Reading and Students with Mental Retardation

Reading attainment is considered a top precedence in reproduction, and a skill with myriad implications for eruditeness and exploit in other atomic number 18as. Yet in the past, literacy r bely has been emphasized for students with cordial ineptitude. With interventions that name the importance of literacy for tout ensemble students, students with psychical interim earth-closet build narration skills that can lead to new interests, increased competencies, and greater independence.Understanding the characteristics of students with kind interim is an important step toward the development of effective instruction and clutch assessment. This paper is intended to begin a raillery of the issues surrounding nurture and students with psychological retardation it is non intended to be a world-wide investigate check into. The paper provides (1) an overview of the characteristics of students with affable retardation, (2) a description of uncouth approaches to practice instruction, and (3) assessment approaches and issues that surround the assessment of convey for students with intellectual retardation.The paper is sensation of several brief papers developed to contribute to the process of conducting research and developing accessible construe assessments for students with disabilities. Creating accessible indicant assessments establish on accepted renderings of reading and proficiencies of reading requires knowledge of the issues specific to each hinderance and how they affect reading and the assessment of reading. The information in these papers was obtained by a broad review of literature and Web sites of national agencies and organizations, on with input and feedback from professionals in the stultification areas. each(prenominal) paper is intended as a first step to facilitate discussions that include individuals who do not know the dis energy, in this case noetic retardation, and those who may know the disability but prevail no t considered the interaction of the disability with reading or the assessment of reading through statewide testing. Students with mental Retardation much than 600,000 students 6-21 years of age in the United States received superfluous(a) rearing service for mental retardation during the 2000-2001 school year, comprising intimately 11% of every students with disabilities in U. S. schools (U. S. Department of Education, 2002). The causes of mental retardation in children vary astray, including fetal alcohol syndrome, genetic disorders like Down syndrome and fragile X syndrome, environmental factors like lead poisoning, or diseases such as meningitis. The American tie beam on Mental Retardation (2002) defines mental retardation as a disability characterized by satisfying limitations both in skilful go and in adaptive behavior as expressed in conceptual, social, and serviceable adaptive skills.For many years students with mental retardation were identified exclusively usi ng intelligence testing. IQ levels among students labeled as mentally slow down can vary from 20-25 (profound mental retardation) to 50-75 (mild mental retardation) according to the DSM-IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), 85 percent of individuals with mental retardation have mild mental retardation. It has been estimated that 28,056 K-12 slope language learners (ELLs) received special learning services for mental retardation in 2001-2002. Thus, approximately 7. % of school-age ELLs with disabilities were identified with mental retardation (Zehler, Fleischman, Hopstock, Pendzick, & Stephenson, 2003). The challenge of training English and having a disability adds another level of complexity to learning to read and test reading achievement (Mueller & Markowitz, 2004). Similar to other special education categories, but perhaps to a greater extent unexpectedly, the criteria for students to be eligible for the mental retardation label varies from state to state (Beirne-S mith, Ittenbach, & Patton, 1998).The Twenty-Fourth Annual explanation to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) reported that poor people students were 1. 5 whiles more likely to be referred to special education it noted significantly lower cognitive development and lower achievement among this population than among non-poor students. The report speculated on causes from lead poisoning to parent education level, but some advocates have argued that poor students, and in particular poor minority students, have been over-identified in the mild mental retardation category and pose in special education classrooms (Losen, 2002).The margin mental retardation is widely used and coded into federal law, but the destination remains the subject of hefty controversy. Some advocacy groups and professional associations argue that the negative stigma of the term mental retardation could be avoided by using less implike language. The ARC of the United States, one of the countrys largest advocacy organizations for people with mental retardation, eschews the term mental retardation in its mission statement (The ARC, 2004) in esteem of cognitive, intellectual, and developmental disabilities. In 2004, Special Olympics updated its terminology from mental retardation to intellectual disabilities (see the Language Guide under About Us, then Information about Intellectual Disabilities at www. specialolympics. org). In this paper we use the term mental retardation as a legal term defined by IDEA, while cognizant of this significant shift in terminology. Characteristics of students with mental retardation vary widely.Students with mental retardation may have difficulty with expressive language, poor short-term memory, low level meta-cognition skills, and poor use of logic and organization. Some students who are labeled as mentally retarded also have ride difficulties that can affect their handwriting or their ability to hold reading material steadily (Rizopoulos & Wolpert, 2004). Students with mental retardation, like all students, demonstrate wide variation in strengths, weaknesses, interests, and motivation, all of which should be reflected in each students Individualized Education Program (IEP).Traditionally, special educators have de-emphasized literacy, particularly for students with moderate to serious mental retardation, in favor of functional, social, or motor skills (Kliewer & Biklen, 2001). Many people with mental retardation read below their intercommunicate capabilities, and both general and special education teacher education textbooks are marked by a scarcity of information on pedantic characteristics, assessment procedures, and instruction in literacy for students with mental retardation.Only recently have educators begun to recognize the value of reading and writing skills for all students, including those with severe mental retardation (Katims, 2000). Since school systems have begun to include students with moderate to severe mental retardation in assessments (IDEA, 1997, 2004) and accountability (NCLB, 2001), and thus also included in more academic instruction, these students have been achieving at much higher and more complex levels than researchers, practitioners, and tear down advocates expected (see Moore-Lamminen & Olsen, 2005).This powerful evidence has forced educational professionals to revisit long-held assumptions about the benefits of academic instruction for all children, and is generating provocative reading research on new, rigorous approaches to reading instruction for students with mental retardation (e. g. , Reading, Writing, Math, and Science for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities, Diane Browder, PI). Instruction for Students with Mental RetardationThe digest in education for students with mental retardation has shifted from an emphasis on providing services related to placement, such as disability specific classrooms or spec ial schools, to providing individualized supports to help every student access the general course of study in an inclusive classroom setting. American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR), a lead advocate of the supports model, emphasized in its 2002 definition of mental retardation that the effects of mental retardation can be ameliorated with personalized supports.This shift in thinking correlates with an increased emphasis on inclusionary and mainstream education for students with mental retardation, giving these students access to a challenging and elicit general curriculum and an integrated social environment. IDEA 1997 emphasized that students with disabilities must(prenominal) have access to the like challenging content taught to all students this was reiterated and modify in IDEA 2004.Many special education researchers and advocates argue that dimension students with disabilities, including mental retardation, to the same high expectations as all students go out purify learning and educational outcomes for these students (McGrew & Evans, 2004). Approaches to teaching reading to students with mental retardation riposte broadly into two categories.One broad category is the traditional or direct instruction approach, which teaches reading as distinct subsets of skills such as phonics and sight word recognition (Rizopoulos & Wolpert, 2004). The traditional approach is based on a behaviorist model, emphasizing drill and practice of a elongated set of literacy skills. The second approach is a progressive, holistic approach that teaches learning and critical thinking along with phonological awareness, decoding, vocabulary, and reading for enjoyment (Katims, 2000).Each of these approaches has had support with some students with mental retardation and for various purposes (Browder & Xin, 1998 Cunningham, 1999 Driscoll & Kemp, 1996 Hendricks, Katims, & Carr, 1999 Joseph & McCachran, 2003 Katims, 2000 Moni & Jobling, 2000). Assistive engine room a nd technology increasingly have become important supports for reading-related instruction and reading for students with mental retardation.For example, Erickson and Koppenhaver (1995) found that computer and light technology can make it students with severe mental retardation the supports they need to build communication skills. keep interest in the literacy outcomes of students with mental retardation and supporting research has blossomed in the past few years, and is most likely to be a rich area for the reading futures of students with mental retardation (Beukelman & Mirenda, 2005 Erickson, Clendon, Abraham, Roy, & Van de Karr, 2005 Sturm, Erickson, & Yoder, 2003).In their review of literacy approaches for adolescents with developmental delays, Rizopoulos and Wolpert (2004) suggested that both traditional and progressive approaches to literacy instruction can be appropriate for certain students. Recent research by Diane Browder looks closely at the assumption that students wit h the most severe mental retardation benefit unless from functional approaches to literacy.Browder and Algozzine argue more research is needed to understand how students with severe mental retardation might benefit from explicit instruction in decoding and comprehension skills (Browder & Algozzine, draft). Assessment of Students with Mental Retardation Most students with mental retardation participate in the same large-scale reading assessments as all students. plot of ground not all students with mental retardation will require supports or accommodations on large-scale assessments, these students have access to the same accommodations that other students with disabilities receive.Whether a student will require extra time on tests, large print, read-aloud directions, alternative setting accommodations, or other supports to demonstrate maximum proficiency depends on the individual strengths and weaknesses of each student. The most common accommodations used for students with mental retardation include breaking tasks into smaller steps, providing read aloud directions or questions, and visual cues (such as arrows, stickers, or stop signs, foreground of key words or verbs, or supplementing text with pictures).Other accommodations rank from encouraging students to stay on task and oral directions accompanied by written directions, to noise buffers and adaptive furniture (Clapper, Morse, Lazarus, Thompson, & Thurlow, 2005). Some students with the most significant cognitive disabilities who are unable to participate in large-scale assessments even with accommodations are eligible to take hang on assessments.All alternate assessments are aligned to aim-level academic content standards, but they can be based on either grade level achievement standards or alternate achievement standards. The students who may participate in alternate assessments on grade level achievement standards may need accommodations not available on general assessments or need different form ats or contexts to demonstrate grade-level proficiency (National Center on Educational Outcomes Web site, 2005).Students with the most significant cognitive disabilities can demonstrate proficiency on an alternate achievement standard. start assessments should promote access to the general curriculum and reflect professional perceptiveness of the highest achievement standard possible for each individual student. Summary The blueprint of this brief paper is to highlight issues surrounding reading and students with mental retardation.While not a comprehensive review, it is intended to give enough of a sense of the characteristics of the students, general instructional approaches used with them, and assessment approaches and issues to generate discussion about the possible ways in which more accessible assessments can be designed for those students who are proficient readers given their diagnosis of mental retardation. This paper is part of the background for research on accessible reading assessments conducted by the Partnership for brotherly Reading Assessments, and for discussions among collaborators on the National Accessible Reading Assessment Projects (NARAP).