Special Educators' Perceptions of Their Roles as Consultants

Abstract

Special educators serving as resource room teachers were queried as to their perceptions of their abilities to work as consultants to regular classroom teachers. In five of the seven areas examined, there was a significant difference between perceived confidence and competence by the special educator in the role of a consultant to the regular classroom teacher and in the role of resource room teacher. Discussion centers on these five areas and their impact on future inservice and preservice training efforts.

Developing a Consulting Program in Special Education: Implementation and Interventions

“…Teachers express need for a consultant role but identify only very global areas in which they think further training may be needed (Friend, 1985). In contrast to teachers' perceptions of their need for further training, Aloia (1983) found that special educators rated themselves as being less competent and confident in their ability to work as consultants when compared to their ability to deliver direct instruction and meet their role demands as resource room teachers.…”

“…These usually have focused upon global areas of conducting inservice training, human relations, public relations, and counseling. Aloia (1983) found that special educators rated themselves as significantly less able to consult with regular educators in the areas of informal assessment, formal assessment, staff relations skills, parent relationships, and use of paraprofessionals. These findings would seem to indicate that teachers' greatest concerns lie in the areas of "how to" consult rather than upon the specific content to be delivered.…”

Content of Special Education Teacher Preparation

“…The goal of this study was to survey current teachertraining practices and identify possible links to the changing role and function of special education personnel (Aloia, 1983;Morsink, 1985;. Results show undergraduate and graduate programs share similar emphasis on primary and adolescent handicapped students (55% and 29%, respectively), with much less emphasis on the needs of preschool and adult populations (around 10% and 6%, respectively).…”

Meeting the Needs of Special High School Students in Regular Education Classrooms

“…A careful description of the content of the pilot program as well as the process implementation suggests that secondary educators demonstrated many of the competencies supported by literature in ucational consultation ; that is, the ability to develop and implement behavior management strategies, the ability to modify curriculum and materials, and the ability to collaboratively engage in problem resoution (e.g., Aloia, 1983;Davis, 1983;Idoi-Maestas & Ritter, 1985;West, Cannon, & Brown, 1986). However, this study also identified additional competencies useful in implementing the program: specifically, sensitivity to the social status of special education students in regular classrooms, the ability to individualize the support provided to regular educators, and the ability to schedule instructional and clerical activities of paraprofessionals within and outside of regular education environments.…”