A Teacher’s Experience

I remember when I first began teaching in a specialized classroom that served students with emotional disturbance. I remember thinking that, as a special education teacher, it was my job to teach my students to excel academically and learn positive coping skills so they could be successful in a general education classroom. After a couple of years of working with the same students, I began the process of trying to reintegrate them into general education classrooms. The students I felt were ready to begin the transition had completed the specialized system I had created to increase positive behavior and academic rigor. When I began talking to general education teachers in my building about reintegration, I was saddened to hear most of the teachers say, “That kid is bad, and he will never make it out of that room.” I realized then that I needed to change the perception of adults and educators when it came to behavior and the reasons behind it before any of my students would be successful in a mainstream classroom, not because of their disability, but because of the perception of the adults about that disability. Thus began my journey to educate teachers on proactive, positive behavioral strategies in the classroom.

The Importance of Understanding Disability Categories

As a teacher in any K-12 setting, you will encounter many students with a wide variety of needs. Many students in your classrooms will have needs that require them to receive special education services. Understanding each disability’s characteristics and the best ways to support students in each disability category will help you tap more strategies to enhance each student’s learning opportunities. As a result, you will create a more positive, inclusive classroom.

To do this, educators must reframe how those with disabilities are seen and taught. When discussing disabilities, people tend primarily consider the person’s deficits rather than their assets. As an educator, you will want to focus on the strengths that your students with disabilities bring to the classroom, which helps students with disabilities leverage their strengths and increases educational outcomes and positive social skill development (Galloway et al., 2020; Johnson, 2021). For instance, the Universal Design for Learning framework allows teachers to teach in a manner that accommodates the abilities and needs of all students, thus eliminating the perceptions that view disability as a deficit.

Theoretical Frameworks Related to Disability

It also helps for educators to understand how they view their students with disabilities. Educators must center the experience of students in a way that acknowledges and respects their identities. When students enter the classroom, they enter with all the facets of identity they hold, including their gender, sex, religion, race, ethnicity, ability, and socioeconomic status. These various facets of identity overlap and create a unique experience for each student. Here are some theoretical frameworks that help educators to better support students with disabilities.

One framework, Critical Disability Theory (CDT), is defined as “a framework for the analysis of disability which centres disability and challenges the ableist assumptions which shape society” (Hosking, 2008). This theory seeks to create a system where people with disabilities are not treated as being different or needing to be corrected, allowing them to be an integral part of the world around them (Reaume, 2014). Ultimately, Critical Disability Theory aims to create a system that “works toward universal accessibility” (Reaume, 2014).

Critical Disability Theory borrows some tenets from Critical Race Theory (CRT). Critical Disability Theory tenets include::

(a) people with disabilities have a unique voice and complex experience (Gleeson, 1999, as cited in Rocco, 2005, p. 4); (b) disability should be viewed as part of a continuum of human variation (Asch, 2001, as cited in Rocco, 2005, p. 4); (c) disability is socially constructed (Oliver, 1990, as cited in Rocco, 2005, p. 4); (d) ableism is invisible; (e) disabled people have a right to self-determination (Gorman, 2000, as cited in Rocco, 2005, p. 4); and (f) the commodification of labor and disability as business combine to maintain a system of poverty and isolation (Albrecht, 1992, as cited in Rocco, 2005, p. 4).

In addition, Critical Disability Theory argues that “disability is socially constructed, that what disables is the environment, rejecting the objectification of people with disabilities and their portrayal as victims” (Rocco, 2005, pg. 5). For instance, the troupe of people with disabilities viewed as “inspirational” for going about their lives, perceptions that are often rooted in ableism.  By centering the voices of those with disabilities, disability becomes an experience that people can understand rather than an experience about which they make assumptions.

Educators also should know another framework, Disability Critical Race Theory, which finds integrated bias in many social and legal institutions that are primarily designed for white people. Disability Critical Race Theory is defined as “a tool that, if implemented, can give voice to Black children with disabilities in a system that cares little about either. Its merger of disability studies (DS) and Critical Race Theory (CRT), if applied, would provide the necessary shock to the system to racist policymakers who would rather pity, at best, than support the empowerment of visible Black disabled bodies” (Johnson, 2021).

Person-First Versus Identity-First Language

Language constantly evolves, and language that people use to communicate about disability is no exception. Understandably, people have strong perspectives when it comes to describing their identities. The extensive history of social stigma, discrimination, and exclusion expressed toward people with disabilities—practices that continue in various forms today—makes it especially important to honor those perspectives, choosing respect and inclusion when communicating about and with disabled people.

Disability rights movements developed a national presence in the 1970s contributed to a broader movement in the 1980s that focused on the use of person-first language (PFL). When communicating about a disability or health condition, PFL emphasizes personhood, with a modifier describing a person’s disability – or health-related identity – that follows. However, by the start of the 21st century, many people were choosing and advocating for identity-first language (IFL) for disability-related identities. IFL places the disability name as an adjective that occurs before the noun that names the person or community.

The debate over PFL and IFL continues and has evolved in recent decades. ^[1]

Perspectives and Resources Addressing Person-First and Identity-First Language

The Takeaway

This module aims to introduce the world of special education to pre-educators. For a student to receive special education services, teachers, parents, and other professionals must first identify that the student is struggling in the classroom and then seek to increase support through the referral, assessment, and evaluation process of special education.

This module introduces the 13 disability categories set forth in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), along with definitions and general characteristics of those disabilities. In addition, it presents research-based strategies to increase the strengths of students rather than focus on their limitations. We hope this approach supports  a new view of special education that helps change preconceived notions of special education and the wonderfully unique special education students.

As educators, we must retrain our mindset to pursue strength-based learning rather than deficit correction. By understanding that the problem does not lie with those who have disabilities but rather with those who fail to understand disability, educators can recognize the strengths of those with disabilities. Students with disabilities also must be treated with dignity rather than viewed as victims. The teacher, then, plays an important role in helping students with disabilities identify their strengths and work to further develop them.

When we choose to see the person rather than the disability, we can move away from teaching the disability and begin to teach the individual, thus creating a positive, strength-based environment that allows our students to flourish and learn to advocate for themselves. According to Greven, Harlaar, Kovas, Chamorro-Premuzic, & Plomin (2009), self-concept about ability offers a better predictor of school achievement than I.Q. “Respect for the value of the student must be reflected in curriculum, pedagogy, and solidarity with the community of learners and parents that are purportedly the focus of special education efforts” (Johnson, 2021, pg. 3). This means that when educators focus on a student’s strengths rather than their weaknesses, students can rise above what others may perceive as their educational limit. However, this must be done within the full scope of the curriculum and pedagogy and the Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).

As an accountability-driven document, IEPs tend to look more a student’s deficiencies than their strengths. If students with disabilities are to be truly included in relevant and meaningful educational opportunities, then IEPs must be developed and implemented from a strength-based model rather than a deficit-based model. A strength-based IEP model gives students with culturally and linguistically diverse needs a greater chance of participating in inclusive social opportunities (Sandoval Gomez & McKee, 2020).

In the very recent past, discourse on disability in the United States has centered on “specific words such as disability, disorder, deficit, and dysfunction to describe students” (Armstrong, 2012, pg. 3), emphasizing what students could not do rather than what they could do. In recent years, a shift has taken place that embraces the idea of “neurodiversity” (pg. 4). Like biological or cultural diversity, this paradigm replaces disability with diversity, creating a more positive view of students with disabilities. If educators celebrated the differences in all students, there would be less inclination to try and change students in special education to be like “normal” students (Armstrong, 2012).

Changing Your Perception of People with Disabilities

References

Armstrong, T. (2012). Neurodiversity in the Classroom: Strength-Based Strategies to Help Students with Special Needs Succeed in School and Life. Alexandria, VA. ASCD Publications.

Galloway, R., Reynolds, B., Williamson, J. (2020). Strengths-based teaching and learning approaches for children: Perceptions and practices. Journal of Pedagogical Research. (4,1). http://dx.doi.org/10.33902/JPR.2020058178

Greven, C. U., Harlaar, N., Kovas, Y., Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Plomin, R. (2009). More Than Just IQ: School Achievement Is Predicted by Self-Perceived Abilities—But for Genetic Rather Than Environmental Reasons. Psychological Science, 20(6), 753–762. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02366.x

Hosking, D. (2008). Presentation: The Theory of Critical Disability Theory – create citation https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/events/disabilityconference_archive/2008/abstracts/hosking.htm

Johnson, C. K. (2021). Using Disability Critical Race Theory in American Special Education Classrooms. E-International Relations. Retrieved from https://www.e-ir.info/2021/12/02/using-disability-critical-race-theory-in-american-special-education-classrooms/

Reaume G. (2014). Understanding critical disability studies. CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l’Association medicale canadienne, 186(16), 1248–1249. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.141236

Rocco, Tonette S. (2005). “From Disability Studies to Critical Race Theory: Working Towards Critical Disability Theory,” Adult Education Research Conference. https://newprairiepress.org/aerc/2005/papers/ 17

Sandoval Gomez, A., McKee, A. (2020). When special education and disability studies intertwine: Addressing educational inequities through processes and programming. Front. Educ. 5:587045. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2020.587045