1. Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity
1.1. Characteristics of students with ADHD include distractibility, short attention span, impulsiveness, inability to organize, and a high level of physical movement.
1.2. Behaviors
1.3. Distracted easily
1.4. Short attention spans
1.5. Impulsive behaviors
1.6. Inability to organize
1.7. Lots of physical movement
1.8. Practices for Behaviors
1.9. Be sure to have their attention before giving oral instructions
1.10. Give brief and clear instructions, preferably 1 step at a time
1.11. Monitor these students closely as they begin new work
1.12. Adjust amount of work required within a time period to be compatible with the attention span of these students
1.13. Remind these students that accuracy is more important than speed
1.14. Collect completed assignments
2. Social Deficits
2.1. As very young children, many of these individuals appear to be especially bright because of their ability to learn, remember, and recite facts. As they grow older, however, it becomes apparent that they have limited understanding of these facts and cannot generalize or apply the things they relate so accurately. Although highly verbal, they have extremely poor communication skills. Individuals with (ASD, PDD) may be quite rigid in their outlook and develop set of ways of doing things.
2.1.1. Practices for Behaviors
2.1.2. Use visual cues and prompts.
2.1.3. Avoid giving both an auditory and a visual task at one time.
2.1.4. Make instructions brief
2.1.5. Do not insist that these students maintain direct eye contact with you
2.1.6. Use "social stories" or "social scripting" techniques, which can be highly effective in helping these students prepare for new events, experiences, or routine changes.
2.1.7. Capitalize on students' strengths and interests.
2.1.8. Give these students specific social feedback and step-by-step instructions
2.2. Behaviors
2.3. Stand too close
2.4. Avoid eye contact
2.5. Talk too long and loudly in a preaching/robotic manner.
2.6. Talk in great detail about factual matters that do not interest peers
2.7. Escalate quickly into extreme and visible anxiety when a routine is changed or when their expectations are not met.
2.8. Acute sensitivity to sounds, with loud noises causing pain to their ears.
2.9. Concomitant learning disabilities and poor gross and fine motor skills.
2.10. Strong emotion may cause them to engage in repetitive, stereotyped movements such as hand flapping.
3. Visual Impairments
3.1. Students who are blind or who have severe visual impairments may be able to function well in regular classes with a teachers help. Suggestions for adaptations of teaching methods and materials should be available in the student's functional visual assessment, written by a teacher of these students.
3.2. Behaviors
3.3. Blind and/or severe visual impairment
3.4. Accommodations
3.5. Allow these students to record the lesson or have fellow students make copies of their notes.
3.6. Use tactile models and hands-on activities whenever possible
3.7. Encourage students who have these impairments to ask for help when needed
3.8. Remember that these students may tire quickly, frequent activity changes may help alleviate this.
3.9. Seat these students with their backs to any windows.
3.10. Allow these students to walk up to the board or other displays as needed.
4. Living in Extreme Poverty
4.1. Many schools have increasing numbers of students who live in significant poverty, which requires understanding and adjustments from school staff.
4.1.1. Behaviors
4.1.2. It is well known that childhood poverty is linked to lower academic achievement, and there is evidence that the stress resulting from chronic childhood poverty cases lower cognitive functioning in young adults.
4.1.3. When young children from an impoverished background come to school for the first time, they are unlikely to have the "going-to-school" skills that many other children already have. They may talk louder than other children or physically defend themselves against perceived threats.
4.1.4. They are generally more sensitive to nonverbal than to verbal messages and are often not skilled at processing verbal explanations.
4.1.5. These children will need the most basic expectations demonstrated before they can adhere to classroom rules and procedures.
4.1.6. Accommodations
4.1.7. A key to success for these children is a strong, trusting relationship with the teacher in an environment in which they can feel safe, not threatened or stressed.
4.1.8. Teachers will probably be their primary motivator and the one who must help them understand how school can ultimately benefit them and why it will be worth it for them to attend regularly and to work hard.
4.1.9. Help them learn how to negotiate what, for them, are the "hidden" rules and expectations of the school.
4.1.10. Make explicit the school rules, explain that those rules and the rules of their neighborhood may be different.
4.1.11. Make explicit each specific step
4.1.12. Have extra supplies and materials on hand in case students don't have them.
4.1.13. Teach procedures step by step.
4.1.14. Help students "bracket" their worries to put off worrying about something until a specific later time.
4.1.15. Assign them a peer buddy, and encourage them to discuss problems and solutions together.
4.1.16. Encourage positive self-talk
4.1.17. Work on developing a positive relationship with the child's parents.
5. Higher-Achieving Students
5.1. Higher-achieving students may present special challenges in heterogeneous classes. The need to keep these students productively involved in learning activities requires that they be challenged at the appropriate level and given sufficient activities to avoid boredom or disruption of the rest of the class.
5.2. Accommodations
5.3. Classrooms with more open-ended assginemts, where each student pursues a project or a problem to the extent of his or her ability
5.4. Have resources available for these students to use for bonus questions or extra projects.
6. Learning Disabilities
6.1. One primary feature of learning disabilities is more difficulty with and lower achievement in certain academic areas than would otherwise be expected, based on these students' overall ability levels.
6.1.1. Behaviors
6.1.2. Disorganization
6.1.3. Disconcerting tendency to forget something they seemed to have understood thoroughly just a short time earlier
6.1.4. Natural sense of frustration
6.1.5. Potential for anger or hopelessness
6.1.6. Negative view of themselves
6.2. Practices for Behaviors
6.3. Positive and structured approach with predictable routines
6.4. Patience and Repetition
6.5. Point out cues and Relevant Directions
6.6. Have students repeat directions out loud to be sure they understand what to do.
6.7. Emphasize what is correct rather than what they are doing wrong.
6.8. Model appropriate behavior/actions to ensure they are transferring positive learning rather than reinforcing negative learning.
6.9. Overlearning is a positive for these students
6.10. Avoid trial-and-error activities
7. Emotional/Behavioral Problems
7.1. These students are often different from others merely in their degree of emotionality rather than in the types of feelings they have may relieve some potential anxiety in working with students.
7.1.1. Behaviors
7.1.2. Temper outbursts
7.1.3. Easily/Violently frustrated and Angry