Adaptations and Accomodations

I was especially interested in the Breitfelder article because I am in special education. I will be getting certified in learning disabilities and am still thinking about getting additional certification in cognitive impairments. Either way, it is beneficial to me to learn about adaptations and accommodations that teachers use for students with special needs. I would actually argue that learning about how best to work with special needs students is important for all teachers, not just those who are in special education. The mainstream classroom is becoming more and more inclusive every year, meaning that all teachers will at some point in their career have students with special needs.

Breitfelder writes early in the article that the "best ways students with special needs learn is by having adaptations and accommodations that can be used for that specific child, to meet their needs, so they can be successful in the classroom." (p. 3) The hard part for teachers is finding out what works best for each student. In an inclusive classroom this is even more difficult because the teacher has all of the regular education students in addition to those with special needs. This article is nice because it gives several examples of adaptations and accommodations that teachers use and with which students these are generally most effective. However, there is no one correct way for every type of student. For example, what works well for one student with autism is not necessarily going to work well with another autistic student.

I read this article on the way down to Cincinnati to visit my parents, both of whom are in special education. My dad does more administrative work right now and my mom is still in the classroom with severe cognitively impaired kindergarten through second grade students. I was asking my mom about school and her students, when, without prompting, she started talking about PECS, Picture Exchange Communication System, and TEACCH, Treatment and Education of Autistic and related Communication and handicapped Children. Both of these adaptations are described in the article and mentioned as being great tools to use with autistic students. My mom told me how she loves both of them and has been using some form of them in her classroom for years. Actually, in three weeks she is going to another PECS training session. She said that even though she is familiar with PECS and has used it effectively before, she still likes to go to the training sessions because it can only help her as a teacher. The article mentions how beneficial PECS and TEACCH can be, and talking to my mom, who has real classroom experience, reinforced that point.