Teaching Students with Medical, Physical, and Multiple Disabilities : A Practical Guide for Every Teacher

Support the academic performance and independence of students with medical and physical disabilities!

If not properly addressed, a medical or physical disability that results in limited strength, mobility, vitality, and/or alertness can have as much of an adverse affect on a student′s educational performance as a learning disability.

Including a pretest, posttest, and key vocabulary terms, this highly informative guide discusses the issues educators and school nurses need to be aware of in order to effectively support students with medical, physical, and multiple disabilities in the special or general education classroom. Highlights include:

• Cognitive, academic, physical, behavioral, and communication characteristics of numerous medical and physical conditions
• Helpful ideas for adjusting the classroom and school environments to suit the needs of students with medical and physical disabilities
• Strategies for adapting instructional activities and materials for students with physical disabilities
• Assistive technologies designed to enhance communication or mobility
• Identification issues associated with multiple disabilities

Bob Algozzine is a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at the University of North Carolina and project codirector of the U.S. Department of Education-supported Behavior and Reading Improvement Center. With 25 years of research experience and extensive firsthand knowledge of teaching students classified as seriously emotionally disturbed, Algozzine is a uniquely qualified staff developer, conference speaker, and teacher of behavior management and effective teaching courses. He is active in special education practice as a partner and collaborator with professionals in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools in North Carolina and as an editor of several journals focused on special education. Algozzine has written more than 250 manuscripts on special education topics, including many books and textbooks on how to manage emotional and social behavior problems.

Jim Ysseldyke, Ph.D., is Birkmaier Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, director of the School Psychology Program, and director of the Center for Reading Research at the University of Minnesota. Widely requested as a staff developer and conference speaker, Ysseldyke brings more than 30 years of research and teaching experience to educational professionals around the globe.

As the former director of the federally funded National Center on Educational Outcomes, Ysseldyke conducted research and provided technical support that helped to boost the academic performance of students with disabilities and improve school assessment techniques nationally. Today, he continues to work to improve the education of students with disabilities.

The author of more than 300 publications on special education and school psychology, Ysseldyke is best known for his textbooks on assessment, effective instruction, issues in special education, and other cutting-edge areas of education and school psychology. With A Practical Approach to Special Education for Every Teacher, Ysseldyke seeks to equip educators with practical knowledge and methods that will help them to better engage students in exploring―and meeting―all their potentials.