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Carly Roberts 4/22/11

Functional Content & Core Content Instruction for Students with Moderate Disabilities: A Discussion. Carly Roberts 4/22/11. Reviewed Article.

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Carly Roberts 4/22/11

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  1. Functional Content & Core Content Instruction for Students with Moderate Disabilities: A Discussion Carly Roberts 4/22/11

  2. Reviewed Article • Collins, B. C., Hagar, K. L., & Galloway, C. C. (2011). Addition of functional content during core content instruction with students with moderate disabilities. Education and Training in Autism and Development Disabilities, 46, 22-39.

  3. Pause for discussion… • What does “access to the general curriculum” mean? • What does it look like in practice? • What should be the focus of instruction for adolescents with significant cognitive disabilities? • What does “meaningful” instruction mean? What does it look like?

  4. Research Questions • Will middle school students with moderate to severe disabilities acquire both core content and a functional application through direct instruction? • Will the students generalize that content across probe trials using novel materials and activities?

  5. Student Participants • 3 middle school students identified with moderate to severe disabilities who participate in alternate assessments • Jason • 14 year old male included 50-60% of the day • IQ 55 and adaptive behavior score of 56 • Morgan • 14 year old male with autism included 40% of the day • IQ 47 • Rena • 15 year old female with Down Syndrome included 40% of the day • IQ 41

  6. Teacher Participants • Special education teacher • 3 years of teaching experience • Previously worked as a paraprofessional • Working on her master’s degree • Paraprofessional took over when the teacher went on maternity leave • Experienced • Had participated in a previous study • Trained by the teacher

  7. Goals • Teacher chose content standards to work on and then created a academic content goal as well as a functional goal for that standard • Chose content standards in language arts, science, and math

  8. Reading Goals • Content Standard Goal: Identify meanings of words/phrases from a grade level passage newspaper • Functional Goal: functional application of the grade level words

  9. Specific Reading Goals

  10. Science Goals • Content Standard Goal: Identify chemical and physical properties of elements and compounds for the basic properties of (a) gas, (b) liquid, and (c) solid. • Functional Goal: Identify change in properties for weather and cooking

  11. Specific Science Goals

  12. Math Goals • Content Standard Goal: Apply order of operations using addition and multiplication. • Functional Goal: Use the order of operations for computing sales tax.

  13. Specific Math Goals

  14. Teaching Procedures • Setting: self-contained special education class • Duration: 1 hour each day in the morning from September-April. • Procedure: The teacher used constant time delay (CTD) to instruct and conduct one trial per stimulus per session. Each subject was taught to 100% criterion before beginning the next subject. The order was: (a) language arts, (b) science, and (c) math

  15. Pause for discussion… • What is the best setting to teach academic content area goals in—an inclusive setting or a self-contained setting? • Is there time to do both?

  16. Design • Multiple probe design across behaviors (reading, science, and math tasks) replicated across participants • Baseline: • Students did not begin instruction in next subject area goals until they reached 100% criterion in previous subject. • Baseline sessions consisted of three probe trials for functional and three probe trials for core content. • Given task direction and tasks and waited 3 seconds for student response (no prompting, no CTD).

  17. Design Continued… • Instruction • Constant time delay (first session 0 delay, subsequent sessions 3 second delay) • Prompts were verbal models or verbal models paired with gestures • Praise for correct responses and a model for incorrect responses • Generalization • Alternate assessment trials • Same standard addressed using different materials or applications • Maintenance • After they reached mastery (100% for 3 sessions) in each subject only intermittent probes were conducted

  18. Jason’s Results

  19. Morgan’s Results

  20. Rena’s Results

  21. Conclusions • Academic instruction of core content and functional instruction can be combined, although time constraints make it difficult. • It improved the students’ ability to answer generalization probes based on the alternate assessment. • Combining core content and functional content and basing the functional content off of grade level standards can help make instruction more meaningful.

  22. Limitations • They ran out of time! We don’t know if the students would have had more success if they started earlier in the year. • Instructional time was limited (approximately five minutes per student per day) • Instruction was in a self-contained class. Can it work in an inclusive classroom?

  23. Discussion questions… • Can academic core content and functional content be taught together? Does it make instruction more meaningful? • Can this strategy improve student scores on the alternate assessment? • Is it okay to prioritize instruction for subjects (i.e. wait to focus on math standards until prior subjects mastered)? • Additional thoughts…

  24. Thank You!

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