Problem Statement
Nowadays, the main problem of each state’s assessment program is to find the ways for disabled students to get appropriate knowledge and be able to show high scores. It is important to clarify the factors that make the assessment easier and to provide necessary facilities for those who have various types of disabilities (Wise, 2010).
Considering statistics, about 137,930 students (11.1% of the city population) in New York require specific teaching strategies due to different disabilities. Among these students, 46% have learning disabilities, 13% have emotional disturbance and 24% have speech language impairments (Hehir et al, 2005).
Disabled students need a separate form of assessment. Specialized organizations should pay more attention to programs for disabled students as it is the only way to improve students’ academic performance.
Importance of the Issue/Problem
Students with such learning disabilities as dyslexia, speech sound disorders, and reading comprehension need to be provided with corresponding methods and programs to accelerate the speed of performance in different types of tasks. Many people in New York are those with disabilities who should not be left without appropriate attention.
“Intelligibility of the speech” and “cognitive and neurological deficiency” (Jason et al., 2011, p.157) are not the reasons to remain without grading or being graded low. The implementation of the specific grading system may help disabled students get high grades and feel deserving members of the society.
Being different, disabled students also can learn, they just need specific methods for teaching and assessment to be implemented. The possibility to incorporate those changes may lead to more successful results of disabled students.
Background of the Problem
The problem of learning disorder was implemented in 1963 in Chicago, Illinois (Grigorenko, 2007). The main problem was founded in neurological system of a person that affects the general abilities of perception of certain information in doing different tasks.
During the past years, scholars have been trying to find the ways out of this problem. A lot of types of media programs such as television shows and films, a great number of books and various articles were created about the matter of learning disorder. It is a big problem for a disabled person to have good results in academic performance. Speech sound production is one of the main and widespread problems nowadays.
Unfortunately, specialized groups and classes for such people are few and they not always have specific assessment system. Teachers of private and public schools make use of time by paying attention to general educational problems and teaching common skills and ways to work. There should be more programs for disabled students with different gaps in physical and mental development.
Presently, there are a lot of new educational models and modern informational technologies used for different forms in the educational process. People with disabilities should be provided with “visual and auditory supports” (Wade, Boon, & Spencer, 2010, p. 38).
There are many special groups that work out the tasks equal both for people with learning disabilities and those of typical abilities. It is a good step in the process of solving the issue out. It is very important for disabled people to be on the same level with others in the conditions that compensate the deviations in the development and constraints of the abilities in learning (Beate, Matsushita, & Raskind, 2011).
It is obvious that specialized programs and institutions working with disabled people give positive results and show their increased performance level. It goes without saying that the changes of a personality do not occur under the influence of the violation of some particular function but they are impacted by a person’s integration into the system of social relation.
This fact can be compared with the occurrence of physical disabilities and factors that may cause such dysfunctions. Fortunately, the variety of forms and methods of specialized education has different selective approaches for its participants.
A big step forward is the “use of a computer-based story mapping procedure on the acquisition of nine specific story grammar components” (Wade, Boon, & Spencer, 2010, p. 31). This innovative process gives a good opportunity to improve the level of comprehensive reading that turned out to be a very successful project in the whole aspect of education.
Purpose
The revision of the existing programs and methods for assessment of the disabled students may help us reconsider the learning process of disabled students and improve their academic performance.
Definition of Key Terms
Dyslexia is “a specific disability that interferes with the acquisition of written language at the word level, characterized by deficits in accurate and/or fluent word recognition, decoding, and spelling” (Jason et al., 2011, p. 886).
Research-Room Setting is “a separate classroom setting where students with disabilities receive individualized instruction” (Swanson, & Vaughn, 2010, p. 481).
Informational Processing Speed is “the speed of performance during a variety of different cognitive tasks” (Beate, Matsushita, & Raskind, 2011, p. 885).
Learning disabilities are defined as specific problems students have in psychological processes, such as language understanding or using, problems with listening, thinking, or speaking, and the disabilities connected with such skills as writing, spelling, or calculating (Kavale, Spaulding, & Beam, 2009).
Assessment program may be defined as a variety of educational settings which cover “individual and group, standardized and informal, and formative and summative” purposes (Comprehensive assessment and evaluation, 2011, p. 4).
Reference List
Beate, P., Matsushita, M. H., & Raskind, W. (2011). Global processing speed in children with low reading ability and in children and adults with typical reading ability: explanatory factor analytic models. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 54(3), 885-899.
Comprehensive assessment and evaluation of students with learning disabilities a paper prepared by the national joint committee on learning disabilities. (2011). Learning Disability Quarterly, 34(1), 3-16.
Grigorenko, E.L. (2007). Learning disabilities. In A. Martin, R. F. Volkmar, & M. Lewis (Eds.), Lewis’s child and adolescent psychiatry: a comprehensive textbook (pp. 410-417). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Hehir, T., Figueroa, R., Gamm, S., Katzman, L. I., Gruner, A., Karger, J., & Hernandez, J. (2005, September 20). Comprehensive management review and evaluation of special education. The New York City Department of Education, 1-116.
Jason, L. A., Greenblatt, A. R., Dunkelberger, J. M., Anthony, I. A., Williams. M. J., & Zhang, Z. (2011). What factors place children with speech sound disorders at risk for reading problems? American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20, 146-160.
Kavale, K. A., Spaulding, L. S., & Beam, A. P. (2009). A Time to define: Making the specific learning disability definition prescribe specific learning disability. Learning Disability Quarterly, 32(1), 39-48.
Swanson, A. E., & Vaughn, S. (2010). An observation study of reading instruction provided to elementary students with learning disabilities in the resource room. Psychology in the Schools, 47(5), 481-492.
Wade, E., Boon, T. R., & Spencer, G. V. (2010). Use of Kidspiration software to enhance the reading comprehension of story grammar components for elementary-age students with specific learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal, 8(2), 31-41.
Wise, L. L. (2010). Accessible reading assessments for students with disabilities: summary and conclusions. Applied Measurement in Education, 23, 209-214.