Special Education

Reading problems may be associated with underlying language disabilities. Students may not learn sound/symbol associations easily without systematic and repeated instruction. By the intermediate grades, comprehension levels may reach a plateau (not advance, or advance more slowly), and students in secondary school frequently require adapted reading materials. At the secondary school level, students are expected to read more, to be able to identify the main idea of a story, to make inferences when the facts are not stated directly, and to make predictions. For a student with FAS/E who is slow to develop abstract thinking and problem-solving skills, these all become problem areas that require specific planning in the student’s educational program.

Students in the intermediate grades are expected to write more. A student with FAS/E may have difficulty getting started writing: organizing thoughts in a sequential manner, knowing details to include, and then translating those ideas to written form. At a basic level, the student may have deficiencies in spelling, capitalization and punctuation. The library resources that students need to use (such as encyclopedias) often have reading levels that are too advanced for a student with a reading disability. The teacher needs to select materials that will be meaningful for the student.

Strategies for Classroom Teachers

If you suspect that a student has language disabilities, consult with the learning assistance teacher and the speech and language pathologist for specific interventions to develop language skills. If the language problems are severe, the student may need one-on-one assistance to explain, to remind, and to keep him or her on task. Use the following techniques to help the student compensate for language difficulties:

• Speak face-to-face with the student; use the student’s name.
• Keep the number of instructions and the explanations short.
• Stop at key points to check for comprehension: be alert to “losing the student” (that glazed-over look).
• Make sure the student understands what to do. Having a student repeat back the instruction verbatim does not ensure understanding; it is better to have a student explain the instructions in his or her own words.
• Give instructions in more than one way: verbal and visual.
• Use lists, such as a checklist for daily routine or a checklist for daily work. The student needs to learn how to use a list.
• Slow the tempo and wait for the student to process and organize a response.
• Use gestures and visual signals; exaggerate the signals when the message is important.
• Use visual aids to accompany language messages.
• Be concrete and specific; non-compliance may mean that the message was too ambiguous.
• Recognize that the student may not understand or may misunderstand complex language (e.g., negatives, passive verb construction).
• Help the student feel comfortable asking questions (and asking again, if necessary) when he or she does not understand.
• Use sequential, repetitive teaching strategies which build on the prior knowledge base of the student.