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What It Is
Access to the general curriculum refers to the education of students with disabilities in the academic, extra-curricular, and other activities of the schools they attend. It also refers to their progress in those three components of the general curriculum and their participation in state and local school district assessments.
Progress occurs through the adaptation of the curriculum (what students learn), modification of the methods of instruction (how students learn), and assessments (how well students have learned and schools have educated them).
What We're Doing
We are studying the degree to which students with intellectual and developmental disabilities have access to the general education curriculum and the degree to which such access is related to and predicted by the classroom setting and ecological variables.
This study examined the degree to which middle school students with mental retardation have access to the general curriculum and the impact of the classroom setting and the students' level of ability on such access.
The shift in the 1992 definition and classification system in the American Association on Mental Retardation’s terminology and classification manual (continued in the 2002 manual) toward a supports paradigm and defining mental retardation as a function of the interaction between a person’s independent functioning and the context in which that person lives, learns, works and plays provides a framework within which we can consider how to more effectively enable students to gain access to the general curriculum.
This article proposes an expanded educational decision-making process needed to ensure access to the general curriculum for students with mental retardation.
Inclusion is usually thought of as the placement of special education students in general education classes. This article presents a new vision of integrated education where previously specialized adaptations are used to enhance the learning of all students.
This chapter discusses the need to align the principles of transition and transition services with the standards-based reform efforts.
Four students with mental retardation were taught self-monitoring skills to enhance their social and academic behavior in the general education curriculum.