Module 4: Enhancing an Inclusive School Culture for Students with Complex Needs
Summary
This module had you look inward to assist you to identify the ways you could enhance and expand your inclusive practice to students with complex needs and to identify and address the barriers or challenges you could encounter. The inclusion of students with multiple disabilities and complex needs requires intention from every individual who is involved. Each of these individuals, from the EA and teacher who are with the student daily, to the therapists and itinerant specialist teachers who see the student less frequently, need to believe that the student is at school to learn, is able to learn, and that each of you in your role is able to support the student to learn. The next module looks deeper into the roles and responsibilities of each member of the team and how collaborative practice will improve the quality of life for all students.
Key Points
- The self-awareness model is made up of two sides that interact with each other: interpersonal—thoughts, feelings, actions and personal—beliefs, values and ethics
- Our language and words have the power to generate positivity or negativity regarding students with complex needs
- Ableist assumptions about the potential of students with complex needs must be replaced by the belief that all students can learn, and all students belong
Key Terms
- Ableism
- Ableism is a form of discrimination that favours able-bodied people. In other words, it does not favour people with disabilities. The suffix “ism” is by definition “to take sides with.” To take someone’s side suggests that there is another side that you do not support. Leah Smith from the Centre for Disability Rights states, “ableism is a set of beliefs or practices that devalue and discriminate against people with physical, intellectual, or psychiatric disabilities and often rest on the assumption that disabled people need to be “fixed” in one way or another.”.
- Actions
- Behaviours that can be observed by others.
- Beliefs
- What we hold to be true.
- Designation
- Designation is an educational categorization of students into levels of support needs.
- Diagnosis
- Diagnosis is defined as the act of identifying a disease from its signs and symptoms and as investigation or analysis of the cause or nature of a condition, situation, or problem.
- Ethics
- Standards, rules or guidelines that we choose to live by.
- Feelings
- Physical and emotional sensations that manifest in a bodily way.
- Label
- A label is a slip (paper or cloth) attached to something to identify or describe it; a word or phrase that describes or names something or someone (Merriam-Webster online dictionary).
- Person first language
- Person first language describes what the person “has” not what the person “is” (Wikipedia). This approach emphasizes the individual—not the disability.
- Prerequisite
- Anything that must be accomplished or acquired before something else can be done.
- Thoughts
- What goes through our mind, ideas, or cognitive states.
- Values
- What is important to us.
References and Resources
Brown, L. (2014). Educational standards for students with significant intellectual disabilities.
Campbell, J. (2020). Choose your words wisely – disability language can empower or exclude. Retrieved from: https://www.hrreporter.com/opinion/hr-guest-blog/choose-your-words-wisely-disability-language-can-empower-or-exclude/327216
Garfat, T., & Ricks, F. (1995). Self-driven ethical decision-making: A model for child and youth care. Child and Youth Care Forum, 24(6), 393-404.
Kunc, N., & Van Der Klift, E. (2019). Being realistic isn’t realistic. Victoria: Tellwell Talent.
Jorgensen, C. (2005). The least dangerous assumption: A challenge to create a new paradigm. Disability Solutions, 6(3), 1, 5-9.
Silberman, S. (2015). Neurotribes: The legacy of autism and the future of neurodiversity. New York: Penguin. (Quote from Jim Sinclair)
Smith, L. (2015). #Ableism. Retrieved from Center for Disability Rights: https://cdrnys.org/blog/uncategorized/ableism