Special Education Using Direct Instruction

Special Education Using Direct Instruction

Students with a disability require a special education approach that is individually planned, specialised, intensive, goal-directed instruction. Special education is best delivered with highly structured, explicit, validated programs that maximise a student’s progress and minimise misinterpretation of information being taught.

Direct Instruction programs are the most effective programs for students across the spectrum of learning capabilities including those with low-incidence disabilities. They show clear evidence of their efficacy with some studies showing students with IQs in the 30 to 50 range learned to read and master language skills. Students with more severe disability also mastered content at high levels.

Direct Instruction is a school-wide literacy and numeracy program that can be easily adjusted to meet any student’s special needs. Direct Instruction is suited to students with special needs as its core philosophy is that all students can be taught and can make academic progress. Further, all teachers can be successful with special needs students if provided with adequate training and materials.

Direct Instruction enables students across learning capabilities to be in the same classroom at the same time working at their individual performance level. This means that students with special needs are continually exposed to high levels of language, the positive classroom culture and the positive learning behaviours of their peers.

Adjustments for students with a disability do not alter what the student is expected to do as they are expected to meet the same overarching grade-level expectations set out in the curriculum as their general population peers.

Adjustments for students with disabilities focus on how they access the curriculum. For example, changes to the strategies may involve changing the amount of time the student is given to complete a task, reworking the task sequence or reducing the size of the task, oral assessments and additional scaffolding.