This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License- Free, appropriate education: An individual or an individual’s family should not have to pay for education
simply because the individual has a disability, and the educational program should be truly educational (i.e.
not merely care-taking or “babysitting” of the person). - Due process: In case of disagreements between an individual with a disability and the schools or other
professionals, there must be procedures for resolving the disagreements that are fair and accessible to all
parties—including the person himself or herself or the person’s representative. - Fair evaluation of performance in spite of disability: Tests or other evaluations should not assume test-
taking skills that a person with a disability cannot reasonably be expected to have, such as holding a pencil,
hearing or seeing questions, working quickly, or understanding and speaking orally. Evaluation procedures
should be modified to allow for these differences. This provision of the law applies both to evaluations made
by teachers and to school-wide or “high-stakes” testing programs. - Education in the “least restrictive environment”: Education for someone with a disability should provide as
many educational opportunities and options for the person as possible, both in the short term and in the
long term. In practice this requirement has meant including students in regular classrooms and school
activities as much as possible, though often not totally. - An individualized educational program: Given that every disability is unique, instructional planning for a
person with a disability should be unique or individualized as well. In practice this provision has led to
classroom teachers planning individualized programs jointly with other professionals (like reading
specialists, psychologists, or medical personnel) as part of a team.
Considered together, these provisions are both a cause and an effect of basic democratic philosophy. The
legislation says, in effect, that all individuals should have access to society in general and to education in particular.
Although teachers certainly support this philosophy in broad terms, and many have welcomed the IDEA legislation,
others have found the prospect of applying it in classrooms leads to a number of questions and concerns. Some ask,
for example, whether a student with a disability will disrupt the class; others, whether the student will interfere
with covering the curriculum; still others, whether the student might be teased by classmates. Since these are
legitimate concerns, I will return to them at the end of this chapter. First, however, let me clarify exactly how the
IDEA legislation affects the work of teachers, and then describe in more detail the major disabilities that you are
likely to encounter in students.
Responsibilities of teachers for students with disabilities.............................................................................
The IDEA legislation has affected the work of teachers by creating three new expectations. The first expectation
is to provide alternative methods of assessment for students with disabilities; the second is to arrange a learning
environment that is as normal or as “least restrictive” as possible; and the third is to participate in creating
individual educational plans for students with disabilities.
Alternative assessments
In the context of students with disabilities, assessment refers to gathering information about a student in
order both to identify the strengths of the student, and to decide what special educational support, if any, the
student needs. In principle, of course, these are tasks that teachers have for all students: assessment is a major
Educational Psychology 87 A Global Text