Sprayberry High School, Special Student Services (rev. 2011)

Deficit Area and Description / Classroom Impact / Informal Observation / How To Plan For Instruction
Attention Deficit
(ADHD)
-includes hyperactive, impulsive and inattentive subtypes
/ - inattentive
- short attention span
- difficulties with impulse control
- hyperactivity
-executive dysfunction / Does the student maintain attention during a lesson in an age appropriate manor?
Does the student have problems completing and turning in homework? Problems with organization? / - teach for mastery
- active student participation vs. passive learning (lectures)
- teacher prompting
- verbal problem solving strategies, “think alouds”
- secure attention before giving directions
- learning activities that address multiple modalities such as: “fold-ables”, manipulatives, group activities, small group instruction with team teacher, songs to help remember processes, etc.
- frequent changes in activities to sustain interest and engagement
- a check list for class activities to promote self-monitoring
- PQA- personal questions and answers to help build relationships with students and establish personal connections to content
- provide a structured and routine-oriented learning environment and explicitly teach students the desired behaviors and routines
- gradual release of responsibility in learning new material and in self monitoring
Auditory Processing
Does not refer to hearing loss, but rather how information is processed that is received by ear.
/ - difficulty discriminating between sounds of spoken letters, words, numbers
- difficulty picking out a teachers voice against background noise in a classroom / Does the student have difficulty paying attention to lectures?
Problems with oral directions or responding to oral questions?
Problems with multi-step directions, poor listening skills, language problems, behavior problems, difficulty with reading, writing and spelling. / - multiple presentations of material appealing to multiple modalities
*students with these difficulties will not do well in a lecture-based learning environment
- repetition of target vocabulary (up to 75 times)
- verbal directions should be supported visually, with pictures and/or text
- try to minimize distractions during verbal explanations
- use of technology to support curriculum
- use of visual cues
- make podcasts of lectures when appropriate
- a text outline of lectures for student to follow
Cognitive and Metacognitive Issues
Cognition refers to understanding and comprehension. Metacognition refers to how someone is able to monitor their own thinking and learning. / Difficulties will impact all areas of student performance. / Does the student have difficulty solving problems, generalizing, organizing information, evaluating problems for accuracy?
Can the student monitor their own understanding in the class? / - practice selecting skills and strategies for solving problems with “think alouds” and teacher modeling
- organizational supports
- scaffold information, audio and visual supports
- practice error analysis
- explicitly teach learning strategies
- repetition of concepts/skills practice
- appealing to multiple modalities
- frequent use of formative assessments to monitor progress
- tie information into the language of the standards
- model inductive and deductive reasoning
- self-rating strategies: thumbs up, finger percentages
- ticket out the door, ticket in the door, kwl, etc.
- summarizing concepts
Expressive Language
/ -difficulties communicating ideas, verbally explaining problems / Can the student articulate how they arrived at a solution?
Can the student reliably retell a story or explain themselves? / - students may not be able to use or manipulate target vocabulary in an application problem or performance task
- extended time built into lessons and assessments requiring written responses
- explicitly teach outlining for writing
- teacher modeling of desired results with written responses, verbal explanations
- practice communicating daily in varied situations
- provide visual supports
- writing checklists
Memory Difficulties
Includes Short term and long term memory problems / - retaining and retrieving information
- remembering a skill/concept learned the day before
- forgetting steps and directions
- reviewing information
- studying for assessments / Can the student retain information taught the previous day? The previous week or month? / - built-in spiral reviews
- connect new information to prior knowledge
- repetition
- gain student’s attention before delivering new information
- focus on routines, key words, signals, gestures, TPR
- chunking of new information
- create visual representations of new info to help with rehearsal, keep active in short-term memory (word charts, conjugation charts, environmental cues)
- use manipulatives to introduce abstract concepts (verb conjugation)
- Scaffolding of assignments
- multiple presentations of material, to appeal to multiple modalities
- student-made graphic organizers and mnemonics
Motor Disabilities
Involves coordination, using larger and small muscle groups to manipulate and move objects. / - writing, drawing, acting / Is the student’s handwriting extremely hard to read?
Does the student have a hard time keeping up with TPR movements and practice? / - Space questions out on practice sheets and assessments
- allow for oral assessments
- provide copies of notes
- utilization of technology
- Modify TPR movements, or allow for a longer response time
Receptive Language
Involves the ability to acquire new language. / - understanding word meanings and relationships between words
- words with more than one meaning
- following directions
- identifying parts of a story / Does your student have difficulty acquiring new vocabulary words?
Do they respond appropriately to written or verbal commands? / - Begin each day with a “preview” (LQ or EQ)
- pre-teach vocab
- make use of vocab strategies: word walls, charts, lists, 1-2-3 flashcards, reference environmental cues
- use pictures and props often
- graphic organizers and checklists
- frequent formative assessments to check for understanding
- have students repeat back directions
- explain directions on assessments
- practice reading sample assessment questions and identifying what information, skill or concept the question is looking for
Visual Processing Deficits
Does not refer to eyesight, but rather how the brain processes information gathered through the eyes. / - spatial reasoning
- reversing letters, numbers
- visually isolating an object out of a group of objects (like a word out of a sentence)
- visually comparing objects for similarities and differences / Does the student seem to make lots of errors on scantron tests?
Trouble reading aloud?
Word substitutions while reading?
Unable to find their place on a page while reading? / - Allow student to write on tests and transfer answers to scantron after
- Don’t place visually similar words next to each other on assessments
- watch out for “text dense” handouts and assessments
- make sure that power-points aren’t too concept-dense
- appealing to multiple modalities, especially audio and touch
- Use cues in text like bold print to hi-light important information.
- Read directions aloud for reading and writing assignments
- Larger print and colors are helpful
- Seating near the point of instruction
- make sure environmental cues are clear and uncluttered

This form was adapted from: Silva, J. (2004). Teaching Inclusive Mathematics to Special Learners K-6. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, for use in the foreign language inclusion classroom.

*This document is intended as an aide in instructional planning, not as a diagnostic tool*