Literacy Skill Development for Students with Special Learning Needs

This valuable resource provides a methodology that focuses on visual learning, and is especially significant for those students having difficulty learning to read through a traditional auditory, sound-based approach. In addition, this book -Includes explicit direction for the instructional steps to be taken and the kinds of visual materials that can be created and used to build skills -Packed with strength-based strategies and reinforcement activities for the development/acquisition of literacy skills -Designed for students with special learning needs, including Autism Spectrum Disorders and Down Syndrome -Embraces the basic tenets of Universal Design for Learning.

Leslie Todd Broun, M.Ed. is presently Project Manager for the Geneva Centre for Autism in Toronto, Ontario, and training teaching assistants to work with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders for the Peel District School Board in Mississauga, Ontario. Over the past twenty years, she has worked with students who have ASD both in self-contained and mainstream settings, and has been a teaching instructor and presenter at workshops and conferences in Canada and internationally. Her primary professional focuses have been the development of practical and effective learning strategies and materials for teaching academic skills to students with ASD and other developmental disabilities, as well as the development of perspectives on inclusion and curriculum modification. Patricia Oelwein, M.Ed., a consultant in private practice, worked at the University of Washington in the Down Syndrome Programs at the Center of Human Development and Disabilities for twenty-five years. The positions she held in the program included teacher in demonstration classrooms, coordinator, and outreach trainer. She has provided specialized training for teaching children with Down syndrome and other developmental delays throughout the United States and in twelve other countries spanning six continents. Since 1991 she has been consultant to the Al Nahada Model Schools in Riyadh, KSA.