Focus on Practice: A Model for Assessing Learning Outcomes for Australian Students in Special Schools

Abstract

Questions contine to be raised about the relevance of educational outcomes for young people with learning difficulties. Margaret Dowrick, lecturer in special education at the University of Western Sydney, suggests that there is ongoing concern that education services fail to prepare students with severe or profound and multiple learning difficulties ‘for the demands of adult life’. In this article, Margaret Dowrick describes a project that brought together professionals, parents and students in order to generate consensus about the skills that young people with learning difficulties need to gain before leaving school. The results of these consultations were fed back to schools in order to support the process of curricular review. Although this paper is written from an Australian perspective, the author makes telling links with the situation in North America and the United Kingdom and raises issues that will be of interest to specialist educators everywhere.

UNESCO Inclusion Policy and the Education of School Students with Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities:Where to Now?

“…(Note: As Pepper (2007) points out, these initiatives highlight the critical interrelationships between curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.) In Australia a new national curriculum for all students is now being progressively implemented, although students with PIMD will still mostly have a collaboratively negotiated individualized education program (IEP) based on their additional educational needs (Dowrick, 2002). In Australia most students with PIMD are educated in special schools (Dempsey, 2014), perhaps because divergent interest groups still support different placement priorities for a variety of reasons (e.g.…”

“…For most students, broad achievement benchmarks like end-of-term reports and national competency testing scores are reasonably indicative of individual and cohort progress (Watkins, 2007). For students with PIMD though a diversity of curriculum-based assessments is critical to inform evidence-based practice and achieve best learning outcomes (Arthur-Kelly & Neilands, 2014;Dowrick, 2002). These students often have idiosyncratic learning needs.…”

The Education of Australian School Students With the Most Severe Intellectual Disabilities: Where Have We Been and Where Could We Go? A Discussion Primer

“…For students without intellectual disabilities, broad performance benchmarks like endof-term assessment tasks and biannual national testing are generally reasonably indicative of individual and cohort progress and teaching efficacy, but for students with MSID a diversity of assessments is critical to evidence-based practice and best outcomes (Dowrick, 2002). Their learning needs are idiosyncratic and learning improvements incremental so frequent individualised assessments are essential (Bray et al, 1988).…”

“…For students with MSID, evidence-based practice is not consistently the norm (Carter et al, 2011) and a variety of restraints and barriers are complicit. These include, for example, inadequate funding, staffing, teacher expertise and support services (Australian Teacher Education Association, 2006;Konza, 2008;Public Schools Principals Forum, 2009); attitudinal barriers amongst staff, students and the wider community (NSW Disability Discrimination Legal Centre, 2010); the regular-special education nexus (Slee, 2008); inadequate collaboration (Forlin, Loreman, Sharma, & Earle, 2009); discordant curriculum pedagogy and assessment (Roberts & Ridley, 2009); wide diversity of individual disabilities and needs (Dowrick, 2002); and inconsistent definition (Dempsey, 2003).…”

“…There is a reasonable research base informing developments in inclusive policy and practice and the education of students with disabilities in Australia, some of which has relevance to students with MSID. For example, explicit systematic and data-based instruction and assessment (Dowrick, 2002); the use of augmentative and alternative communication technologies (Hewett, 2009); collaborative approaches to planning (Centre for Developmental Disability Studies, 2004); student-centred planning; behaviour state assessment (Foreman & Arthur-Kelly, 2005); ABA and positive behaviour support (Clarke, Worcester, Dunlap, Murray, & Bradley-Klug, 2002;Munde, Vlaskamp, Ruijssenaars, & Nakken, 2011); curriculum-based assessment and programming (Loftus, et al, 2005); school renewal (Bain & Lancaster, 2006;Konza, 2008); increased, flexible government funding (Konza, 2008); professional development (Carroll, Forlin, & Jobling, 2003); and a curricula focus on communication and social skills development (Hewett, 2009).…”