Parents' Corner
January 2007
Adapting curriculum
for students with special needs
Inclusion has forced a whole new group of people to make adaptations for students with special needs: regular education teachers and parents. Neither of these groups generally have much training in how to adapt curriculum and neither group has lots of extra time in their day to do so. Yet adaptations must be made in order for students with special needs to be truly included in the learning community—to truly learn with their peers.
Anyone can learn to adapt curriculum, just as anyone can learn to iron clothes! When my husband began to enjoy all cotton dress shirts, it was necessary for him to learn to iron them—a daunting task at first.
In this article, we will talk about the “how” of adapting curriculum. But first, let’s look a little bit at the “why” of it all. The reason that curriculum needs to be adapted, is that a child who can’t access materials in the same way other children can, can’t learn the materials. As an example, first grade students are given a worksheet to help them learn to read the names of the colors. They are asked to read the color words on each part of the coloring page, and color them in according to the word they see within that shape. A student who is visually impaired and cannot read the small font or see the pale outlines of the shapes will find this worksheet meaningless. While it may provide small motor practice, a student with physical impairments who cannot control the crayon in the small spaces provided will also find this worksheet doesn’t allow him to learn anything about the color words or demonstrate his mastery of the target skill.
The first “how” of adaptations is to figure out what the target skill is. What exactly are we wanting the student to learn, practice, or demonstrate that she knows with a given assignment? Once we have clarified our goal with an assignment, we can begin to see what adaptations, if any, are needed to help the student reach that goal. This helps us to narrow our focus to the most important thing for the student to know within this assignment. In the example above, if we decide that the focus is on learning to recognize the color words, we must adapt the assignment so that the student with motor impairments can work on this skill.
Secondly, we need to know the parts of the assignment that will be difficult or impossible for the student to independently access. Even though at times total independence might be impossible, it should remain the goal of adaptations at all times. Does the student have a visual impairment, and the worksheet is in small print? Does the student have trouble focusing if there are too many words to read on each page? Does the student have a reading delay, and the assignment requires paragraphs of reading? Is there a physical disability that prevents independent access to the materials? Does the student have trouble processing multi-step directions?
Thirdly, we need to think about what the student enjoys, can do well, or is motivated to try to do on her own. Does the student enjoy cutting and pasting? Does the student respond well to directions with visual clues added? Does the student enjoy working on the computer? Is the student a hands-on learner?
Next, we want to look at skills that are being focused on in the IEP and in the state standards. Is the student working on sequencing, matching, sorting or classifying? Do the state standards require the student to be able to group objects, make graphs or use models to describe a system? Then these are skills we can target with our adaptations.
Now, armed with lots of good information, we can take a look at the classroom work, and see if it needs adaptations. As an example, we will look at a 3rd grade health packet, in which the students study hygiene and healthy lifestyles. Within this packet, students are asked to fill in the blanks from a word bank, do dot-to-dot worksheets, complete a maze and complete a sentence with several good lifestyle choices. Worksheets have 2 activities per page. (see examples below) The goal of this unit is that students understand what a healthy lifestyle is, how to prevent germs, and what occupations are involved in keeping them healthy. State standards ask that students in this grade be able to categorize items based on similarities and differences.
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The students that we are adapting this worksheet for have Cerebral Palsy, with mild to moderate small motor impairment as well as language and reading delays. One student struggles with anxiety and one has visual impairment. The students enjoy doing things with their hands, in spite of the motor impairments, and are working on sequencing and sentence comprehension as part of the IEP goals. One student in particular is very motivated to do everything himself. These students are very visual learners, and benefit from the use of pictures along with words, both as a teaching tool and to help reduce anxiety.The worksheets, as written, are not independently accessible to the students. Motor skills are not good enough to do the dot-to-dot, do their own writing in the small spaces provided, or, in the case of the student with visual impairment, to be plainly visible without adaptation. Some of the fill in the blank work can be done using the computer and assistive technology, but that would increase the amount of time it would take to complete the packet. If there is enough time after completing the adaptations, the student can complete this written work, but the focus of the working time will be categorizing the pictures into which of the 3 learning goals they belong.
Taking the goals of the unit-- to identify healthy lifestyles, know how to prevent germs, and know the health related occupations-- we can create an activity that covers the same material in an accessible way for these students. In this case, picture symbols were printed, to be cut out and sorted into 3 groups by the students, and glued on the worksheet that follows.
In this adapted worksheet, the font was enlarged to make it more readable for the student with visual impairment, and symbols were added for the students with reading delays. Students will cut out the pictures (with adapted scissors as necessary) and sort and glue them into place. The completed activity is shown here.
As you look at the completed activity, you may be thinking, “But that would take a lot less time to do than the original packet of worksheets.” You are correct; a student without a physical impairment would fly through this assignment. However, the required cutting and pasting will take longer for students with motor impairments. One of the adaptations necessary for students with physical disabilities can be reducing the time it takes to do an assignment, so that they can finish their work in the same amount of time it takes other students, while still covering the same content.
Obviously, the adaptations that are made will depend on the needs of the student and on the goals of the lesson. Different students would require a different adaptation for this lesson.
“Wow, I don’t have that much time to do adaptations”, you may be thinking. Making this particular adaptation took about 5 minutes, including printing it. Using the steps I have outlined in this article helps to reduce the time it takes to make an adapted activity by first narrowing your focus and then identifying strengths and goals. You can also make templates for your adaptations, to make doing an adaptation the next time a little easier. If you know your student needs a 24 point font to make things readable, set up a template that uses a 24 point font. If you often make symbol cards, set up a template for these, or invest in software that includes symbol sets and templates. Take advantage of printable address labels and their templates to make stickers to use for adaptations. Making adaptations, like ironing, doesn’t take that much time, once you get yourself set up to do it as efficiently as you can.
I always value your feedback. parents@aacinstitute.org.
