inclusive education

Meeting the Needs of Students with ASD

Individualized Supports for Students with ASD

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is, at its heart, a processing disorder. And while the students with ASD face a variety of challenges depending on where they fall on the spectrum, even those considered high functioning have difficulties with pragmatic social language and understanding social interactions. So, when educators mainstream students with ASD and hope that they will learn how to interact in the classroom just by watching their peers, the educators are setting up the students for failure. Nina Finkler, a learning consultant with years of experience working with students with ASD, says success comes when schools actually acknowledge the different needs of students with ASD and set up individualized supports throughout their learning career. In her edWebinar  “Meeting the Needs of Students with ASD Within the Mainstream Classroom”, Finkler outlined the biggest challenges with mainstreaming and key strategies for helping them thrive in their new environment.

Teacher sitting with students at table

Why Presuming Competence is Essential for True Inclusion

Too often, an “inclusive education” for students with complex support needs means helping them take part in a single class activity before they go off to a different classroom, or focusing on a single learner while other similar students remain on the outside. Cheryl M. Jorgensen, Ph.D., an inclusive education consultant and co-founder of the National Center on Inclusive Education, offered participants in the recent edWebinar, “Inclusion is More Than “Just Being In,” a new way to define the term. She explained that inclusion should not be a practice but should be a transformational educational philosophy based on social justice principles, where the first tenet is that all students are presumed competent.