Parents are often concerned that their children with disabilities are not achieving grade-level curriculum standards. The idea that kids need to “keep up” is just one of the 5 Biggest Myths About Inclusion. What’s more important is that they’re making progress, particularly on IEP goals. However, there are ways for schools to help students work on the same content as their grade-level peers so they can continue to be included in the class and make progress:
Consider whether there are accommodations that can make the curriculum more accessible. For example, a student who isn’t at grade level with reading might be given accommodations to allow them to study the same novel as their peers by providing them with an audiobook, speech-to-text software, and/or a scribe.
Some students will need modifications to the curriculum to enable them to access the same content but with the objective of learning alternative achievement standards. For example, in science, students might be studying how the environment influences differences in organisms using material about lizards; a student with a modified curriculum could work on naming differences such as size, color, and pattern using the same lizards.
Parents can advocate for Universal Design for Learning under the accommodations section in the IEP, including for UDL to be used in the classroom and for teacher training in UDL, which gives students alternative means to engage with content and demonstrate their learning.
For more information, see our full article What to Do When “Inclusion” Isn’t Working.
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