Looking for ways to help disabled students

By René Hill

Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008 | midnight

It is a difficult task to work with students with disabilities on the high school level. Many of them become frustrated with the expectations and end up as dropouts.

The numbers for students with emotional or behavioral problems is the most discouraging. Students in this group may be so alienated from adults or disruptive to their classmates that they simply drop out.

According to a report from the U.S. Department of Education, the high school graduation rate for students identified as emotionally disturbed was only 35 percent in 2002, the latest year for which this information was available. No other group of students with disabilities has such a high dropout rate, and research by other groups shows that this rate is not improving.

The National Research and Development Center on Serious Behavior Disorders at the Secondary Level has received funding to search for successful methods for educating this group of students that many people in special education have felt were long overlooked.

Schools have historically allocated funding to the elementary levels and neglected those in high school. They are a difficult group to work with because of the students and the way they are treated by the school, say researchers. This is because teachers often look for ways to control behavior, not change it.

A pilot program has been funded at Lehigh University, James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., and the University of Missouri in Columbia. The universities will pilot several programs designed to reach adolescents with behavioral disorders. Some of the approaches are showing some success already with students with other disabilities.

Work remains in collecting empirical data to prove that the practices will work with students with emotional disabilities. The programs are aimed at changing behavior rather than stopping it. The long-term need is in change.

Most people want to just stop the behaviors, because they lack time and experience in changing things. It is the hope of the researchers involved in this project to help change the attitudes and help the kids.

Rene Hill is an English teacher in the Clark County School District. She can be reached c/o The News, 2360 Corporate Circle, Third Floor, Henderson, NV 89074 or [email protected].