Curriculum essay
Teaching students with intellectual disabilities (ID) evokes considerable difficulties in face of educators, who have to develop effective methods and strategies that can facilitate the learning of students. However, students with ID often face difficulties with the adequate perception of instructions and proper response to them. This is why often educators should elaborate new methods, which are more sophisticated but more effective compared to conventional methods used in conventional classrooms.
Interactive features and anchored instructions
Interactive features and anchored instructions involve the use of the equipment and software, which allow students with ID respond to the stimulus used by educators in the course of instructions to evoke the target response from students. Interactive features and anchored instructions contribute to the better interaction between educators and students. In addition, this method helps students to develop responsiveness to external stimuli and interact with their environment.
However, this method may confront the problem of the poor response of students with ID in interactive features, if they have problems with the perception of those visual means or cannot focus their attention on those features.
Nevertheless, this problem may be resolved through active physical and active prompting which will encourage students to stay focused on the interactive features and learning. Educators can help students with ID to focus on specific features and provide prompts that will help students to learn and understand instructions and respond to interactive features in the target way and, thus, learn instructions or develop target skills.
Costs of the implementation of interactive features and anchored instructions may be high since the modern equipment and software are needed, but effects of using this method outweigh its costs.
The use of interactive features and anchored instructions can bring positive outcomes in terms of socialization as students with ID learn to interact with media and educators and develop skills, which can help them to develop their social interaction with other students, their peers and other people.
Closed captioning
Closed captioning is another method that can be used to teach students with ID. This method involves the use of closed captions to provide prompts, when students with ID are watching video, clips and other visual materials (Fey 531). Such visual prompts help them to catch main points and understand instructions and educator’s messages better that facilitate their learning.
On the other hand, closed captions imply the presence of relatively well-developed reading skills, which is not always the case of students with ID. In addition, students with ID may have difficulties to focus their attention on closed captions, while they are watching some video, for example.
Costs of using closed captions are relatively low, if the equipment and software used for visual presentations and watching video materials in the course of instructions are already available to educators. In fact, they only need to add closed captions that require basic skills of using free software and media available to them. For example, even YouTube offers an opportunity to make closed captions. Therefore, educators will just need some time to make closed captions without investing substantial costs into the practical application of this method.
Outcomes of using this method are positive because closed captions help students with ID to focus on specific points and single out main points in video clips and other visual means, which they watch in the course of the instructions (Turnbull, Turnbull, & Wehmeyer 118). In such a way, students learn to focus their attention on specific issues, make generalization and distinguish key points.
Picture-based symbols
The use of picture-based symbols method implies the use of pictures that back up textual information or other instructions by means of developing close associations between the studied item and the image on the picture. For example, a student with ID, who learns to write, can associate the letter ‘A’ with apple. Attaching the picture of the apple to the letter will develop close association in student and he/she will memorize the letter through association with the apple (Hunt & Marshall 185). Therefore, this method develops associative thinking and helps students to learn new items through picture-based associations.
However, the drawback of this method is its inapplicability to complex instructions, when educators are trying to teach students with ID complex issues. For example, it is quite difficult to depict an abstract concept like ‘love’ or ‘peace’ by means of pictures in such a way that a student with ID developed right associations.
Costs of this method are low since educators do not need much funds to create pictures to back up instructions, which they are going to deliver during the class to students with ID.
Conclusion
Thus, the aforementioned methods have both strengths and weaknesses but educators should be able to apply them in their work with students with ID because, under certain conditions, they can be effective and facilitate the learning process for students. In addition, these methods match current standards aiming at the inclusion of all students in the learning process because they make instructions comprehensible and available to students and open better educational opportunities for them.
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