Intelligence and Exceptional Learners

This is Unit Eight, part two, on exceptional learners: learning disabilities, autism, ADHD, behavior and sensory disabilities, and how schools plan for them. Part one closed on deciding which disability law applies. Part two turns to the students those laws protect. Carry one idea through this part: how a teacher explains a student's difficulty shapes the remedy, so choose explanations the evidence supports. At the final two entries, the part reads one learning problem through three theories and tests the most popular idea about learning styles. By the end you will be able to tell a learning disability from ADHD and from intellectual disability. To state what research shows about autism's prevalence and causes. To design a lesson by the three principles of Universal Design for Learning. To trace a student through the tiers of Response to Intervention. And to explain one learning problem through three theories.

Three entries on eligibility under IDEA and on specific learning disabilities, including dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia.

Thirteen categories.

EDP 0732 Thirteen Categories

Federal regulations define thirteen disability categories for IDEA eligibility, including autism, emotional disturbance, intellectual disability, other health impairment, specific learning disability, and speech or language impairment; a student with ADHD is typically served under other health impairment. The eight achievement areas belong to specific learning disability, not to eligibility in general.

A specific academic impairment.

EDP 0733 Learning Disability

A learning disability is a specific academic impairment, a discrepancy between ability and achievement not explained by sensory, motor, intellectual or second-language factors, and students with learning disabilities make up about half of all students served. A bright student reading far below grade level, with normal vision and hearing, may have one. It is not low intelligence.

Reading, writing and mathematics.

EDP 0734 Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia

Dyslexia is a reading disability with a core problem in phonological processing, as when a student cannot separate the sounds in cat; dysgraphia is a writing disability involving phonological, orthographic and motor skills; and dyscalculia is a mathematics disability linked to domain-general factors. Each names a specific area.

Three entries on autism: what it is, how common it is, and what causes it, and what does not.

Autism spectrum disorder.

EDP 0735 Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder involves early-appearing deficits in social communication and interaction and restricted, repetitive behaviors or interests, the two domains of the DSM-5, which folded Asperger's disorder into the spectrum. One autistic student speaks fluently but struggles with conversation; another speaks little. Autism is not the same as intellectual disability.

How common autism is.

EDP 0736 How Common Is Autism?

The CDC's latest monitoring report found autism in about one in thirty-one eight-year-olds in twenty twenty-two, across sixteen sites, and about three point four times as common in boys as in girls; in a school of three hundred ten eight-year-olds, that would mean about ten autistic children. Give each such figure with its year.

Causes of autism.

EDP 0737 Causes of Autism

Autism has strong genetic influence, shown by twin concordance, since identical twins are far more likely than fraternal twins both to be autistic, and research finds that vaccines are not related to the risk of developing it. The vaccine question is settled by research, not open, and a teacher should say so plainly.

Five entries on ADHD: what it is, diagnosis and referral, causes and a myth, treatment, and the classroom.

Attention and hyperactivity.

EDP 0738 ADHD

ADHD involves persistent inattention, hyperactivity-impulsivity or both; it affects about five percent of children, and schools serve it under other health impairment rather than as a learning disability. One student cannot sustain attention through a reading; another cannot stay seated. ADHD affects attention and behavior across subjects, not one academic skill.

Diagnosis and referral.

EDP 0739 Diagnosis and Referral

More boys than girls are diagnosed with ADHD, possibly because of referral bias, and active boys and culturally or linguistically diverse students risk being over-diagnosed when normal energy or cultural differences are read as symptoms. A lively boy who fidgets only in one dull class may not have ADHD; true ADHD shows across settings.

Causes, and a myth.

EDP 0740 Causes and Myths of ADHD

ADHD has strong genetic influence, with twin concordance of about point six six for identical twins against point two for fraternal twins, and involves dopamine and the frontal lobes; prenatal nicotine is also linked. Sugar does not cause hyperactivity: controlled studies found no reliable effect, though a small effect cannot be completely ruled out.

Treating ADHD.

EDP 0741 Treating ADHD

ADHD treatment combines behavioral therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, education and medication, and stimulant treatment is associated with about a one point nine fold reduction in later risk of substance-use disorder. A student on medication also learns self-monitoring routines at school, because medication alone is not the whole plan.

ADHD in the classroom.

EDP 0742 ADHD in the Classroom

Classroom supports for students with ADHD include clear rules made with the student, lists, visual cues, short work sessions and self-monitoring, which builds metacognition, as a student checks off each step of an assignment on a card taped to the desk. Self-monitoring moves control from the teacher to the student over time.

Five entries on behavior disorders and how teachers respond, and on hearing and visual impairments.

Behavior disorders.

EDP 0743 Behavior Disorders

A behavior disorder is chronic, highly inappropriate behavior that is extreme, persistent, socially unacceptable and harmful to schoolwork, with no other explanation; it affects about one to two percent of students and may occur with oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, ADHD or bipolar disorder. IDEA's term for this category is emotional disturbance.

Finding triggers.

EDP 0744 Triggers

Teachers of students with behavior disorders first identify triggers: physiological, such as hunger; physical setting, such as noise; and instructional choices, such as unexplained transitions. A student who erupts before lunch every day may be reacting to hunger, not to the lesson. Identifying triggers is the root of a functional behavioral assessment.

Skills, contracts and fair discipline.

EDP 0745 Skills, Contracts and Fair Discipline

Teachers also teach interpersonal skills explicitly, through stories, games and mentoring; use behaviorist techniques such as contingency contracts, like five minutes of free reading for each period without an outburst; and apply fair discipline within the student's IEP and its due process, keeping records, not only the school's usual rules.

Hearing loss.

EDP 0746 Hearing Loss

Students may be hard of hearing or deaf, and mild loss is often overlooked, so teachers observe over time; a student who often asks what and watches faces closely may have mild loss, which can pass for inattention. Instruction uses residual hearing, visual cues and inclusion, such as classmates learning a few signs.

Visual impairment.

EDP 0747 Visual Impairment

Legal blindness means vision of twenty over two hundred or a very narrow visual field; low vision is less severe. Teachers use residual vision, nonvisual information such as Braille and tactile maps, and inclusion. Hearing and vision strategies match: use the remaining sense, add another, and include.

Six entries on planning for every learner: universal design, alternative assessment, response to intervention, placement and the IEP.

Designing for diversity from the start.

EDP 0748 Universal Design for Learning

Universal Design for Learning, developed by the organization CAST, designs lessons for diversity from the outset rather than retrofitting them for individual students. It rests on three principles. Multiple means of representation address the what of learning, presenting information in more than one form. Multiple means of action and expression address the how, letting students show what they know in more than one way. Multiple means of engagement address the why, offering more than one way to become and stay interested. A water-cycle lesson offers a diagram, a captioned video and a text, lets students explain in writing, drawing or a recorded talk, and lets them choose a local example. UDL is not teaching to diagnosed learning styles.

Alternative assessment.

EDP 0749 Alternative Assessment

Students with disabilities may be assessed through alternatives such as portfolios, regular brief observation and checks run by an assistant, as a student who cannot write at length shows learning through recorded explanations. Each raises the question of fairness to other students, and each must still show what the student has learned.

Response to Intervention.

EDP 0750 Response to Intervention

Response to Intervention catches learning problems early. It begins with universal screening, then provides early intervention and monitors progress through increasingly intensive tiers. Tier 1 is high-quality core instruction for every student. Tier 2 adds small-group intervention for students not progressing. Tier 3 provides individualized, intensive intervention. A second grader flagged at fall screening joins a three-student group three times a week, and when weekly checks show little gain, moves to daily one-on-one intervention. RTI identifies need from how a student responds to instruction, not from an ability-achievement gap, and it is now part of a broader Multi-Tiered System of Supports.

The least restrictive environment.

EDP 0751 Least Restrictive Environment

The least restrictive environment is the setting that lets a student with a disability participate in the regular classroom as much as the student's needs allow: one student spends the whole day in a regular class with an aide, another spends mornings in a resource room. Placements vary because needs vary.

The IEP.

EDP 0752 The IEP

An individualized education program is an annual written plan that states the student's present levels of performance, annual goals, the services to be provided, and how progress will be measured, as in by June, Maya will read ninety words per minute with ninety-five percent accuracy. A goal the team cannot measure is not a usable goal.

The IEP team, and transition.

EDP 0753 The IEP Team and Transition

An IEP is made by a team that includes the classroom teacher, a special educator and the parents, with others as needed, and the classroom teacher helps write the plan. For adolescents it also includes transition planning for life after school, like job-skills training and a visit to a community college.

Two entries close the unit, both payoffs: one problem read three ways, and the evidence on learning styles.

The first payoff: one problem, three theories.

EDP 0754 One Problem, Three Theories

Here the part's idea does its work. A student adds two-digit numbers without carrying: asked to add forty-seven and thirty-eight, the student writes seventy-five, dropping the carried one. A behaviorist sees a wrong strategy kept alive by partial reinforcement, since the method works whenever no carrying is needed, as with forty-two plus thirty-five; the remedy is to reinforce the correct behavior consistently. A metacognitive view sees an impulsive style; the remedy is thinking aloud and estimating first, since forty-seven and thirty-eight is about ninety. A constructivist view sees a task inside the zone of proximal development; the remedy is mentoring with base-ten blocks, faded as the student carries alone. The theories are not rivals: the explanation chosen shapes the remedy, and a teacher who sees only one theory sees only one remedy.

The second payoff: learning styles and the evidence.

EDP 0755 Learning Styles: Preference and Evidence

Learning styles are among the most popular ideas in education and among the most contested, and the idea has two parts that must be kept apart. People do report preferences about how they learn. But the meshing hypothesis, that students learn better when instruction matches their diagnosed style, found virtually no support in Pashler and colleagues' two thousand eight review, which concluded there is no adequate evidence base for learning-styles assessments in general practice. A school that labels every student visual, auditory or kinesthetic and teaches each group in its style has no evidence behind it, and the labels can lock students out. A school using Universal Design for Learning varies presentation, expression and engagement for everyone. Rejecting style-matching is not rejecting variety, and cognitive styles, such as impulsivity, are a separate idea.

Look at what you can now do. You can tell a learning disability, a specific academic impairment, from ADHD, a problem of attention across subjects, and from intellectual disability. You can state what research shows about autism: about one in thirty-one eight-year-olds in twenty twenty-two, strong genetic influence, and no link to vaccines. You can design a lesson by UDL's three principles: representation, action and expression, and engagement. You can trace a student through Response to Intervention's tiers, from core instruction to individualized help. And you can explain one problem through three theories, choosing the remedy that fits the explanation. Unit Nine turns to gender, culture, language and class.