- Physically positioning oneself for face-to-face interactions and establishing attention
- Providing verbal models for specific tasks
- Responding to students’ verbal and nonverbal initiations
- Providing meaningful verbal feedback
- Expanding students’ utterances
- Ensuring students have the prerequisite skills for a task
- Breaking down tasks into manageable components
- Knowing and using what students find motivating
- Ensuring the use of appropriately challenging and interesting tasks
Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities
Students with significant cognitive disabilities receive access to grade-level curricula through
instruction in the least restrictive environment that addresses their IEP academic goals aligned to the
CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy and other standards. In addition, students receive instruction in functional
and life skills in accordance with their IEPs. It is critical that students with significant cognitive
disabilities receive opportunities to learn and to demonstrate learning using the communication
tools, assistive technologies, augmentative and alternative communication devices, or other access
tools deemed necessary and are routinely used by the students during instruction. (For additional
information, see the CDE Special Education information and resources web page at http://www.cde.
ca.gov/sp/se/.)
Students who comprise the category of students with
significant cognitive disabilities include a broad range
of learners with diverse disabilities and communication
needs; therefore, there is no single model or single set
of instructional strategies for students with significant
cognitive disabilities. However, the elements of
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) offer guidelines and
considerations for instruction that reinforce the use of
multiple means of representation and demonstration.
(See subsequent section of this chapter for information
on UDL.) Further, the speaking and listening standards in
the CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy offer multiple opportunities
for students with significant cognitive disabilities to gain
and demonstrate their content knowledge.
A sub-population of students with significant cognitive disabilities also has multiple disabilities.
Addressing both physical and cognitive disabilities is challenging but does not alter the legal and
ethical responsibilities IDEA guarantees for all students with disabilities. Additional resources to
address the instructional and assessment needs of students with significant disabilities may be found
at the National Center and State Collaborative Wiki Web site at https://wiki.ncscpartners.org/index.
php/Main_Page or on the Web site of the CDE Special Education Division Common Core Resources at
http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/se/cc/.
Students who comprise the
category of students with
significant cognitive disabilities
include a broad range of learners
with diverse disabilities and
communication needs; therefore,
there is no single model or single
set of instructional strategies for
students with significant cognitive
disabilities.908 | Chapter 9 Access and Equity