inclusive education

Ask a child ‘what works’. How classroom teachers can consult children with communication difficulties

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In Australia children with disabilities have the right to be consulted about what can be done to help them participate fully in school life. The Australian Disability Standards for Education specifically directs teachers to “consult the student” about what adjustments they could reasonably make within their classrooms to help students with disabilities “participate in education on the same basis as a student without a disability”. An adjustment is reasonable if it balances the interests of all parties affected.

A school might make more general adjustments, such as in timetabling, room access and so on, but teachers can make specific adjustments. For example a teacher could change her teaching methods or the way she organises her class to enable her student with disabilities to participate more fully.

It is these specific actions taken by teachers that interest me. Although we have had the Disability Standards for over fifteen years it is still not common practice for teachers to consult students with disabilities about the reasonable adjustments that can be made for them in the classroom.

I believe part of the problem could be that there is limited practical guidance available to help professionals, such as teachers, enact their obligations to consult. This is particularly the case if a child has communication difficulties.

Many students with disability will experience communication difficulties, including students with Autism, students with hearing impairment, students who speak English as an additional language or dialect and students with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). This means for a significant group of students, the consultative process itself will need to be adjusted so they can participate in consultation.

In my recently completed Master of Philosophy study I consulted students with Developmental Language Disorder to understand which adjustments can best help them to learn. These adjustments informed the development of an intervention with their teachers.

The purpose of my study was to determine whether and how adjustments based on student insights impacted teaching methods, access to the full curriculum, and academic outcomes, for students with language difficulties.

But first I want to explain what Developmental Language Disorder involves and talk about what ‘consultation’ means in relation to teachers and students with disability collaborating to design and implement ‘reasonable adjustments’.

Developmental Language Disorder: ‘hiding in plain sight’

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is diagnosed when children have difficulties with language for no obvious reason, which impact on their learning and everyday life experiences. It is a lifelong condition that results in persistent impairment of the acquisition and use of language. It affects around two students in every classroom.

Although described as a “hidden disability”, once teachers understand Developmental Language Disorder they often realise that it is hiding in plain sight. These students demonstrate difficulty with phonology (the sound patterns within language) and syntax (the way words and phrases create a sentence). Written grammar, word finding, semantics (meaning of a word, phrase or text) and vocabulary, pragmatics (the social functions of language), discourse and verbal memory are also impacted. The communication difficulties that students with Developmental Language Disorder experience mean that without adjustment, the language of pedagogy, curriculum and assessment may present barriers to a student’s access and participation.

For example, students may experience significant difficulty understanding teacher instruction and difficulty storing and retaining verbal information.

Consulting students with disability

Consultation is a process of inviting someone to communicate their thoughts and feelings about a situation, or event that is important to them, to someone who can help change that situation or event. For a student with disability, consultation about adjustments may be the first time they have been involved in formal decision-making at school. It is part of being a democratic citizen. It is an important social and emotional capability, a lifelong skill. It is also a highly complex (and abstract) linguistic and information processing task.

If the process is not accessible, there is a risk that students with communication difficulties will just “check out” and appear quiet, or have their thoughts misinterpreted during consultation. That is why I believe guidelines for teachers on consulting students with communication difficulties are needed.

Three elements that can help teachers consult students with communication difficulties

Through my methodological approach to interviewing students with communication difficulties I identified three elements for successful consultation. These elements uphold a child’s right to share their insights and minimise participation barriers within the consultation process.

The three elements could be used in future consultative conversations and interviews with students with communication difficulties by professionals working in schools (such as teachers, guidance counsellors and speech pathologist) and educational researchers.

  1. Ask concrete questions, based on students’ experiences.

Use concrete questions that draw on students’ experiences. Questions that concrete terms and phrasing will be easier to understand for a student with communication difficulties. For example: “how can teachers help you understand instructions?”, and “is there anything that you wish your teachers knew about you and how you learn?”. Questions that use abstract or high-level terms such, “explain” increase the risk of the student not understanding the questions and thus not being able to fully participate in consultation.

  1. Use multiple short interviews

Conducting multiple, short interviews (rather than one lengthy interview) supports students to manage the processing demands of consultation and allows students multiple opportunities to share their insights. A minimum of two interviews is suggested. The interviewer can cross-check the student’s insights in subsequent interviews to clarify meaning and to support the student to organise and expand their ideas.

  1. Use visual supports and dynamic activities

Teachers can support students organise and expand their thoughts through a co-constructed mind-map. This process enables students to create a static, visual record of their ideas and enables ideas to be clarified and expanded in real time. Pre-prepared visual aids are also effective in supporting students to direct their thinking and make connections between suggested adjustments and their own experiences (both positive and negative).

So … what do students with communication difficulties say helps them to learn?

When asked, using an adjusted process of consultation, the students in my research said they found learning easiest when their teachers:

(a) provided both whole class and individual instruction,

(b) used short, simple language structures and familiar vocabulary during instruction, and

(c) paired talking with other means of representation, such as pictures, video or simple text.

These adjustments align with previously documented evidence-based practices for supporting students with communication difficulties. Research has found that when teachers adjust the pace, quantity and complexity of spoken and written language and rephrase information using accessible terms and language structures, students have better access to classroom instruction.

Changes to teaching practice can benefit all students in the class

The adjustments that the students in my research described form the basis of quality differentiated teaching practice, where teachers are conscious of the need for explicit, perhaps minor, adjustments to their teaching methods to help students with disabilities access learning on the same basis as their peers. Quality differentiation seeks to mitigate the impact of a student’s disability through responsive teaching that minimises/removes barriers to a student’s learning and enables that student to participate.

These adjustments are likely to benefit all students in the classroom, but especially other students with communication difficulties. Also, these adjustments can be designed from the outset of unit planning, which may further address equity issues related to learning and assessment.

Many classroom teachers already use the pedagogical approaches I have described in this blog post but it is the art of utilising most of these practices, all of the time that is likely to result in maximum participation for students with communication difficulties.

And it is the presence of hidden difficulties/disabilities that is a problem for teachers. So I believe the consultation process is a basic, vital step for teachers to take.

By adopting communication accessible consultation practices, teachers have the opportunity to uphold their obligations to consult students about the reasonable adjustments they can make for their students and harness the practical benefits that the consultative conversations offer.

Haley Tancredi is a HDR candidate at QUT and a certified practicing educational speech pathologist. Haley’s research and clinical interests are inclusive pedagogies, adolescents with language disorder, student voice and teacher/speech pathologist collaboration in inclusive classrooms. Haley is active on twitter @HaleyTanc

 

Haley will be presenting her paper on this topic at the 2018 AARE Conference in a Symposium titled “Teaching for diversity in Australian classrooms: Supporting structures, inclusive pedagogies, collaboration and adjustments” on Wednesday 05.12.18 from 1-3pm. Suzanne Carrington will chair the Symposium. Other speakers are Ilektra Spandagou, Shiralee Poed, Kate de Bruin and Suzanne.

Haley is the recipient 2018 AARE Postgraduate Student Award.

Why the minister should act boldly on changes to schooling for children with disabilities

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We should see significant changes for children with disabilities in NSW schools if the recently released recommendations by the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the education of children with disabilities are acted upon. These changes will significantly improve the lives of children with disabilities. The impact on families of NSW children with disabilities, their school communities, teachers, school executives and school systems will also be considerable.

We support the recommendations and the way funding and training for schools and staffs were highlighted in the report. However we have grave concerns the recommendations will be simply rubber-stamped by the NSW Government, as has happened with so many other parliamentary inquiries, and that nothing will change. We are worried that issues of inclusion and dealing with discrimination in NSW schools will remain for our children with disabilities.

The NSW Government and Education Minister Robert Stokes now have 6 months to provide a response as to the recommendation. So we call upon Minister Stokes to show he has moral strength as an education minister and that he is not beholden to unelected officials in the NSW Department of Education who might be advising him not to act boldly on making changes. We hope he will take this chance to be a leader for equity and justice.

The recommendations and our concerns
The purpose of the Inquiry was to make recommendations to build upon the positives for children and eliminate the some of the challenges faced for children with disabilities in the future. It came up with 38 recommendations that can be summarised into 4 key areas: inclusion, funding, training, accountability and complaints.

INCLUSION

The first recommendation is that all children should be included in mainstream education as a default. Further recommendations in the report however appear to contradict this default position through the recognition of segregated Special Schools and units

There is limited to no research that shows segregated settings have any long-term benefit. Also it should be said, Units and Special schools do not demonstrate Inclusion, it is integration at best and state sanctioned discrimination at worst. The UN General Comment No. 4 24.2 states ‘only inclusive education can provide both quality education and social development for persons with disabilities, and a guarantee of universality and non-discrimination in the right to education on the rights to an education states’.

We acknowledge that pragmatically to transfer all children into mainstream overnight would be a disaster for schools and children, however we argue a timeline and process for the closure of all these settings is required.

We also want to point out that children with specific needs cannot be moved into mainstream schooling without first changing attitudes in many mainstream school communities. Also it cannot be done without fully funding support, training and resources for the school staff, parents and children involved.

FUNDING

Ten of the 39 recommendations have a direct impact on funding issues. To implement the report recommendations, equitable and accountable funding needs to be in place.

The committee recognised that Gonski 2.0 will not meet the required needs of students, so funding needs to be found and directed as purposed for the education of children with disabilities in NSW schools.

Funding is needed for resources, infrastructure and staff release so teachers can be given meaningful, hands-on training, not just access to online units that can appear superficial.

To assist in this there is a recommendation that schools should appoint trained business managers, and that funding for children with disabilities be made public and accountable.

TRAINING

Training was seen as key to implementing changes, with 16 relevant recommendations. It is seen essential to change as a successful Inclusion policy. Staff and parents all felt additional training was required to support all learners, with attitudinal change key.

Children with a disability need to be seen as children first. Real, depth of professional development is recommended as a necessity.

‘Snake oil’ training and teaching methods with no empirical research behind them should be challenged and removed from our schools. Staff must be given time to attend training and embed their enhanced skills. Health professionals, parents and schools should work in partnership to build on the expertise they all bring to the education of children with disabilities.

ACCOUNTABILITY and COMPLAINTS.

The Inquiry had the most to say about accountability and complaints processes in relation to the treatment of children with a disability, with 19 associated recommendations.

Too many reports from NSW and across Australia demonstrate that children with a disability are being denied even basic enrolment in their local public school when first applying; and even when eventually being offered a place; are marginalised, often denied access to the curriculum and wider school events.

The gravest of our concerns is the abuse of children with disability in schools. You would not have missed the harrowing stories of abuse that were revealed when the Inquiry released its report in September.   The reaction sparked a unanimous call in the media and from organisations involved with children with disabilities, for schools, school systems and those in authority to urgently take action.

Recommendation 17 called for the NSW Ombudsman Inquiry into behaviour management in schools – August 2017 to be fully accepted and implemented. This calls for an outside committee to review complaints, and for protections against abuse and discrimination of children with a disability to be seen as a priority. There is harsh condemnation of the Department of Educations ‘investigative’ processes in relation to reportable conduct and the role that the Employee Performance and Conduct (EPAC) has played.

Real concerns remain over the Department investigating itself. Statistics must be published, staff supported, whistle-blowers protected and most importantly the most vulnerable children kept safe from abuse.

Other areas of concern

There were some under-developed areas that the report could have been stronger on. Children with a disability in some secondary settings will still be funded at Primary school level and this could be a breach of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. The research on the role of SSPs (Schools with a Specific Purpose), with the diminished educational outcomes for children and the heightened danger of abuse potentials, could have been made more prominent. Segregated special settings should be closed to lead to full Inclusion. The flawed role of EPAC that was highlighted, but we believe that should have led to a recommendation of its disbandment with an independent Educational ICAC put in its place to safeguard all children and staff equitably.

Many parents claim to be left with no other option than to home school their child with disabilities. There is an annual increase in home schooling of around 12% a year (public school enrolments only increased by 0.9% in 2016). This has massive social, moral and economic implications for society. If children are denied an education, how can they become economic contributors to Australia in the future? If a family home schools (not through choice) they cannot work or contribute to the economy and their children receive no educational funding at all.

It all comes down to leadership

Overall what will have the greatest impact to the education of children with disabilities is leadership and attitudinal change in mainstream schools. Funding, training and processes will not be successful solutions until those in leadership at school and system levels place the emphasis on every child’s ability to learn and feel safe, rather than protecting a flawed system. Of course the leadership that matters most at the moment is that of NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes.

The Inquiry recommendations cannot heal or even investigate the allegations of abuse and discrimination of the past that initiated it. Minister Stokes can, but as of yet has done little to do so. This report gives him a chance to be a leader for equity and justice rather than just another politician saddled with the education portfolio. We want him, and his government, to be more concerned with our children and their futures than infrastructure, cutting costs and ticking boxes.

Minister Stokes and the NSW Government have an opportunity here to use this Inquiry to make the radical changes needed. Let’s see if they have the political courage to do so.

 

David Roy is a lecturer in Drama and Arts Education at the University of Newcastle. His research focuses on how we can use the Creative Arts to for inclusion and to support diverse learners, particularly those with disabilities. He has been part of examination teams in Scotland, Australia, and for the International Baccalaureate. He is the author of eight texts, and was nominated for the 2006 Saltire/TES Scottish Education Publication of the Year and won the 2013 Best New Australian Publication for VCE Drama and/or VCE Theatre Studies. His most recent text is ‘Teaching the Arts: Early Childhood and Primary (2015) published by Cambridge University Press. 


 

 

Caroline Dock is a research assistant at the University of Newcastle and a visual artist.She uses Creative Arts and Physical Education as intervention strategies for child development. Working closely with Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists and Speech Therapists she has been developing innovative strategies to support children with ‘atypical’ disability diagnosis. Caroline regularly engages with politicians and public bodies as an advocate for the disability rights of children. Her research interests include, pedagogy, psychology, ASD and dyspraxia. Caroline’s most recent publication is Dyspraxia, Delinquents and Drama. Journal of Education in the Dramatic Arts, 19(1), 26-31.

 

Are regular classroom teachers really not qualified to teach students with special needs?

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Sure enough, representatives of parent and teacher groups have emerged to back Senator Pauline Hanson’s claims that children with ‘autism and disabilities’ should be removed from mainstream classroom.

Primary principals in south western Sydney were reported as saying a shortage of places in special schools and classes is leading to the placement of students with disability or special needs into regular classes with a teacher who is “not sufficiently qualified”.

No description of the necessary qualifications was provided in the article but the implication was clear: special qualifications are needed to teach special students. In other words, a regular teacher education qualification just doesn’t cut it.

At about the same time Dr James Morton, who is Chairman of the AEIOU Foundation and parent of a child with autism, in an interview on ABC radio criticised universities for failing to prepare teachers to teach students with disability. His chief complaint was that units specialising in autism are not mandatory in undergraduate teacher education programs and accused universities of not investing in Australia’s future.

Then we had Professor Kenneth Wiltshire of the UQ Business School who argued via an opinion piece that the states had pulled a “con job… late last century” by promising “disabled students could become mainstream in every way by being included in conventional schools”. He then claims the states only supported inclusion because they were “cost-cutting by closing many special schools”.

While confused and lacking any supporting evidence, Wiltshire’s article echoes points made in the other two examples:

  1. special students need to be educated by special teachers in special places,
  2. regular classroom teachers are not qualified to teach students with disability and/or universities are failing to adequately prepare them
  3. there are not enough special teachers and special places (because of inclusion and the closure of special schools).

Is there truth to any these claims?

In short, no.

Firstly, research consistently shows that educating students with disability in special places does not guarantee better academic or social outcomes, better employment prospects or post-school options and social inclusion. Quite the opposite, in fact.

This does not mean that they will do well in mainstream schools built for a narrow range of students. It means that local schools must evolve to cater to the full range of students. And this means teachers and teacher preparation must also evolve.

The 2016 Australian Senate Report made recommendations for teaching skills that would improve workforce capacity for inclusion: universal design for learning, differentiated teaching, and cooperative learning.

With this knowledge, teachers can identify what support students need to access the curriculum, engage in classroom activities, and achieve at school. These skills are emphasised in the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, which since 2012 have underpinned the accreditation of university teacher education courses.

The Standards make clear that all classroom teachers are qualified to teach students with disability and/or additional needs. To be accredited, university teacher education courses must also cover four key focus areas that directly relate to students with disability: (i) differentiating teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities, (ii) supporting learning of students with disability, (iii) supporting student participation and engagement, and (iv) managing challenging behaviour.

Every graduating teacher must provide evidence that they meet each Standard to achieve registration to teach. To maintain their annual registration, existing teachers must provide evidence that they have engaged in professional learning relating to the Standards.

Clearly, there is a framework to ensure that registered classroom teachers are qualified to teach students with disabilities and/or additional needs, and for universities to prepare their graduates to do so. The benefits are seen in numerous schools and classrooms across the country, but there is scope for both teacher preparation programs and schools to embrace inclusive teaching practices.

Finally, the claim that places in special schools and classes have declined because of inclusion and the subsequent closure of special schools is completely false.

This is clear from a range of data sources.

 Research from New South Wales has shown that proportion of enrolments in separate special educational settings in Australia’s largest education system has been increasing since the 1990s. In other words, the “mainstream” is shrinking.

These findings are supported by national data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC) which shows that there was a 35% increase in the number of students with disability attending special schools between 2003 and 2015.

But most telling is this: Prior to the 1992 Disability Discrimination Act, before we signed the 1994 Salamanca Statement, and before “inclusion” was really a thing, there were 444 special schools accounting for 4.4% of all schools in Australia.

Almost three decades later — after the 2005 Disability Standards for Education, the 2008 Melbourne Declaration, and a multitude of reviews and inquiries nationally – there are now 461 special schools, accounting for 4.9% of Australian schools.

That represents an 11% increase in the number of special schools and this has occurred despite evidence that inclusion leads to more positive outcomes for students with disability.

We may well be living in a post-truth world but none of the empirical evidence supports the claims being made by Hanson’s backers.

 

Professor Linda Graham works in the School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Linda coordinates Inclusive Education Theory, Policy and Practice, a core unit in the Faculty of Education’s Master of Inclusive Education and leads QUT’s Student Engagement, Learning & Behaviour Research Group (@SELB_QUT), and is a member of the Board for All Means All – Australian Alliance for Inclusive Education. She has published more than 80 books, chapters and journal articles, and is leading two current large scale projects investigating educational responses to students with learning and behavioural difficulties. Linda blogs at drlindagraham.wordpress.com.au and can often be found on Twitter: @drlindagraham

Dr Kate de Bruin works in the Faculty of Education at Monash University Her current research investigates evidence-informed practice and policy in inclusive education, with a focus developing teacher capacity for using inclusive pedagogies in ways that improve equity and quality schooling for all students, and she regularly provides professional learning to school teachers in these areas. She has worked with government departments on projects such as the Victorian Inclusion Support Programme, and the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data for Students with Disabilities.

Dr Ilektra Spandagou is a senior lecturer at the Sydney School of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney. She worked as a special teacher in mainstream settings before she completed her PhD at the University of Sheffield, UK, in inclusive education. She has worked in inclusive education in three countries: as a researcher at the University of Sheffield, UK, and as a lecturer at the University of Athens and the University of Thessaly, Greece, before moving to The University of Sydney. Her research interests include inclusion, disability, comparative education and classroom diversity. Her current research projects focus on inclusive policy and practice within a rights perspective. A common thread of this work is a conceptual understanding of inclusive education as a transformation project requiring a paradigmatic shift in perceptions of both ability and education. Her publications include the book ‘Inclusive Education: International Policy & Practice’ (co-authored with A.C. Armstrong and D. Armstrong) published by Sage in 2010.