SERGE links

SERGE (Special Education Resources for General Educators) is a fantastic website that answers many of the questions faced by general educators as they consider the many and various needs of their students.  Here are a few that I found interesting and useful.

Interventions for ADD and learning disabilities

This link to Child Development Institute has some great suggestions for classroom interventions for children who have ADD, who are cognitively impulsive, and accommodations for specific behaviors.  Some of the behaviors are difficulty following through on instructions, difficulty test taking, confusion from non-verbal cues, messiness and sloppiness, being interruptive, poor handwriting, and more. These are all things that are likely to be seen frequently in a general classroom from students who may not have an IEP, but who require specific interventions and accommodations to help them progress and be successful.

Addressing Overrepresentation of African Americans in SpEd

This link is to a report by the Council for Exceptional Children and the National Association of Black School Educators that talks about the over-representation of African American students in special education. The report is quite long but talks about the pre-referral process, school climate, families, and legal issues that impact or are impacted by this disparity.  It is important to make sure students are receiving services if they need them but also make sure that the correct legal and pre-referral procedures are followed so that students are where they need to be.

ELL and learning disabilities

This part of the SERGE website talks about distinguishing whether a student's language difficulties stem from English being a second language, or language disabilities.  I found the Factual Information section to be very useful. There are also suggestions of what to try in the classroom to help the situation.