Notes: Adolescents with Disabiities

• Intellectual development

• Egocentric, academic goals and intellectual pursuits as secondary to social and peer relationship concerns
• Willing to earn if they consider the information useful for real life situations
• Experiencing intellectual changes-ability to think goes from concrete to abstract level of thought
• Start to understand metacognition and develop knowledge of how learning occurs for them
• Hypothetical reasoning and think in broader terms about moral issues and about their own future plans
• Physical development
• Secondary sex characteristics and subsequent sex maturity
• Physically awkward, posture problems and body parts that mature at different rates resulting in odd and gangly appearance
• At this time adolescents are often confronted with opportunities for sexual activity when they aren’t yet ready physically or emotionally
• Emotional/Psychological development
• Intense emotional and psychological changes
• “Storm of stress,” emotional roller coaster type of behavior
• Younger adolescents may be more sensitive towards criticism and easily take offense at comments made my peers and family
• Display inconsistent behavior, moodiness and often self-consciousness
• Physical and hormonal changes take place
• Social development
• Importance of peer relationships
• Peers as  a source of support instead of their family or teachers
• Rebellion towards parents, cruelty or insensitivity to those not in a chosen group
• Behaviors that could challenge authority figures
• Moral/Ethical development
• Begin to question concepts related to the meaning of life, religious belief, and ethical issues
• Very idealistic and expects teachers and parents to exhibit fairness in their behaviors
• Confronting authority figures can result in controversy in the classroom
• Unanswerable questions about the meaning of life-teachers should take advantage of this attitude and encourage the development of morality and ethics through real life scenarios
• Utilize decisions to determine the “right” and “wrong” of different responses
• Less egocentric and less easily discouraged, more independent and confident

Adolescents with disabilities

• More than 6 million students with disabilities who receive services in federally supported special education programs- ⅓ are between the ages 14-17
• The significance of support is needed
• Achieving at lower levels that expected, gaps in education
• Dyslexia- reading processing
• Dysgraphia- writing processing
• Dyscalculia- processes of math
• Emotional/social
• Emotional/Behavior disorder-increased dropout rate
• Internal-
• External
• Different levels of social development
• Difficulties
• Attending to school related tasks
• Remembering information
• Monitoring own behaviors (metacognition)
• Lacking effective study skills
• Establishing unsatisfactory personal relationships
• Having poor self-concept

Intellectual disability

• Mental retardation
• Individual with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA)
• Mild and moderate levels
• American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD)
• Sub average general intellectual functioning
• Deficits in adaptive behaviors
• Intellectual delay developmental period birth to 18 years of age
• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)

Learning disabilities

• 1960’s Samuel Kirk used the term learning disabilities
• Characteristics
• Attention deficits
• Hyperactivity
• Academic deficits
• Sensorimotor deficits
• Social skills deficits
• Self-determination deficits

Behavioral/Emotional Disorder

• Behavior occurs on age and situational continuum
• Emotions and behaviors are difficult to assess
• Culture provides significant variation as to what constitutes unacceptable behavior
• Emotional disturbance- a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to marked degree that adversely affects a child’s performance
• Usually this disorder are at least 2 years below grade level in reading, mathematics, spelling, and writing
• Often exhibit immature metacognitive skills

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): Autism and Asperger's syndrome (AS)

• Mild to severe on the autism spectrum reduced memory skills and deficits

Low-incident categories

1. Hearing impairment
2. Visual impairment
3. Traumatic brain injury
• Most common occurrence-impulsivity, a sense of immortality increase risk-taking behaviors
4. Cerebral palsy (CP)
• Spasticity
• Athetosis
• Ataxia
• rigidity
5. Spina bifida

1. Autism…means a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engaging in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences. The term autism does not apply if the child’s educational performance is adversely affected primarily because the child has an emotional disturbance, as defined in #5 below. A child who shows the characteristics of autism after age 3 could be diagnosed as having autism if the criteria above are satisfied.

2. Deaf-Blindness…means concomitant [simultaneous] hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or children with blindness.

3. Deafness…means a hearing impairment so severe that a child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.

4. Developmental Delay…for children from birth to age three (under IDEA Part C) and children from ages three through nine (under IDEA Part B), the term developmental delay, as defined by each State, means a delay in one or more of the following areas: physical development; cognitive development; communication; social or emotional development; or adaptive [behavioral] development.

5. Emotional Disturbance…means a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child’s educational performance:

(a) An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors.

(b) An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers.

(c) Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances.

(d) A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.

(e) A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.

The term includes schizophrenia. The term does not apply to children who are socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that they have an emotional disturbance.

6. Hearing Impairment…means an impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance but is not included under the definition of “deafness.”

7. Intellectual Disability…means significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently [at the same time] with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.

(Editor’s Note, February 2011: “Intellectual Disability” is a new term in IDEA. Until October 2010, the law used the term “mental retardation.”  In October 2010, Rosa’s Law was signed into law by President Obama.  Rosa’s Law changed the term to be used in future to “intellectual disability.” The definition of the term itself  did not change and is what has just been shown above.

8. Multiple Disabilities…means concomitant [simultaneous] impairments (such as intellectual disability-blindness, intellectual disability-orthopedic impairment, etc.), the combination of which causes such severe educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in a special education program solely for one of the impairments. The term does not include deaf-blindness.

9. Orthopedic Impairment…means a severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a child’s educational performance. The term includes impairments caused by a congenital anomaly, impairments caused by disease (e.g., poliomyelitis, bone tuberculosis), and impairments from other causes (e.g.,cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns that cause contractures).

10. Other Health Impairment…means having limited strength, vitality, or alertness, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli, that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment, that—

(a) is due to chronic or acute health problems such as asthma, attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, diabetes, epilepsy, a heart condition, hemophilia, lead poisoning, leukemia, nephritis, rheumatic fever, sickle cell anemia, and Tourette syndrome; and

(b) adversely affects a child’s educational performance.

11. Specific Learning Disability…means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations. The term includes such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The term does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities; of intellectual disability; of emotional disturbance; or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

12. Speech or Language Impairment…means a communication disorder such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.

13. Traumatic Brain Injury…means an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force, resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment, or both, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance. The term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas, such as cognition; language; memory; attention; reasoning; abstract thinking; judgment; problem-solving; sensory, perceptual, and motor abilities; psychosocial behavior; physical functions; information processing; and speech. The term does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or to brain injuries induced by birth trauma.

14. Visual Impairment Including Blindness…means an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child’s educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.