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It is a teacher’s role to inspire, to guide, to encourage and to mentor students in their journey to adulthood. Each student has a range of needs that we, as professional educators, should strive to meet. Their physical needs include safety and comfort. Their emotional needs include acceptance and respect. Their social needs include skills of communication. Their intellectual development needs include a healthy diet of engaging and challenging learning tasks. All of these needs are constant across all ages and abilities; however, some students require further support because of diverse abilities and/or disabilities. Addressing these needs is not an optional extra but a professional responsibility. This report explores the physical disability of cerebral palsy and the diverse ability of giftedness. It will answer the following questions:

What are the characteristics of this disability/diverse ability for the purposes of identification?

What affect does this disability/ diverse ability have on student learning?

What effective and appropriate strategies and adjustments could a teacher implement within an inclusive classroom to meet gifted student and physically disabled student needs?

Finding answers to these questions empowers teachers to better serve and meet the needs of students in their care.

TEACHING STUDENTS WITH GIFTEDNESSIntroduction:Gagné (1991, p.65) defines giftedness as the “possession of natural abilities or aptitudes at levels significantly beyond what might be expected for one’s age, in any domain of human ability”. The key to Gagné’s view is that it defines outstanding potential rather than outstanding performance. While giftedness equates with high ability, talent equates with high achievement. Natural abilities, according to Gagné (1993, p.67) act as the "raw material" or the

constituent elements of talents. Gagné (1991, p.67) defines talent as achievement or performance at a level significantly beyond what might be expected at a given age. His diagram below shows that giftedness in any specific ability domain could be translated into talent in several different fields of performance. For example, if a student is gifted in design, this could translate into talents in either architecture or fashion. The diagram also shows that the translation of giftedness to talent depends on both external [Environmental (EC)] and internal [intrapersonal IC)] catalysts. Internally, gifted students need to be motivated, perseverant, confidant, organised and have a high level of concentration to successfully translate giftedness into talent. Externally,

Teaching Students with Diverse Abilities

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CHANCE (CH)

NATURAL ABILITIES (NAT)

DOMAINS:

Intellectual (IG)Fluid reasoning (induct./deduct).,crystallised verbal, spatial, memory, sense of observation, judgment, metacognition.

Creative (CG)Inventiveness (problem-solving), imagination, originality (arts), retrieval fluency.

Socioaffective (SG)Intelligence (perceptiveness). Communication (empathy, tact).Influence (leadership, persuasion).

Sensorimotor (MG)S: visual, auditory, olfactive, etc.M: strength, endurance, reflexes, coordination, etc.

SYSTEMATICALLY DEVELOPEDSKILLS (SYSDEV)

FIELDS:(relevant to school-age youths)

Academics: language, science, humanities, etc.

Arts: visual, drama, music, etc.

Business: sales, entrepreneurship, management, etc.

Leisure: chess, video games, puzzles, etc.

Social action: media, public office, etc.

Sports: individual & team.

Technology: trades & crafts, electronics, computers, etc.

CATALYSTS

DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESSInformal/Formal learning and practicing (LP)

GIFTEDNESS = TOP 10% TALENTED = TOP 10%

ENVIRONMENTAL (EC)

Milieu: physical, cultural, social, familial, etc.

Persons: parents, teachers, peers, mentors, etc.

Provisions: programs, activities, services, etc.

Events: encounters, awards, accidents, etc.

Positive/negativeimpacts

INTRAPERSONAL (IC)

Physical/Mental characteristics(Appearance, handicaps, health)(Temperament, personality traits, well being)

SELF-MANAGEMENT (-> Maturity)Awareness of self/others

(Strengths & weaknesses, emotions)Motivation/Volition

(Needs, interests, intrinsic motives, values)(Resource allocation, adaptive strategies, effort)

Positive/negativeimpacts

Gagne 1993, p.66

they need a stable environment, supportive peers and mentors, and relevant materials/resources to make the most of their giftedness and to successfully translate giftedness into talent. Within the Gagné model, both school and community have a responsibility to seek out students who are gifted but not yet talented, and to assist them in developing their abilities into achievements. Furthermore, they are responsible for recognising and further assisting those talented students who are already performing at high levels. For this to happen, the school must identify positive personal and environmental catalysts and harness them to assist the talent development process. Equally, however, the school must work to lessen or remove negative intrapersonal and environmental catalysts that may be hampering the gifted student’s progress towards talent.

Characteristics:The colour coded chart located on the left side of the following page lists some key cognitive and socio-emotional characteristics of gifted students. Not all of these characteristics will be evident in all gifted students; it is only when students display an aggregate of these characteristics that their teachers in association with parents and other professionals should consider giftedness. As previously stated, students with giftedness may attempt to camouflage or conceal their abilities to fit into a peer group. Teachers must therefore look past apathetic or hostile attitudes and watch for the student who shows the occasional ‘spark’, or whose interest is fired by specific (sometimes quite unusual) topics or ideas.

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The ability to understand and use abstract symbol systems beyond their yearsThe ability to ask reflective and probing questions.

Display a rich vocabulary

Can become absorbed in work that they find interesting.

Can grasps ideas and accumulates knowledge swiftly

Can become frustrated with slow-paced work

Has a well-developed memory

Can reason beyond their years

Prefers independent work over small group and class collaboration

Heightened capacity to respond to intellectual or emotional stimuli

Has a developed sense of justice

The ability to empathise beyond their years

Is motivated to read materials with enjoyment and comprehension beyond their years

Has a mature sense of humour

Prefers the companionship of their intellectual peers over their age appropriate ones.

Prefers deep loyal friendships over more casual relationships with a larger group

May attempt to hide or camouflage their abilities with subversive behaviourCan behave perfectionistic

Cognitive

Socio-emotional

Affects on Student Learning:The wider affect of giftedness on student learning depends greatly on the intrapersonal and environmental catalysts discussed previously. Giftedness can be a very positive ability if the student is identified early as being gifted. Within a supportive environment, students who are equipped with the necessary intrapersonal skills such as self-motivation and positive self-awareness can translate their abilities into talents. Their learning experience is relative to their mental age rather than their chronological age. As their abilities form and develop at an accelerated rate, their educational experience should also be accelerated. According to the longitudinal study of Louis Terman (1925 - 1959), gifted students benefit greatly - both academically and emotionally - from “skipping” grades and subject acceleration. This may mean that they are working in classes two to three years above their own in a specific subject area.

If students have negative experiences, however, and their educational experience is restricted by their chronological age, the affects can be acute. Students who do not receive the benefit of early identification and appropriate follow-up support tend to become frustrated, sometimes hostile, and even self conflicted. The cases of “Ian Baker” in Terman’s study (sited in Gross 2004a, p.17) and “Moussia” in Miraca Gross’s Australian study (2004b, p.37) perfectly illustrate these two types of experiences.

Student learning methods are also affected by giftedness. Robert Sternberg (2004, p.55) maintains that intellectually gifted students have particular learning methods that include:

Front-end analysis, referring to the time an individual spends

sizing up a given problem or task.

Exhaustive research, referring to how comprehensively an

individual checks out possible answers to a question or

solutions to a problem.

Analogical reasoning, referring to the ability to make

connections between new and old learning spontaneously.

Decontextualisation, referring to the ability to take in new

information as a whole within working memory and then

store it as a whole in long-term memory. (Sternberg 2004, p.

55)

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Understanding the effects of giftedness on students’ learning further supports a teacher’s ability to serve and provide for student needs.

Strategies and Adjustments:Within this field of study the key word is “differentiation”. Differentiation refers to the adjustment of all relevant elements of the curriculum - environment, content, processes and products - in response to children’s differing learning needs and preferences. The following are sample strategies and adjustments geared towards the learning needs of gifted students. They focus on specific areas of each relevant element.

Environmental: Adjustments to the environment refer to the structure of a setting, its organisation and its social climate. Within this element time allowances play an important role. Gifted students need an accelerated pace of delivery because they learn so much faster than regular students, yet there will be other situations where they need prolonged periods of time for contemplation in order to refine ideas, engage with content creatively and explore subject subtleties and profundities. Students usually benefit from being taught fewer concepts in greater depth.

Content: The keys to content adjustment include tasks that are meaningful to the learner and a curriculum that is interdisciplinary in nature and integrated in its delivery. Within this element student interests are extremely important, because gifted students display the common characteristic of being an expert in certain subjects. This is the product of their intense personality combined with a tendency to become absorbed in a subject. Promoting these passions and interests so that they translate into meaningful learning experiences allows these students to use class time to resolve questions and problems they may be grappling with.

Processes: Adjustments to the teaching and learning processes at a basic level refers to the communication between teacher and student. All students need to learn through active engagement, discovery and play, participation and, where appropriate, involvement in directing the curriculum. One way of allowing students to direct their curriculum within this element is to offer them the opportunity to complete a thesis or major project, which forces them to exercise higher-level thinking skills including synthesis, evaluation and creativity (Sousa 2003, p. 71). This process links with the previous content strategy/adjustment on student interests. A particularly exciting method of providing additional guidance for student researchers is to contact a university and pair the student with a suitable tertiary student who is able to mentor them through their topic - whether in person or via Skype.

Products: The products of education for all students are more meaningful, and hence more engaging, if they have a wider purpose. Rather than doing an assignment that involves presenting a poster only to have it marked and then discarded, students need to be given a reason for the learning they are completing. Consequently, a gifted student who is completing a major project in conjunction with a tertiary student mentor sees more value in their work if it were to be created for a wider audience. A student blog, website and/or podcast, for example, could be an exciting way of providing students with an audience. When their work is presented online, students are able to see its value and relevance outside the confines of their own

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school. Teachers and mentors can contact colleagues about the work and ask them to contribute to the study by commenting on drafts and hypotheses, thereby expanding the students’ classroom community to include members equal and above their own mental age.

Conclusions:As with all students, gifted students have many needs that professional educators should strive to meet. These needs can be met by successfully identifying giftedness at an early age, by understanding students’ abilities and the impact these have on their learning experiences, and by implementing strategies and curriculum adjustments that are effective for an inclusive classroom. Gifted students can benefit tremendously from the features of an inclusive classroom if their teachers have developed an understanding of giftedness and are empowered to assist gifted students in translating their giftedness into talent.

TEACHING PHYSICALLY DISABLED STUDENTS with CEREBRAL PALSYIntroduction:

Cerebral palsy is caused by damage to the parts of the brain which control movement during the early stages of development. In most cases, this damage occurs during

pregnancy. However, damage can sometimes occur during birth and from brain injuries in early infancy (such as lack of oxygen from near drowning, meningitis, head injury

or being shaken). These effects can be as mild as weakness in one hand ranging to almost complete lack of movement (Australian Spastic Centre Website 2008).

Characteristics:There three types of cerebral palsy; spastic, dyskinetic and ataxic. Spastic cerebral palsy is

the most common type of cerebral palsy affecting 70-80% of the people with the condition. Spasticity means stiffness or tightness of muscles. Dyskinetic cerebral palsy, divided into Athetosis or Dystonia subtypes, affects about 10-20% of people with cerebral palsy. This type is characterised by either “uncontrolled, slow, ‘stormy’ movements ... (or) by sustained/intermittent muscle contractions causing twisting or repetitive movement”. Ataxic cerebral palsy is the least common type of cerebral palsy and is characterised by shaky movements. Many people have signs of more than one of the three types. The most common mixed form includes spasticity and dystonic movements, but other combinations are also possible (Bachrach 2006).

A student with cerebral palsy may have some of the following characteristics depending on the degree of severity with shich they have the disability:

slow, awkward or jerky movements stiffnessweaknessmuscle spasmsfloppinessunwanted movementsthe start of one movement often results in other unwanted movements.

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Diplegia - both legs are affected significantly more than the arms. Children with diplegia usually have some clumsiness with their hand movements.

Hemiplegia - the leg and arm on one side of the body are affected.

Quadriplegia - Both arms and legs are affected. The muscles of the trunk, face and mouth can also be affected.

These characteristics can affect different parts of the body. This diagram shows the the three typical body part combinations. Each of the three body representations the white area is unaffected, the shaded area only moderately affected and the solid colour area is severely affected (Australian Spastic Centre Website).

Associated medical problems may include visual impairment or blindness, hearing loss, food aspiration (the sucking of food or fluid into the lungs), gastroesophageal reflux, speech problems, drooling, tooth decay, sleep disorders, osteoporosis, and behaviour problems. Seizures, speech and communication problems, and mental retardation are also common among kids with cerebral palsy (Bachrach 2006).

Affect on Student Learning:The affects of cerebral palsy on a students ability to learn are relative to the severity of there condition. As evidenced in the Edutopia video podcast there are wide range of abilities with cerebral palsy; Aiden is only able to use the movement of his eyebrows to communicate whereas Susanna, the university student pictured to the right, in contrast only seems to have symptoms made evident in her limbs. Susanna declares that "without a computer, I couldn't do my homework... without my [wheel]chair, I couldn't get around... without my cell phone, I couldn't call for help" (Edutopia Assistive Technology video podcast). With the continuing development of assistive technology it isn’t only the teaching strategies that are changing, but the very ability for these students to communicate and participate in the education process.

Strategies and Adjustments:There are many strategies and adjustments that teachers can make to the curriculum of a student with cerebral palsy so as to cater for there needs. Just as in giftedness education, differentiation to the all relevant elements of the curriculum - environment, content, processes and products - with particular attention to assistive technology, is the key to meeting these student’s differing learning needs and preferences.

Environmental: Adjustments to the structure and organisation of the classroom is a very important part of providing students with cerebral palsy (particularly in wheelchairs) an space conducive to learning . Something as simple as providing a student in a wheelchair with a desk that has adjustable height, making

HemiplegiaDiplegia Quadriplegia

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sure they have enough space to manoeuvre between the desks, and ensuring they have access to all areas of the school gives students with cerebral palsy independence and empowers them to actively participate within a classroom community.

Content: Adjustments to content would only occur if their ability to perform within that subject i.e. subjects such as design and technology, music, textiles and design and hospitality. Students who also have learning difficulties associated with their physical disability - behavioural or cognitive - would also have to have adjustments made to their learning content in response to that difficulty.

Processes & Products: This is perhaps the area of the most adjustment as the way that students learn and the products of that experience can be very different to regular students. Assistive technology includes

hardware, software, and peripherals that assist people with disabilities in accessing computers or other information technologies (Edutopia Assistive Technology video podcast). An example of the difference is that a regular student may hand write a draft of a story, then type it up on the computer, finally presenting their story as a paper book with a hand coloured picture on the front. The disabled student in contrast will do all these steps on the computer; draft, write, compile and present. They may do so as a podcast, Powerpoint presentation, or a document in publishing format. The subject areas which will

have the greatest challenges are those that require fine motor skills (mainly the arts) to produce items for assessment such as painting, textiles and music. It

is possible however, as can be seen in the Edutopia podcast, that even these activities are not beyond the reach of students if aided by assistive technology. Lucas Bratcher is able to play a euphonium (brass instrument) in his schools jazz and concert bands even though he has relatively no manual dexterity to manipulate the valves. With the assistance of a joystick which triggers ‘solarnoids operating the valves, Lucas is able to participate in this art. It is a teachers professional responsibility to include those with disabilities in every school activity possible and to provide them with the best tools available in order to do so.

Conclusions:As with all students, students that have cerebral palsy have many needs that professional educators should strive to meet. These needs can be met by understanding the students’ abilities and the impact their disability has on their learning experiences. Teachers can also assist these students by implementing strategies and curriculum adjustments that are effective for an inclusive classroom. Students with cerebral palsy can benefit tremendously from being active, contributing members of an inclusive classroom. This is only possible however if their teachers have developed an understanding of their abilities and are committed to serving their needs.

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Bachrach MD., Steven J. (2006) Cerebral Palsy Nemours Foundation: Florida USAURL: http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/brain/cerebral_palsy.html (accessed 4/12/08)

Colangelo, N., Assouline, S. G., & Gross, M. U. M. (2004). A nation deceived: How schools hold back America’s brightest students. Iowa City: Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development.

Gagné, F. (1991). Toward a differentiated model of giftedness and talent. In N. Colangelo and G. A. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Gagné, F. (1993). “Constructs and models pertaining to exceptional human abilities.” In K. A. Heller, F. J. Monks & A. H. Passow (Eds.), International Handbook of Research and Development of Giftedness and Talent, Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Gagné, F. (2003). “ Transforming gifts into talents: The DMGT as a developmental theory” In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.) Handbook of gifted education (3rd ed.) Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Gross, M.U.M., (2004b) Gifted and Talented Education - Professional Development Package for Teachers. Sydney: GERRIC University of NSW.

Gross, M.U.H., (2004a) “The Use of Radical Acceleration in Cases of Extreme Intellectual Precocity.” In Sally M. Reis & Linda E. Brody (Eds.) Essential Reading in Gifted Education Series. California USA: Corwin Press.

Sousa, David., (2003) How the Gifted Brain Learns California USA: Corwin Press.

Sternberg, Robert J., (2004) “The Use of Radical Acceleration in Cases of Extreme Intellectual Precocity.” In Sally M. Reis & Joseph S. Renzulli (Eds.) Essential Reading in Gifted Education Series. California USA: Corwin Press.

Physical Disabilities Children, Youth and Women’s Health Services, South Australian Government.http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetails.aspx?p=114&np=306&id=1874 (accessed 4/12/08)

Cerebral Palsy: Basic Facts Australian Spastic Centre WebsiteURL: http://www.thespasticcentre.org.au/about_cp/what_is_cp.htm (accessed 4/12/08)URL: http://www.thespasticcentre.org.au/about_cp/cp_diagram_000.jpg (image accessed 4/12/08)

Developmental Disabilities: Cerebral Palsy Department of Health & Human Services: Centers for Disease Control & Prevention US Government: Atlanta, USAURL: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/dd/images/cpdayphoto.jpg (image accessed 4/12/08)URL:http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/dd/images/morgan.jpg (image accessed 4/12/2008)

Video-Podcast:Assistive Technology: Enabling Dreams Edutopia: The George Lucas Educational Foundation UShttp://www.edutopia.org/assistive-technology-enabling-dreams-video (accessed 4/12/08)

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