Gerard Giordano

Strategies for Developing Rural Transition Programs.

Transition is a process that can encompass the life-span of individuals with disabilities. Through the transition from high-school to community living and employment is critical for persons in rural areas, there are essential stages, such as prevocational training and the dissemination of career information, that should precede transition. Because limited resources can restrict prevocational training in rural areas, strategies for developing prevocational skills in school can be supplemented with community and home-based activities. Strategies for disseminating information about careers and employment in rural areas and philosophies which can be the basis for organizing transition programs are reviewed as well.

Expedients in Initial Language Instruction

developed by these excercises equals creative writing. A person could be proficient with spelling, diagramming, synonyms, vocabulary, and syllables and still not be a creative writer. Conversely, a talented person could lack these skills and produce ingenious compositions. The skills are therefore educational expedients. They are not the indispensable preliminaries to creative writing but are merely instructional conventions.

Test Biases that Hamper Learners with Disabilities

Biases are extraneous features that can influence the validity of tests. For example, factors that affect the performance of learners from ethnic minorities constitute a cultural bias. Biases that can influence the test responses of students with disabilities can originate with experiences other than those that are culturally restricted. Such additional biases can be related to test content, instructional format, motivation or cognitive arousal, competition, and physical access to testing materials and response techniques. Opportunities for estimating the impact of test biases are discussed and recommendations for modifying an evaluation with biased tests are elaborated.

The Pivotal Role of Grammar in Correcting Writing Disabilities

Neurological research supports the hypotheses that (a) there is a critical anatomical area essential to the processing of grammatical information, and (b) the processing of grammatically organized information is distinct from the processing of information that is not grammatically organized. Research on the acquisition of language demonstrates that children can easily learn context-free grammatical structures, and that children universally generate nonoccurring utterances. On the basis of this research, a prototype for instructing writing-disabled students is developed.

Inclusion: Seeking educational excellence for students with disabilities

Abstract The authors of this article examine contemporary issues related to the inclusion of students with disabilities in typical education classrooms. The article begins with pertinent areas of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1990. Definitions of inclusion are provided, and position statements from various professional organizations are addressed. Other sections focus on issues related to inclusion and propose solutions that include cooperative learning and collaboration.

Evaluating the Functional Mathematical Literacy of Adults.

The purpose of the interview is to have an open reflection about certain issues which a participant regards as relevant about the project mentioned above. It starts by situating the project in 1999. The interviewer may start by recalling what the project aimed to achieve, the results and his/her own experience. This is to invite the interviewee to reflect on his/her memories and impressions about the project, and his/her own current understanding of the role of information technology nowadays.

Early Childhood Special Education: Pictorial Literacy Activities for Young Children with Disabilities.

SummaryAlternative literacy activities can be adapted to complement the speech and language programs that have been developed to assist learners with disabilities. Pictorially based alternative literacy programs may involve rebus symbols, augmentative and alternative communication devices, or picture reading. Because these programs do not assume extensive language development, they can be appropriate for children with severe learning problems as a foundation or replacement for typical early reading activities.

Play — Use — Generalize! Three-stage activities for developing math readiness

Children can be encouraged to demonstrate academic learning that they have mastered. Demonstrating academic learning to adults can be similar to auditioning for a drama or an artistic recital. Teachers and professional caregivers are accustomed to such auditions. Typically, it is the parents who initiate the audition: “My child can count to 10. Bonnie, count to 10 for this person.” Sometimes the auditioning child will ignore the parent: “Bonnie, count to 10 for this nice man.” Bonnie continues to disregard her parent. “Bonnie, count to 10. You know how to do it. One, two, three, ... What comes after three?” Bonnie still does not respond. “Honey, say your numbers. One, two, thr... What comes after two?”

Learning To Read Erased Text

The deletion exercise is a convenient and inexpensive method for transforming any text into an instructional exercise.

Analyzing and Remediating Writing Disabilities

Copying is a component of learning to write. But persons may be able to copy words while being linguistically incapable of communicating through writing. Communicative writing samples can be elicited by identifying problems which motivate students to write messages. Three techniques for analyzing generative writing samples are explained. 1)Irregularities in the samples can be plotted with reference to grammatical accuracy and impact on comprehension. Clusters of errors are then interpreted as indications of writing disabilities. 2)An attitude toward writing inventory can elicit negative feelings toward instructional strategies. The results can differentiate persons who are frustrated by instructional strategies from persons who are linguistically disabled. 3)In a restoration exercise, children attempt to supply words deleted from passages that they have written. The restoration technique can indicate linguistic writing disabilities by confirming whether students can replicate the generation of grammatically and semantically appropriate words in their own writing. Samples of remedial exercises that would be appropriate for persons with specific writing disabilities are then elaborated. Together, the diagnostic and remedial procedures constitute a coherent approach to identifying and treating writing disorders.