Addressing the Needs of Students with Intellectual Disability using Community Based Instruction

1. Addressing the Needs of Students with Intellectual Disability using Community Based Instruction EDUC 325 EBP Presentation Fall 2011

2. Intellectual Disability • IDEA still used the term “mental retardation,” but national organizations which advocate for these students and their parents favor the term “intellectual disability” • Intellectual disability is characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills. This disability originates before age 18 (Turnbull, Turnbull, and Wehmeyer, pg. 240).

3. Difficulty with Generalization • Research shows that students with intellectual disability have difficulty with generalization. Generalization refers to the ability to transfer knowledge or behavior learned for doing one task to another task and to make that transfer across different settings or environments (Turnbull, Turnbull, and Wehmeyer, pg. 244). • This means that it is difficult for these students to take information and skills they learned in school and apply them to other settings in the community.

4. Community Based Instruction • Research shows that community based instruction is an effective way to help students with intellectual disability learn and apply skills across different environments (such as home, school, places of employment, restaurants, churches, libraries, movie theaters, recreation centers…etc.) • Community Based Instruction helps students develop skills they will be able to use while still in high school. Community Based Instruction also helps these students (and all students) prepare for future tasks, responsibilities, and experiences.

5. The Importance of Community Based Instruction “Moving the environment of learning to a real world and real time context might help to compensate for the poor memory skills often associated with this target audience and ensure that learning takes place in a context similar to that in which it is required. This is important for a target audience described as ‘concrete thinkers’ whose performance is characterised as rigid, context dependent or as blind rule following and for whom generalization of learnt skills from one setting to another is unreliable” (Brown, D.J., McHugh, D., Standen, P., Evett, L., Shopland, N., Battersby, S.).

6. Areas of Instruction and Skills Associated with These Areas • Community Based Instruction helps students with intellectual disabilities in areas in which they struggle: intellectual functioning- memory, generalization, and motivation and adaptive skills- conceptual, social, and practical. • Some of the skills which teachers should work on with these students include: applied money concepts, applied time concepts, community mobility and access, grooming and self-care, leisure activities, health and safety, and career education (Turnbull, A., Turnbull, R., & Wehmeyer, M.L., pg. 265).

7. Community Based Instruction in the Community and the Classroom Meet with your student’s IEP team and discuss which resources the school has available. If possible, have a school assistant take the student on fieldtrips to various community settings throughout the school year and have the student practice skills they will need to function and thrive in life. You could also take the entire class on a field trip. If it is not possible for the student to practice these skills in a real-world setting, you can simulate these settings and practice these skills in the classroom. These practical skills will be valuable skills for all of your students to learn.

8. References Turnbull, A., Turnbull, R., & Wehmeyer, M. L. (2010). Exceptional lives: special education in today’s schools (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. Brown, D.J., McHugh, D., Standen, P., Evett, L., Shopland, N., & Battersby, S. (2011). Designing Location-Based Learning Experiences for People with Intellectual Disabilities and Additional Sensory Impairments. Computers & Education, v56 n1, p11-20. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2010.04.014