Severely Disabled

1. Severely Disabled

2. Teaching students with severe disabilities requires patience and creativity!

3. Defining Severely Disabled • Severity • Require greater assistance than peers of a similar disability • Combination • Two or more disabilities whose individual severity would not be classified as severe but in conjunction, do constitute severe. Approximately .5%-2% of population

4. Defining Severely Disabled • Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) defines Severe/Profound Mental Retardation as: • “ …a child with “significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period that adversely affects a child’s education performance.”* • *Individuals with disabilities Education Act amendment of 1997, 105th Cong.,(1997).

5. Characteristics of Severely Disabled • Social development • Difficult interacting or may be oblivious to others. Neither initiate or respond to interactions. Difficulty performing self-help activities such as dressing, feeding, and grooming (or totally absent). May exhibit self-abusive acts or abusive behavior such as biting or scratching.

6. Characteristics of Severely Disabled • Cognitive development • Exhibit a great deal of variation. If the primary disability is orthopedic or health impairment, cognitive function may not be affected. In others, student may be unable or not respond to simple commands, identify shapes/colors, or symbols/words. • Categories of mental retardation

7. Characteristics of Severely Disabled • Language Development • Common problems include delays inspeech and language, speech clarity, and bizarre speech patterns. Often unable to communicate or utilizes noises such as grunts or shrieks.

8. Characteristics of Severely Disabled • Motor Development • Delays are very common. Specific problems may include difficulty walking or sitting without support. Children may be unable to perform basic tasks such as rolling over, grasping objects, or holding their head up.

9. Characteristics of Severely Disabled • May use a electric powered indoor/outdoor chair (EPIOC) • Dimensions of mobility, quality of life and pain/discomfort improved significantly • No significant improvement in health state, independence and social life (interesting) • (Davies, Souza, & Frank, 2003) • Be careful, especially if student is new to chair.

10. Cross-classifications • Students with severe disabilities (autism, CP, ED, Down’s, LD, MS etc) often have varying degrees of mental retardation.

11. Teaching PE to Severely Disabled • Most will require specialized pull-out classes instead of inclusion. However, this may change with the new legislation being considered. There are drawbacks to separation to pull-out classes including: • Exposure to students without disabilities is absent • Severely disabled students tend to learn “handicapped skills, attitudes, and values” from their peers who are also disabled • Teachers tend to pacify and just keep students busy at the expense of developing functional community-based skills • Skills attitudes and values of students without disabilities often become more constructive, tolerant, and appropriate (Brown et al., 2004)

12. Teaching PE to Severely Disabled • Important concept – every student, regardless of disability, can learn. • Educational gains may be very small, if present at all. Sometimes, your instruction may simply reduce the rate of decline. It is your call whether the instruction is effective; if not a change is necessary. • Because severely disabled students learn at a slower rate, extension activities become necessary. • Give parents ideas that can be utilize at home (homework for parents). • You may need to communicate with simple statements, gestures, or physical prompts. However, try and build their communication skills.

13. Teaching PE to Severely Disabled • What to teach • Determined by educational needs of each individual student. There are few rules on what to teach, some students may need a psychomotor focus (balance, tracking objects), other a cognitive focus (memory, directions), or affective (communicating, peer relations). • Standardized assessments such as Brockport and TGMD2 may not be applicable. There is a large list of assessments in your text however gaining access to them may be difficult.

14. Teaching PE to Severely Disabled • Use various prompts to communicate • Verbal, printed, gesture, and physical prompts • Communication boards – picture which communicates to student what is happening next. • http://www.do2learn.com/picturecards/howtouse/schedule.htm

15. Teaching PE to Severely Disabled

16. Teaching PE to Severely Disabled • Analyzing the behavior • Task analysis: • Terminal behavior: riding a tricycle • Enabling behaviors: mounting the tricycle, balancing, holding on, turning, stopping, pedaling, dismounting • Break behaviors into even smaller steps

17. Teaching PE to Severely Disabled • Behavior Management • Positive (must be pleasurable): praise, hand clapping, drawing, spinning, music, favorite equipment, favorite activities, stuffed animal, flashing lights, etc. Communicate with other teachers and parents • Focus more of your energies on positive consequences • Negative (must be unpleasant): removal of music, turn lights on, no activity (stop). You must find what works.

18. Teaching PE to Severely Disabled- activities vary greatly

19. Teaching PE to Severely Disabled- activities vary greatly

20. Activities for Daily Living • Many severely disabled students have difficulty with “simple” tasks we take for granted such as seating themselves in a chair, opening a door handle, differentiating simple words, or walking • Some students are so low functioning that working on object tracking or skipping does not help them in their daily lives. In such cases, coordinate with PT’s, OT’s, and speech pathologists to extend their instruction.

21. YouTube Vid • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S0j2WQLu1o