Hey guys! Sorry I haven’t posted up a blog in a while. I was very ill and dealing with finals. If anyone is wondering, I kicked butt!! =)

Anyways, a couple days ago, I finish up a class about dealing with kids and special disabilities. This class helped me a lot by identifying the types of disabilities that is out there. In this blog, I wanted to share some of my knowledge I learned with the future teachers out there. This information will benefit us alot because this is becoming part of the curriculum for future teachers out there according to my professor.

Basically, I'm just gonna give an introduction because it will be to long to fit in one blog.

The most common types of special disabilities we discussed in this class were autism, specific learning disability, and intellectual disabilities (aka. Mental retardation)

The prevalence of these exceptional students are; 13% of students are dealing with special disabilities. 39% of these students have a learning disabilities and 8% is classified as having an intellectual disability.

When identifying these students, the first thing process is IDENTIFICATION. Identification involves determining learning difficulties are due to an impairment rather than environment disadvantage. Some assessment test used for this process are criterion reference which is mastery assessment, norm reference which is like the SATs, and Response to intervention which is comparing a student rate of change in knowledge of skills under different instructions conditions.

This is just and introduction to some of the first things you will learn when dealing with kids with special disabilities. I’m sorry for keeping it brief and abstract. If this course is offered at your university, I highly recommend taking it. After being involved in the SUTA-MAP program, this class helped me understand why many students are struggling with math due to dyscalculia and other reasons.

Feel free to contact me or email me tly@ucdavis.edu  if this interests you or have any questions.

Happy Holidays

Thompson