J. Schumaker, D. Deshler, Janis A. Bulgren, B. Davis, Keith Lenz, Bonnie Grossen
{"title":"Access of Adolescents with Disabilities to General Education Curriculum: Myth or Reality?.","authors":"J. Schumaker, D. Deshler, Janis A. Bulgren, B. Davis, Keith Lenz, Bonnie Grossen","doi":"10.17161/FOEC.V35I3.6795","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"As the United States begins to implement the historic No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, one thing is clear: 6 million of this country's secondary-aged students are in serious danger of being left behind. These young people live in our cities, suburbs, and rural areas and reflect all income levels. Predictably, many of these at-risk students also have a disability. Adolescents with disabilities have found the demands and expectations of high school to be especially stringent, as reflected by the findings of the National Longitudinal Transition Study (Wagner, Blackorby, & Hebbeler, 1993). That study reported that a disproportionate number of students with disabilities (38%) drop out of school ( compared to 25% of the general population). In addition, preceding their decision to drop out of school, students with disabilities generally demonstrate higher rates of absenteeism, lower grade-point averages, and higher course-failure rates than students in the general population (Wagner et al., 1993). In spite of these striking problems presented by the adolescent population in our schools, the vast majority of attention and resources during the past decade have been devoted to increasing early childhood education opportunities and reaching the national goal of making sure that every child possesses basic literacy skills by the third grade. Although these goals are important and laudable, there is a potential danger in overemphasizing early intervention at the expense of interventions for older students-especially those who have reached high school. Specifically, the calls for early intervention efforts may erroneously imply that by providing early intervention, most of the problems presented by students with disabilities will be ameliorated by the time they reach adolescence. Although this is certainly a desired outcome, research has shown that the disabilities of these students persist and continue to affect their learning at older ages as well (Warner, Schumaker, Alley, & Deshler, 1980). Thus, as compelling as the case for early intervention can be, if that case is made at the expense of addressing the equally problematic and unique set of problems presented by older students, the long-term effects of that policy will be devastating for thousands of individuals with disabilities (Deshler, 2002).","PeriodicalId":89924,"journal":{"name":"Focus on exceptional children","volume":" ","pages":"1-16"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2017-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"8","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Focus on exceptional children","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.17161/FOEC.V35I3.6795","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 8
Abstract
As the United States begins to implement the historic No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, one thing is clear: 6 million of this country's secondary-aged students are in serious danger of being left behind. These young people live in our cities, suburbs, and rural areas and reflect all income levels. Predictably, many of these at-risk students also have a disability. Adolescents with disabilities have found the demands and expectations of high school to be especially stringent, as reflected by the findings of the National Longitudinal Transition Study (Wagner, Blackorby, & Hebbeler, 1993). That study reported that a disproportionate number of students with disabilities (38%) drop out of school ( compared to 25% of the general population). In addition, preceding their decision to drop out of school, students with disabilities generally demonstrate higher rates of absenteeism, lower grade-point averages, and higher course-failure rates than students in the general population (Wagner et al., 1993). In spite of these striking problems presented by the adolescent population in our schools, the vast majority of attention and resources during the past decade have been devoted to increasing early childhood education opportunities and reaching the national goal of making sure that every child possesses basic literacy skills by the third grade. Although these goals are important and laudable, there is a potential danger in overemphasizing early intervention at the expense of interventions for older students-especially those who have reached high school. Specifically, the calls for early intervention efforts may erroneously imply that by providing early intervention, most of the problems presented by students with disabilities will be ameliorated by the time they reach adolescence. Although this is certainly a desired outcome, research has shown that the disabilities of these students persist and continue to affect their learning at older ages as well (Warner, Schumaker, Alley, & Deshler, 1980). Thus, as compelling as the case for early intervention can be, if that case is made at the expense of addressing the equally problematic and unique set of problems presented by older students, the long-term effects of that policy will be devastating for thousands of individuals with disabilities (Deshler, 2002).