STUDENTS WITH SEVERE LEARNING DIFFICULTIES

Students with Severe Learning Difficulties

Students with Severe Learning Difficulties

Introduction

The history of service to persons with learning disabilities extends back to the eighteenth century. Early attempts at humane treatment were initiated by Philippe Pinel and his student Jean Itard in their work with the mentally ill. Their methods of treatment were widely known, accepted, and employed in both Europe and North America.

One of the most important aspects of special education in the public schools stems from the requirement in PL 94-142 that students with learning disabilities be provided with a “continuum of alternative educational placement options.” This requirement is based upon the premise that the nature of the least-restrictive educational environment differs on an individual basis and that a range of possible place options is necessary to increase the chances that an appropriate environment can be identified for each student. Educational professionals have proposed and implemented a cascade model of educational services in which the levels interface.

In this model, students are placed in the program that seems to best meet their unique educational needs. In many instances, the placement option selected serves as an environment in which those skills critical to moving to a less restrictive educational environment are taught and refined. Once the student has mastered those requisite skills for a less restrictive environment, he or she is moved to that environment and the instructional process begins anew with a new target environment.

In some cases, students with learning disabilities fail to succeed in settings that are believed to be their least-restrictive educational environment. In such cases, students are moved to a more restrictive environment to better address their individual needs and to teach the skills necessary to return to their initial placement.

Discussion

Applied behavior analysis, or the application of the principles of behaviorism to “real-world” problems of social importance, has been a mainstay of effective intervention programs for persons with disabilities for over 40 years. From the development of academic skills, to classroom management techniques, to facilitating community/vocational integration, applied behavior analysis has been instrumental in improving the lives of persons with disabilities. Techniques such as task analysis have allowed teachers to break down complex skills to their constituent parts. Combining the task-analytic process with the techniques of chaining and positive reinforcement have facilitated the development of self-help skills (feeding, toileting, dressing, tying shoes, selecting appropriate clothing, etc.); vocational skills (making change, taking orders for food, cleaning tables, etc.); and community skills (buying a drink from a vending machine, shaking hands with people one meets, riding a bus to work or home, ordering and eating in a restaurant, etc.) in persons with the most severe mental disabilities. Through the behavior analysis of those contingencies that exist naturally in “real-world” environments and programming these contingencies into instruction, teachers have been able to ensure that these skills are maintained in settings outside of the schools and are generalized to new settings.

Normalization is a concept that has had one of the most positive impacts on persons with disabilities over ...