Today, we most often see a blending of techniques.  What did model say CAUSED the disorder and HOW SHOULD WE INTERVENE?
Late 1950s, there was a push toward inclusion.  What are differences and what technique work.  Field was psychologists and teacher.
1970s.  Behavior model emanated from KU.  UMC had a psycho-educational approach of the therapist.  Topeka was home of the Menninger Clinic, where a psychological approach.  Devero was behaviorialist.
Biological Theory
Biologically determined behavior patters (Inherited or developed?).  Result of genetic of trauma-based dysfunction.  Critical periods of development.  Physical interventions.  Biogenic Medical Model.  We thought different behavior was caused by physical origin so needed physical intervention.  Central nervous system dysfunction, trauma.  Blame falls - outside child.  Physical intervention works rapidly.
Medical Interventions:  We thought faulty metabolism or chemical imbalance or food additive, or certain allergies were responsible.  Last 35 years have seen many disorders do come from chromosome abnormality or imbalance.  Bipolar disorder - reabsorb serotonin much faster, so give Paxil so change impulsive behavior.  Popular treatment out of medical model.  Psycho - pharmacology.  Students with bipolar have stages that last hours, whereas adults may last years.  Riddlin for ADHD and learning disabilities.  Brain scan, PET scan (Positron Emission Tomography).  These children have less activity in frontal, so have problems with impulse control.  Trying riddilin is a good idea because you'll know in a month.
Feingold:  Food additives causing learning disabilities.  Too much sugar.  Feingold diet - no definitive proof that the diet did any good, but testimonials may support.  Out of favor.  Rimland - Most well-known current dietary control.  Megavitamins for autism.  Vitamin B in enormous doses.  No hard data, but some parent testimonials.  Surgery is big in the medical model.  For epilepsy seizures, can do brain surgery and do a hemisphere ectomy.  They can remove quarter of half.  Child has to relearn speech or walking.  Which is worse?  Higher quality of life.  Popular in 1980s then waned.  Biofeedback - reading brain waves.  Teach technique of guided imagery to bring angry brain activity down.  Some empirical data, but not broad enough.  Chiropractic technique.  Glasses of colored lenses (1980), not much data.  The more oxygen in your brain, the clearer your thinking.  ADHD served under "other health impairments"  Only physician can diagnose and prescribe for ADHD.
Cognitive Theory
As you mature, you develop perspective of thinking or schematas.  Assimilation and accommodation.  If a child is stuck in a level, need to help move and gar to level they are on.  Began planning and assessing with stages in mind.  "We're only teaching our children what we already know."  Fail to teach problem-solving, critical thinking, and reflection.
Piaget Stages of Development:
1.  Sensorimotor (infant, understand difference between something else and you)
2.  Pre-operational
3.  Concrete operational
4.  Formal operational
From:  http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm
Piaget has much influence today - Montessori.  Popular in 60s and 70s. 

A schemata is a background or framing.  Must build schemata.  Students with mental retardation may be stuck in a stage.

Psychoanalytical and Psychoeducational Theory
Sigmund Freud.  Pathological imbalance in id, ego, and superego. Excessive restriction or gratification.  Unconscious motivations & underlying conflict.  Changing behavior through insight and planning.  ID is basal needs, food, sleep, sex.  Ego is competitive.  Superego is critical parent.  When someone had problems, had a pathological imbalance when they were children.  Late 18th -early 1900s, talking about adults, mostly women.  Problems caused by parents who were too permissive or too restrictive.  Problems include impulse control, reactive attachment, oppositional defiance.  Teacher would be permissive or psychologist would do intervention to solve mental illness.  Alfred Adler - Drikers (his student) unconscious motivations or underlying causing.  Psycho educational theory - change behavior through insight and planning.  In 1970s and 1980s, Nick Long, Life Space Crisis Intervention.  School and teacher work as therapist.  Bandaid, proximity control (stand near child).  Developmental therapy is where take academic skills and behaviors and divided into sequences.  Students learn all the steps.

Psychosocial Theory
Cultural impact on development.  Inability to define sense of self.  Humanistic approach.  Ecological model.  Family Systems model.  Teacher is a resource & catalyst for learning.  Impact of culture on society.  Learn through social exchange and observations yielding a reciprocal influence.  Give and take develops behavior and personal.  Irrational beliefs cause abhorrent behavior.  Not grounded in fact and harmful to believe.  We have to work on belief systems.  Locus of control - what we attribute things happening.  Students with mental retardation work almost exclusively with internal locus of control.  Need to help students balance.  Asperger Syndrome - external locus of control.  Need to build a bridge they won't understand why they go in trouble.  Break chain of thinking and make more rational.  Cognitive Behavior Management - rational emotive therapy.  Social skills training - high priority for Asperger.  Ed Ellis, Virginia Rezmeirski, Joseph Kaplan (current).  The patterns determine our behaviors.  Help students develop options.  Students with LD see one response.  Do things to get them in trouble because they can't generate options.  Help them make good choices.  Each individual is the one who controls the option, but teachers tend to direct action to response, when SHOULD change stimulus or consequent event.  Value of reward - sticks.  Punishment - no generalize to other people - will only stop with me, usually forces students to lie.  Everyone else has control of consequent event in environment.  If the behavior isn't changing, what else is controlling consequences.  We have to get control of more consequences.  Help students see setting demand - What's acceptable where.  A fist fight might save their life.  Mental retardation, LD.  Be consistent with rules, but not to the point of rigidity.  Give cues for transition.  Transition needs to be taught.  One of the worst problems is transition.  Students with ADHD respond well to periodic surprise.  Behavior - Skinner, Pavlov, Cruckshank, Hillwalker (social skills).  Lovaas - autism, stimulate speech and interaction.  Good for some children.  Only works when very young.  8 hour super intensive work.  ABA Applied Behavior Analysis - study of measurable and observable behavior.  Santa Monica Project.  Engineered classroom.  Frank Hewitt.  1960s.  Before the term "learning disabilities."  Attention and distraction problems.  Nonstimulating classroom, female, no jewelry, dark red lipstick, regimented - Those students couldn't transition out of the classroom.  Visual contract for many students with autism is painful.  Peripheral vision is better than straight on.

Behavioral Theory
Behavior is learned and therefore can be unlearned.  Classical conditioning.  Stimulus-response theory.  Operant conditioning.  Reinforcement and punishment.  Social Learning/Socio-Cultural.  Incidental skills we pick up from being.  Observation, imitation - how learned.  Reciprocal influences.  Incidental learning - most people pick up.  Social-Cognitive model.  Socio-Cultural model:  what is okay in one culture is not necessarily okay in another.  Being polite, no interrupting, not to kick chair in front of you.  Many students have problems.  Some African American students have been identified for BD because of cultural differences.  2 major assumptions.  1.  Essence of the problem is the behavior itself (need fast way of changing behavior).  2.  Behavior is a function of environmental events.  Maladaptive behavior is learned behavior - teach replacement behavior.  Deal with the process itself.  Stimulus - response -consequence sequence.  This sequence happens with everything.  Every action has an antecedent behavior.  Consequence can be positive (make behavior increase).  Negative cause behavior to decrease.

Applied Behavioral Analysis
Study of socially relevant human behavior in applied settings.  Focus on measurable and observable behaviors.  Precise measurement.  Promotes increased lifestyle outcomes for the learner.  AGA vs. Discrete Trial Training (Lovaas).  Look at discrete behaviors.  Data driven discrete analysis.  Purposeful outcomes.

Positive Behavior Supports (PBS)
Refinement and extension of ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) using person-centered interventions.  Depend on use of positive approaches.  Teach alternative behaviors.  Employ meaningful consequences (natural consequences).  Fits with NCLB (No Child Left Behind) goals.  NCLB fits into behavioral supports.  Been around for a long time, but PBS is a new term.  Put something prescribes and specific person-centered incentive.  Support in place to prevent a behavior.  Teach alternative behaviors.

Is being in the general education classroom the same thing as having access to the general education curriculum?  Are both LRE?  LRE Gen ed classroom different peers, social environment, where students learn to be independent.  LRE is not equal to general education curriculum. 
Three Curricular Perspectives:  1.  Explicit curriculum:  the curriculum as written and tested.  2.  Hidden curriculum:  the curriculum as incidental learning.  3.  Absent curriculum:  the curriculum that is not taught. 

The Planning Pyramid:  1.  What all students will learn (critical).  2.  What most students will learn (important).  3.  What some students will learn (perfect world).  4.  Alternative curricula:  only for students for whom no portion of the general education curriculum is appropriate; generally a functional approach to learning; mostly seen with students with severe and profound disability.  Bottom of pyramid is what everyone gets.  Alternative curricula tend to be functional, proscribed, about communication.  1% who take alternative assessments - no part of general ed. curriculum is appropriate.

Instructional Strategies:  1.  Direct Instruction (Hunter, objectives, tied to evaluation.  2.  Peer tutoring (very effective, students receive peer tutor training).  3.  Cooperative learning (learning in groups).  4.  Cognitive strategies (Dishler & Schumaker (KU).  Administrator has authority to spend money, which is why they are at IEP meeting.  When a student is first diagnosed, the parents are 1. happy and grateful to get help or 2.  its your fault and you caused it by giving it a name.  When a group students, group with people like them.  High with high or middle.  Middles with middle or low.  Never low with high.

Placement is the location of services, driven by need and data.  IDEA 2004 requires pay attention to student needs and is data driven.  Process is the present levels of academic achievement and functional performance.  1.  Mainstreaming versus inclusion (terms commonly used synonymously), The child is in the general ed classroom 79% of the time.  2.  Inclusion v. partial inclusion (student spends most of day in general education classroom.  Child is 21% or more time out of the general education classroom) 3.  Self contained (student spends most of the day in separate setting).  Out of class, but rejoin general students for lunch, art, gym (sometimes don't even do that).
Parents - These are the people who were their students.  Language and cultural barriers can be a problem.  Parents feel inadequate.  Hard to get parents there in an urban district and hard to reach them.  In urban setting, schools and teachers command respective.  All purposive behavior is (a) to get or (b) to avoid something. 
Scope and sequence at every district is the explicit curriculum.  Everything a child is supposed to learn from beginning to end.  Every single step along the way in every subject taught.
Implicit curriculum is what really happens.  The difference is the hidden curriculum in that instruction varies between teachers and classes.  An evolving thing.  Middle class values also are part of the hidden curriculum.  Read a Framework of Poverty by Ruby Payne. 
Absent curriculum is what is not taught, but what we expect students to know.  Children don't ask questions for clarification like adults do.  We talk about all kinds of things the children don't understand.  Children with autism can't read body language, for example, and don't understand pragmatic language. 

"In a society that needed a large supply of unskilled labor to work in fields and factories, unschooled labor had value, and mild levels of disability did not restrict people from performing productive work.  For the first three centuries of American history, mild levels of disability were neither identified nor considered to be problematic"  (Raymond, 2004, p. 7).
Children who look typical have the same expectations as other children from adults.  Parents and teachers expect the same from them as everyone else.  Children who have LD and B will react.  Hear the difference between "I can't" and "I won't"  Give students alternatives.
Language:  disability v. handicap.
Labels:  Areas where we agree versus areas where we disagree.  Categorical identification provides and overview of possible learning and or behavioral possibilities.
Clearly stated in IDEA 2004:  "We must base programming for children with disabilities on their unique needs, not on their classifications" (Raymond, 2004, p. 13).
6 principles of IDEIA:  1.  Nondiscriminatory evaluation.  2.  Individual education program.  3.  Least restrictive setting.  4.  Parental participation.  5.  Procedural due process.  6.  Zero reject (any school that takes federal money for a lunch program, for example, cannot deny a student education because of the student's disability.  ?NDE  Culturally and linguistically neutral tests.  IEP is written by a team for each identified student for the least restrictive environment (general education classroom).  Parent is 50% of multidisciplinary team.  There is legal recourse if doesn't work (clear processes).  The district can file against the parent or vice versa - no monetary win.  Student can get compensatory education (summer program, 2 years of school).  Whoever wins, the other side gets the legal fees.  This ends frivolous legal cases.  If the family wins, then may file civil suit against the district. 
Students with mild disabilities are more similar than different, but a label gives us useful information.  The label gives a framework for a starting point and clearer idea of expectations.  If out of LRE 21% of time, needs strong justification.  Public schools are supposed to seek out and serve students with disability in private schools.
 

IDEA 1997
Purposes of assessment of students with special educational needs:  classification, diagnosis, formative evaluation of progress, and summative evaluation of progress.
Criterion-References (see if student mastered some skill) and Curriculum based assessment (skill part of curriculum)
Task analysis - identify subskills for outcome competency.  Good when child has problems you don't know to do with.
Performance assessment (piano performance)
Portfolio assessment.
Functional behavioral assessment is the process of gathering info about a student's problem behaviors that seek to determine the purpose of the behavior in addition to its antecedents and consequences.  By identifying the purpose of the behavior as well as describing the context in which the behaviors occur, teams are able to design more effective behavioral interventions, ones that include positive behavioral supports.
Best practices:  use of individual curricula for students with mild disabilities instead of the general education curriculum has not always served them well.
Important topics:  (1) Diagnotic teaching, (2) grading students with disabilities, (3) state and district assessments, (4) alternative assessments.
 

Parent may have disabilities because there might be a genetic factor. 
Procedures used to develop the IEP vary widely from state to state and from district to district.  The school is required to send home information once a year.  Parental roles may include the following:  1.  Nominal invitations.  2.  Parents encouraged to attend.  3.  Draft IEP.  4.  IEP drafted by team.  5.  IEP written from scratch at meeting.  Meetings last an hour.  Parent should not sign anything other than that they attended, but take home the IEP to read.  Teachers need to work on better parent relationships.
IEP needs to consider student's strengths.  Content of the IEP needs to include:  present levels of performance, measurable annual goals, cirteria for determining progress, related services, modifications required, projected dates for implementation, beginning at least by age 14, a plan addressing the transition needs for the post-school environment.
Instructional strategies to enhance curriculum access:  direct instruction (explicit teaching), peer tutoring, cooperative learning, cognitive strategies, positive behavioral supports (changes to antecedents and consequences of the problem behavior so that the triggers are diminished).
Enhancements to general education pedagogies:  remediation in basic academic skills, tutorial services, cognitive strategies or skill instruction, life skills or functional curricular approaches.
Instructional accommodations and curricular access:  Universal Design for Learning.

Learning is the process by which experience an practice result in a stable change in the learner's behavior that is not explained simply by maturation, growth, or aging.  We can only infer that learning has occurred by observing the performance and behavior of the learn..  Teachers must use caution when making assumptions.  (p. 314)  Social learning theory holds that behaviors are learned by observing the behavior of others and by observing the direct consequences of those behaviors (Bandura, 1986). 
Stages of Learning Weak learning results from the failure to recognize that the learning process must continue past simple acquisition or mastery to proficiency, maintenance, and generalization to become firm.  1.  Acquisition and Reversion is basic mastery or moving from no skill to about 85% accuracy.  Incidental learning can interfere or distract.  Reversion is a critical substage of acquisition in which the learn responds correctly enough of the time (more than 50%) to indicate some level of mastery but is nevertheless erratic in accuracy of response.  Through continued instruction, practice, coaching, and feedback (at least 85% is accurate).  2.  Proficiency and Automaticity is fluency with the skill.  3.  Maintenance is necessary if future learning is to build on those skills.  Require extended practice and review to maintain.  4.  Generalization is to extend the use of acquired skills across situations, behaviors, settings, and time to any appropriate setting.  Generalization rarely happens automatically.  Initially the teacher or parent helps the student see how a skill might apply in a new setting.  May help to teach generalization during initial instruction, describing the variety of ways and places a new skill might be used.  Using a continuum of techniques ranging from teacher-mediated to student-mediated.  5.  Adaptation is to apply a learned skill in a modified way to a new task without help or prompts.
Cognitive Processing.  Learning cannot occur until a student is able to focus on the relevant details in the environment.    A student's efficiency in learning is frequently evaluated by the extent to which the student is able to store information and retrieve facts on demand.  Two helpful strategies for students with mental retardation and LD are clustering and paired associate learning.  Clearly explaining how new learning relate to old learning, and by modeling ways to store such information in long-term memory.
Motivation may be extrinsic or intrinsic.  Extrinsic rarely leads to robust learning and extrinsic rewards may decrease intrinsic motivation.  For intrinsic motivation to persist, need competence, self-determination, and relatedness or affiliation (friendships, sense of belonging).  Motivation involving learning as a means of achieving control or personal power and becoming more self-determining, or of interacting with others, is influential.  Failure experiences can lead to youngsters' developing a low sense of perceived control.  Since low levels of perceived control constitute a threat to the individual's self-determination needs, these youngsters frequently turn to other, more destructive means of reestablishing a sense of personal control and self-determination such as displaying oppositional and aggressive behavior.  Locus of control and attribution of success or failure may be external or internal.  The expectation of success or failure creates a climate that increases the likelihood of the outcome.  Repeated failure erodes the student's motivation to learn, resulting in a lowered sense of personal efficacy, diminished academic self-concept, and external attributions for all outcomes.  A similar but opposite effect tends to follow successful learning experiences.  A sense of competence results when a student exerts effort, takes a voluntary action, and is successful.  Adolescents may have problems in addition (see. p. 331).   Self-determination is affected by four attributes:  autonomy, self-regulation, psychological empowerment, and self realization.  Learning styles and multiple intelligences have not been supported by consistent research.  A better approach is the Universal Design for Learning.  Consider a student's strengths, not merely the deficits.  Design instructional interventions that make use of untapped strengths to support learning.  The rate and efficiency of learning depends on how effectively the time allocated for learning is used.  Learners with mild disabilities are likely to need more actual time to learn.  Motivation is affected by the quality of prior learning.  The teacher can control quality of instruction.  Critical instructional variables (classroom management, positive school climate, instruction designed to meet learner needs, clear learning goals, clarity in lesson presentation, support for learners, time allocated for academic learning as a priority, instruction allowing frequent student responses, active monitoring of student understanding and progress, frequent performance evaluation) p. 340.  Graduation rates on p. 341.

We recommend external motivation for behavior modification.  Positive reinforcement is the only way to shape and change behavior.  Negative reinforcement can stop behavior, but won't change behavior.  Children with low SES don't have learning opportunity exposure because poverty affects what goes on.  Parent tends to live for the moment, not tomorrow.  Will this child progress if doesn't attend summer school?  Teachers can make a huge difference.  Find one area where the child is successful.  In elementary school, promote one area of success.  Kid needs to be a star and feel good about self.  This is a process to improve intrinsic motivation.  Hold expectations high.  This doesn't work so well by age 13 and may not work with children with EBD.  To improve intrinic motivation, enhance academic success.  Competence if being able to do what needs to be done.  Self-determination is being the driver, having the ability to direct one's own life without undue influence. 

Critical instructional variable:
1.  Effective, efficient classroom management.  Essential for kids with disability procedures, clear expectations, consistency, structure.  Must be done correctly.
2.  Positive school climate.  Can make sure students are respected and empowered in your own classroom.
3.  Appropriate instrutional matches:  appropriate for academic level.
4.  Clear learning goals:  instructional objectives in lesson plan.  If student knows what he or she is after, will have better outcomes.
5.  Clarity in lesson presentation:  direct instruction.  Students with disabilities don't do inductive learning.  This is what it is, now let's figure out all the pieces.
6.  Supporting learner progress:  Constant and regular reinforcement.  Need modeling, opportunity to practice, enough review to reach maintenance and generalize.
7.  Time for academic learning:  Reteach and reteach until learn.  Amount of time kid needs to learn something may or may not be same amount of time teacher allows for teaching and learning.
8.  Frequent student responses:  Assess - check learning.  Practice.  Actively engage.  Determine where they are in the process at each step.  Frequent performance evaluation --anything the student turns out.  Needs lots of opportunities to show teacher what they know.
9.  Active monitoring of student understand prevents incorrect learning.
10.  Frequent performance evaluation.

 

According to Piaget, most children become capable of abstract thinking about about age fourteen.  The theory that describes the flow of knowledge into and out of a person's memory is called information processing theory.  Social constructivism suggests that for learning to be most effective and efficient, teachers must determine the appropriate level to begin teaching a student and also determine the amount the student can learn with support.  The terms scaffolding, equilibrium, adaptation, and accommodation pertain to developmental theories of cognition. 

Vygotsky formulated the theory that the social context of learning is critical, and that the relationship between the adult and the student is of prime importance.  Information to be remembered for an indefinite amount of time must be placed in the long-term memory.  Jane's attention wandered when her teacher was explaining the directions for their seatwork assignments.  This suggests a problem with her sensory register structural component because she never came to attention.  Morris's mother is concerned that his attentional problems are hindering his progress in school.  His teacher noted that he seems to listen when initial instructions are given, but that he seems to lose focus long before the learning activity is completed.  The teacher hypothesizes that Morris's problems related primarily in deficits in sustained attention.  Mr. Green notices that Jeremy refers often to the letter charts above the chalkboard as he is completing his handwriting assignments.  This suggests that Jeremy's cognitive style might be viewed as field dependent.  The olfactory sensory channel is not generally useful for school learning.  Although Stanley can make individual sounds of letters in a word, he is still unable to combine those individual sounds to say the word itself.  His teacher describes his problem as a deficit in sound blending.  Handwriting requires integrating the use of visual and motor skills.  Nancy has difficulty distinguishing between the letters i and j.  Her teacher believes she has difficulty in visual discrimination.  Erin has difficulty when she is given several directions at one time; if she is told to do three things, she will frequently only do the first or the last one.  Her teacher suspects a deficit in Erin's auditory skills. 

The haptic system is composed of the tactile and kinesthetic channels. 

Perceptual motor training programs are NOT currently used in programs for students displaying deficits in perception because they have not been found to be effective at removing the perceptual deficits; direct instruction is effective.  Some student have difficulty listening and watching at the same time.  It is as if the information from the two processes conflicts in their brains; this phenomenon is called perceptual overload.  A proposed alternative to perceptual motor training is to focus on direct instruction in the affected academic areas.  To be successful at learning and thinking, students must use their executive control functions to direct their use of thinking strategies for most effective learning.  The executive control functions are the director of how everything else works. 

Learners who realize that new information conflicts with existing knowledge must use the process of accommodation to incorporate the new knowledge into their schema. 

Learners with disabilities frequently do NOT recognize that they are in a state of cognitive disequilibrium.  They don't know that what they're doing isn't work so they just keep doing it.  Students with mild disabilities tend to exhibit field dependent cognitive styles longer than their typical peers.  They need help and assistance a longer time.  The short term memory is 2-30 seconds.  The working memory is 3-5 seconds.  Depending on strategies and anchoring will determine how long something will stay in the memory.  Attention capability is affected by the voluntary nature of the task demands; the more involuntary the demands of the task, the less effort is required to attend to it.  Data is stored in the procedural memory as action sequences.  The strategic control components include attention, perception, and mnemonic strategies.  Memory strategies are also called mnemonic.  If learners with mild disabilities had a variety of memory strategies, they wouldn't have a problem.  Deficits in perception are considered to be one of the developmental learning disabilities (memory, attention, reception, language).  Perceptual deficits are problems such as seeing the letters backwards.  Strauss presumed that children with learning difficulties, who were not mentally retarded, hearing impaired, or emotionally disturbed, had minimal brain damage.  Efficient perception is essential to all cognitive functioning.  Perception is dependent on the ability to store and retrieve concepts in long term memory.  To have perception, must relate to something.  Young children who have learned the concept of object recognition frequently have problems with letter identification because they have not yet developed an understanding of the meaning of spatial relations.  Children need concrete.  Tactile defensiveness is characterized by extreme sensitivity to the lightest touches, which is more common with boys and children with Tourettes, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder. 
 

Definitions
Reflectivity is the decision-making process that is characterized by consideration of the implications of a decision before acting (no impulsive)
Mnemonic strategies include rehearsal, organization, and elaboration.
Attention is the strategic control process that captures stimuli and holds it for subsequent processing.
Equilibration is the process of resolving the unsteady cognitive state created by the presence of new information.
Elaboration is visual imagery, semantic enhancement.
Field dependence is the state of being unable to make perceptual judgments without reference ot information from the surroundings.
Organization is the use of strategies to connect information items to each other and to data stored in long-term memory.
Scaffolding is support provided to a novice learner by a teacher.
Metacognitive regulation is an executive control function.
Perception is the strategic component that attaches meaning to sensory stimuli.
Auditory association is the ability to relate ideas and categorize information obtained by listening.
Spacial relationships are the ability to perceive the position of physical objects in relation to oneself and other objects.
Perceptual integration is the process used to match an encoded stimulus with a stored mental representation in memory is an object or sound from its background.
Encoding is forming a mental representation of a stimulus, including its attributes, associations, or meanings.
Visual closure is the ability to identify figures that are presented in incomplete form or have unclear elements. 
Visual discrimination is the identifying dominant features of objects and differentiating that object from others. 
Tactile pertains to the sense of touch.
Kinesthetic is related to the sensation of bodily movement.
Perceptual overload is the tendency for information from one sensory input system to interfere with the processing of information coming in from another.

A language and communication disorder relates to sending, receiving, and processing verbal, nonverbal, and graphic symbol systems.  Delivery options include monitor, collaborative consultation, classroom-based, pullout, self-contained program, community-based, and a combination. Signs and effects of communication disorders:  language, articulation and sound sequencing, fluency, voice, and hearing.  Language and communication delays exist when acquisition is slower than developmental norms.

Regarding primary disability, if one has a language disorder, if there is any other disability, the other disability is primary.  Language is the secondary disorder. 

Language can be primary if it's the only disorder, which affects 2-8% of all children in early childhood and early school (18.9% primary diagnosis for all students with disabilities).  Language may be a related service.  Syntactic structure is the grammar of a language.  Language disorders tend to be a combination of problems.  Students with a disability typically have problems with syntax.  They tend to do better with oral communication than writing.  The whole language approach uses everything (speaking, listening, reading, writing) integrated around a thematic unit using a common vocabulary across tasks.  For some students, whole language approach works well and for others it doesn't.  The SPED teacher needs to teach phonetics too.  Form includes phonology, morphology, and syntax.  Content includes semantics.  Use is pragmatics.  A morpheme is the smallest unit of speech sound with meaning.  Syntax is the grammar of language in the way it comes together.  Articulation problems include atypical production of sounds, substitutions, omissions, lack of phonological awareness, and learning problems (e.g., reading and spelling).  Articulation problems are common to 3rd grade.  When we are spelling, we repeat the word to ourselves without own pronunciations.  We use our own accent and may not repeat what was said.  Age 2-4 is the highest stuttering because child is still learning to organize thoughts. 

Regarding stuttering, only 25% of diagnosed stuttering continues after diagnosis.  Be patient, let kid get it out, don't jump in or correct.  If it takes the kid 5 minutes to answer a question, that's okay.  The more excited and stressed, the worse it gets.  Voice related problems include abnormal production; absence of vocal quality, pitch, or loudness; structural problems; neurological disorders; may be related to medical conditions, surprising amount of horseness.  Semantics problems are concerned with meaning, involves schema and concepts, semantic acquisition is a process, relates to vocabulary development, inadequate schema can impact reading comprehension.  Semantics is about what the word means.  Schema needs to be developmentally appropriate and can be very different between two people.  In an IQ test, there will be a section about knowledge of the world, but a child with a disability may have a small schema because they are not exposed to as much.  Pragmatics is about use:  the way speech and language are delivered; shared information is distinguished from new; speaker interacts appropriately (eg., taking turns, maintaining topics), and this has implications for learning.  Students with autism have trouble initiating a conversation.  Children with neurobiological disorders have trouble with pragmatics.

SPED teacher can identify potential language and communication disorders, but not diagnose speech disorder:  Can be part of the team.  Teacher can evaluate only the language-communication part he or she teaches in special ed.  If all teacher teaches is spelling, that's the only thing the teacher can assess.  The speech and language pathologist (SLP)  will determine exercises and what to do.  Refer to SLP.  EXPRESSIVE DISORDERS Students who have trouble with expression will have trouble expressing ideas and feelings.  They may need extra time.  They misread gestures.  A strategy is to five student a word band to select answers.  Courtesy is a real problem because they don't know how to express themselves.  RECEPTIVE DISORDERS  Limit directions.  Use chunking (7 limit).  Make sure teacher gives child only essential information.  Demonstrate and model what you're doing.  Don't say anything you don't need to say.  Technology is a wonder for students with language and communication difficulties.  Dragon program are voice activated and student can talk into them.  The computer will write the report and they can tell the computer how to edit it.  Today children are assessed in the language they are most comfortable with.

The developmental perspective describes the manner in which typical social characteristics evolve.  The books "conduct disorder" terminology is problematic.  The fact that a student has a disability may make it harder for them to resolve the Industry-inferiority crisis successfully.  Individuals at the early stages of emotional development exhibit less concern with the effect of events and their own actions on others (and on society).  Initially, children view events as if their view were the only perspective.  Social behaviors develop in conjunction with cognitive development.  General personal competence derives from the interaction of physical competence, conceptual intelligence, emotional competence, and social competence.  Performance deficits are identified when individuals have difficulty determining when to use a particular skill.  A skill deficit is when the student doesn't have a skill.  The ecological perspective suggests that all behavior can be interpreted in light of interactions between the individual, the environment, and the behavioral context.  Social skill is the ability to act (use) social information appropriately.  Studies indicate that maladaptive behaviors or psychiatric diagnoses often coexist with other disabilities such as mental retardation, learning disabilities, or ADHD.  Maladaptive behavior often comes with psychiatric diagnoses.

Selman is noted for this idea:  the ability to view events from the perspective of another or of society) develops just as emotions do.  Socialized aggressive conduct disorders include stealing, lying, substance abuse and truancy.  Temperament is an inborn characteristic related to behavioral style, relating to how an individual reacts to stimuli.  Components of social skill include communication and problem solving abilities.  Erikson - Human behavior develops from the result of social challenges that must be addressed and resolved for healthy adaptation to occur.  Components of social awareness include the ability to receive and interpret social information.  Under-socialized aggressive conduct disorders fighting, being defiant, and bullying.  Performance deficits include when the individual does not recognize the need to use a particular social behavior.  Skill deficits are when required social behaviors are NOT in the learner's repertoire.  Anxiety-withdrawal-dysphoria disorders are internalizing behaviors such as anxiety and panic disorders, obsessions, compulsions, and depression.

The perspective that focuses on the reciprocal relationship between the learner and the environment as in an explanation for the observe behavior is the ecological perspective.  The stage in Erikson's theory of psycho-social development in which the individual comes to value setting goals and achieving them is the initiative vs. guilt crisis.  When a child exhibits a restricted range of feelings and emotions, it may indicate that the child may be growing up in a home affected by alcohol or drug dependency.  When students exhibit delays in social perspective taking, it may mean that w should expect that their social behaviors will also be similar to young children.  With regard to social cognition, students with mild disabilities tend to display deficits in developing age-appropriate social cognitive skills.  Students who carefully observe others in the environment and model their behaviors closely after what they see others do are most appropriately described as socially field dependent.  The ability to easily adapt one's behavior to a variety of settings and situations is called behavioral flexibility.  Learners with maladaptive behaviors are less likely than learners with other disabilities to be placed in general education classrooms.  The more disruptive the behavior, the less likely in GE classroom.  Being passively negative is a socialized aggressive conduct disorder.  Fighting is an undersocialized aggressive conduct disorder.

To cite this page:

Aitken, J. E.  (2007).  Mild to moderate/cross-categorical. Kansas City, MO:  OnlineAcademics.Org.  Retrieved month day, year, from http://onlineacademics.org/MMCC.html

Content directly quoted and adapted from copyrighted material, which includes Raymond, E. B.  (2004).  Learners with mild disabilities:  Characteristics approach.  (2nd ed.)  Boston:  Pearson and various University of Missouri - Kansas City course materials.  This page is for use only by enrolled students who have purchased the course textbook.