Chapter 9: Exceptionality

Exceptionality is defined as disabled or gifted students who are eligible for services. There is a disproportionate number of minority students in special education. "Black students are three times more likely to be identified as having mental retardation and over two times more likely to be classified as emotionally disturbed when compared to their peers." (p.170). The inclusion movement tries to reduce the amount of restrictions students with special needs receives. Differentiation has some concerns due to the degree of knowledge of general education teachers to the special needs of students, time for planning and collaboration, administrative support, and willingness. Our school has chosen to heavily enforce differentiation though this is hard to do for all lessons. I agree with the concerns toward differentiation. It is recommended for special needs students, especially because gifted learned spend a great part of their day in general education classrooms. Our school also uses RTI, which tries to identify students before they qualify for special services. It seemed that there were a lot more advanced students that were singled out for RTI instead of actual students that needed it. This seemed to be the complaint by many schools as well. The book also points out that minority students are. Underrepresented in gifted classes because they might have different behavior and language And the teacher might not consider them advanced. Family involvement is the greatest factor in academic success and I know a lot of teachers that share that sentiment. It was pointed out that the academic level of the parents has little effect on the academic success of the student, showing that it is more important to be involved than to be knowledgable. aDHD is the most commonly diagnosed childhood psychiatric disorder. 3-5% of the student population are thought to have ADHD. However the percentages are higher in certain parts of the country and in urban areas. Also two to four times the amount of boys are diagnosed with ADHD than girls. Yikes!