General Educators' Specialized Adaptation for Students with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

We examined general educators' specialized adaptation for students with learning disabilities (LD). Participants were 40 general educators whose classrooms included at least one student with LD for mathematics instruction. Teachers were assigned randomly to two treatments: routine adaptation (use of curriculum-based measurement and peer-mediated instruction) and routine plus specialized adaptation (prompting and special support to implement adjustments in response to individual student difficulty). Results indicated that teachers in the latter group engaged differentially in specialized adaptation and that their thinking about how they planned for their students with LD changed. Although some teachers implemented substantively important, individually tailored adjustments, others relied on adaptations that were uninventive and limited. Specialized adaptation was not associated with enhanced student learning.