Wehmeyer, Shogren, 2013)
(Source: http://ldaamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/8954362.jp)

According to the Center for Parent Information and Resources (2011),  intellectual disabilities are the most common developmental disability. Children with intellectual disabilities experience cognitive development and learning comprehension at a slower rate than a typical child.  

Intellectual Disability, Defined:

Under IDEA, intellectual disability is defined as “…significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.” (Turnbull et al., 2013)

An estimated 4.6 million Americans have an intellectual disability (The ARC, 2011).

According to the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (aaidd), "Intellectual disability  is a disability characterized by significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior, which covers many everyday social and practical skills. This disability originates before the age of 18 (Definition of Intellectual Disability, 2013)".

          1. Intellectual Functioning: a term for a student's intelligence,and involves abstract thinking and reasoning, comprehension of new material, and learning from experience. 

                                 "Intelligence refers to a student's general mental capability for solving problems, paying attention to relevant information, thinking abstractly, remembering important information and skills, learning from everyday experiences, and generalizing knowledge from one setting to another." (Turnbull et al., 2013 p. 198)

         2. Adaptive Behavior: "the collection of conceptual, social, and     practical skills that have been learned and are performed by    people in order to function in their everyday lives." (Turnbull et al.,  2013 p. 199)

                              The three domains of adaptive behavior are conceptual skills, social skills, and practical skills.   

CHARACTERISTICS OF INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES

The child or student may be in this exceptionality category if he/she:

  • sits up, crawls, or walks later than other children,
  • learns to talk later, or has trouble speaking,
  • finds it hard to remember things,
  • doesn't understand how to pay for things,
  • has trouble understanding social rules,
  • has trouble seeing the consequences of their actions,
  • has trouble solving problems, and/or
  • has trouble thinking logically.
(NICHCY Disability Fact Sheet 8, 2011)
(Source: http://www.ehow.com/list_7629688_characteristics-intellectual-disability.html)
(Source: http://www.examiner.com/article/solving-product-launch-problems-when-the-answer-is-no-day-10)

 

Students with intellectual disabilities have lower intellectual functioning areas of memory, generalization, and motivation.

MEMORY (short-term and working): students have difficulty recalling information, and this difficulty increases as the level of impairment increases

GENERALIZATION: students experience difficulty transferring information from one task to another task

          For example: students experience difficulty transferring what they have learned in a classroom setting to what they have learned in their home setting

         Providing community-based instruction (instruction in community settings) is effective for working with students who have exceptional difficulty with generalization. This would be providing instructional support in vocational skills, shopping, etc. in the environments that the student would use the skills. 

MOTIVATION: Students tend to wait for instruction, and have few promptings to complete tasks on their own. Oftentimes this translates to a low degree of optimism about the future. 

         Promoting student motivation and encouraging students to take independent steps is essential as a teacher. 

(Turnbull, et al., 2013, pp. 198-199)

Levels of Impairment 

(Source: http://www.langleyresidential.org/level-of-impairment.html)


Student intelligence is measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children:

Mild: IQ 50-55 to approximately 70

Moderate: IQ 35-40 to approximately 50-55

Severe: IQ 20-25 to approximately 30-40

Profound: IQ below 20-25

(Turnbull, et al., 2013, p. 198)