‘Sit in my seat’: perspectives of students with learning disabilities about teacher effectiveness in high school inclusive classrooms

ABSTRACT

In the USA, students with learning disabilities (LD), after students with speech and language impairments, are the second highest incidence disability category of children and youth receiving the majority of their education in inclusive classrooms. However, very few studies exist that share perspectives of school experiences by students with LD in inclusive classrooms. This qualitative study focuses upon the importance of student voice through interviews of 40 high school students with LD in 3 schools. We share our findings about specific teacher characteristics and pedagogical skills that influence student perceptions of effective and ineffective teachers. From these findings, we provide a descriptive summary of what students identify as teacher characteristics and pedagogical skills that help them learn best. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings as related to theory, research, practice, and policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Student perspectives
• inclusive education
• learning disabilities
• co-teaching
• high school

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

David J. Connor, EdD, is a Professor and Chairperson of the Special Education Department at Hunter College, City University of New York. His research interests include learning disabilities and inclusive education.

Wendy Cavendish, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of Miami. Her research interests include transition planning and the overrepresentation of students of colour in special education.

ORCID

David J. Connor http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2886-8149

Notes

1 The legal definition of ‘Specific learning disability’ within federal regulations is:

• The term ‘specific learning disability’ means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which disorder may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations.

• Disorders included. Such term includes such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.

• Disorders not included. Such term does not include a learning problem that is primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of mental retardation, of emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

Note that there are also different definitions that are used in professional organisations, and by disability advocates.

2 In the USA there are 13 categories of disability defined by the federal government. LD one of them. https://idea.ed.gov/uploads/finalregulations.pdf.

3 High incidence disabilities include: learning disabilities; speech and language disorders; emotional/behaviour disorders; and, intellectual disabilities.

4 IEPs are required by law once a student has been identified as meeting the criteria for a disability category.

5 The quantitative measurements were (i) Student Involvement Survey (SIS) that measures perceptions of school efforts to facilitate student involvement in IEP and transition planning; (ii) the Arc Determination Scale to examine the relationship between self-determination and possible factors related to its promotion or inhibition; (iii) the Family Environment Scale to examine perceptions of members’ real, ideal, and perspective of their family.

6 We also plan to share the information with the other two schools.