Students that have severe disabilities present various characteristics that affect their emotions, behavior, sensory abilities and mobility. These characteristics include; some portray a diminishing cognitive functioning, which impact their learning, attention, memory as well as thinking. They portray significant communication needs such as speech impairment or limited communication, physical needs such as mobility as well as health needs. They also portray a significant developmental delays in terms of personal social skills, motor and memory development. They experience difficulty in generalizing and transfer skills and finally, they require repetition to understand concept or acquire a skill in classroom.
Unlike students with no disability, the academic failure as well as learning abilities are majorly influenced by each aspect of their world. This means the classroom or school environment is significant and can impact both their academics and well-being. As such, it is important for teacher to understand traits of severe disability including the causes of each student disability in order to be able to establish a specialized learning strategy and instructions such as compensatory learning strategies and more, which will enable these students can overcome their limitation and integrate into the classroom. However, student’s will disability require teaching methods, which takes into account their personal needs and environments. In an inclusive environment, a teacher can use a multiple intelligence strategies in teaching and integrating students with disabilities into the classroom. This strategy not only it is effective in an inclusive classroom but also will enable teach the students depending on their strengths, weaknesses and ability. It also increases the teachers and student involvement in learning. However, it only takes abilities and talents into account. In addition, it might be challenging to teach student’s with disability according to their type of intelligence. Finally, collaborative teaching model such as team teaching and one teach, one support can be used, especially in an inclusive setting. The model includes special and general education teachers, who plan lessons together as well as teach to supports social emotional need the students need while supporting diverse academic. Even though it can help integrate students with disability into classroom while gaining equal education, it can be complex and require higher preparations.
