Abstract
In this brief response to Agran et al., I provide data on the extent to which students with the most significant cognitive disabilities (i.e., those students participating in alternate assessments on alternate achievement standards) are separated educationally from their peers without disabilities. I further discuss additional factors that may be contributing to separate placements for students with the most significant disabilities. Finally, I provide some promising resources that may help to address these persistent issues.
Keywords
I would first like to thank Agran et al. (2020) for developing a compelling paper on a highly troubling and persistent issue in our field, the educational separation of students with the most significant disabilities. There are three main points that I would like to add to the authors’ thoughtful discussion. First, for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities (i.e., the approximately 1% of students who take their respective state’s alternate assessment on alternate achievement standards [AA-AAS]), the extent of educational separation is even greater than is reflected in the categorical annual placement data collected by the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE). Second, for students in the alternate assessment who have limited communicative competence, placement in less restrictive settings is even more problematic. Third, there are some excellent resources developed for educators and families that can help us address these pervasive challenges to a high-quality education in the least restrictive environment for students with the most significant disabilities. I will examine each of these points in turn.
Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities: The Full Extent of Exclusion
Agran et al. (2020) note that the USDOE collects annual placement data on all students with disabilities across every U.S. state and territory. These data are then disaggregated by Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004) disability category (e.g., intellectual disability, multiple disabilities, autism, etc.). As the authors discuss, According to the recently published U.S. Department of Education 40th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of IDEA (2018), approximately one half of students with intellectual or multiple disabilities spend less than 40% of their time in regular classrooms per day. (p. 1)
Yet, when we consider just those students taking state AA-AAS, we find that they are much more likely to be placed outside of general education than any IDEA category of students with disabilities for which the USDOE collects annual placement data. For the nearly 40,000 students participating in the AA-AAS across our own 15-state study (H. Kleinert et al., 2015), a total of 93% were served primarily in self-contained classrooms, separate schools, home, hospital, or residential settings; only 3% were served in general education classrooms at least 80% of the time (considered regular class placement); and only 4% were served in general education at least 40% of the time (considered resource room placement).
There are several potential reasons for the extent of this educational separation for students participating in state alternate assessments. First, students with the most significant cognitive disabilities almost certainly represent the same 1% of the population that Lou Brown (1991) referred to in his discussion of students who have severe disabilities, and as such, they are a cross-categorical group and cannot be defined by any single IDEA categorical label.
Moreover, each of the IDEA categorical labels includes students who clearly do not have significant cognitive disabilities. For example, the IDEA category of intellectual disability includes not only students with more moderate and severe levels of intellectual disability, but students with mild disability as well, who are more likely to be included in general education settings. Simply put, we must first acknowledge the full extent to which students with the most significant cognitive disabilities are excluded if we are to begin to address this issue. As one effort to address this disparity, the TIES Center at the University of Minnesota (https://tiescenter.org/) focuses specifically on students with significant cognitive disabilities participating in their respective state alternate assessments. It is precisely these students who most need changes in policy and practice to achieve full access to general education settings.
The second possible explanation for why students participating in state alternate assessments are the most excluded of any educational group of students is the belief that alternate assessment means alternate placement. As Sabia and Thurlow (2019) have noted, educators and families may erroneously believe that alternate achievement standards reflect an alternate curriculum, and students in the AA-AAS must therefore be educated in a separate placement to address that curriculum. The truth is that students in both the regular and alternate assessments are to be taught grade-level content standards, and the difference in accountability is only in the breadth, depth, and scope of the expected learning on those same content standards. Clearly, the distinction of alternate achievement standards does not imply a separate curriculum, or the need for a separate placement to deliver that curriculum.
The Relationship of Communicative Competence to Restrictive Educational Placements
Agran et al. (2020) have clearly enunciated six important factors or considerations regarding why students with severe disabilities are in separate educational placements. I would like to add a seventh factor, which, fortunately, is also a very malleable factor—the importance of communicative competence. Several multistate studies across researchers have demonstrated that approximately 30% of students in state alternate assessments do not have a formal, symbolic mode of communication (Cameto et al., 2010; Kearns et al., 2011; Towles-Reeves et al., 2009, 2012). Moreover, a full 10% of students in state alternate assessments have no discernible, systematic mode of communication. For example, in the largest study of students participating in alternate assessments to date, Towles-Reeves et al. (2012) examined the communicative status of 49,669 students who participated in their respective state alternate assessments during the 2010–2011 or 2011–2012 academic year across 18 states. The states were all participating in the National Center and State Collaborative (NCSC). Across all these states, teachers reported that the majority of students (69%) used symbolic language; 18% of students were emerging symbolic communicators (i.e., they were beginning to develop a communication system through words, pictures, or gestures); and 10% were pre-symbolic (having no discernible mode of symbolic communication). Two of the most important findings directly related to educational outcomes for students with the most significant disabilities that came from this data set are the following:
There was little change in communicative competence across grade bands: Similar to the results of Kearns et al. (2011), in a secondary analysis of the Towles-Reeves et al. (2012) data, H. Kleinert et al. (2015) noted that a full 10% of high school students were identified as pre-symbolic, having no clearly understandable, formal mode of communication (expressive communication). Although we might expect to find that students evidenced greater communicative competence in higher grades, this was simply not the case.
There was limited access to augmentative/alternative communication (AAC) for students who did not yet have a symbolic mode of communication: Towles-Reeves et al. (2012) examined the extent to which students identified by their teachers as either emerging symbolic or pre-symbolic had access to AAC systems. These researchers found that students with limited communicative competence unfortunately also had limited access to AAC; for the 10% of students identified as pre-symbolic, only 40% of those students currently had access to AAC; and for the 18% of students identified as emerging symbolic, only 39% currently had access to AAC (see also H. Kleinert et al., 2016, for a further discussion of this issue).
Lack of communicative competence for such a sizable percentage of students in alternate assessments is highly troubling in itself. Communicative competence represents the most fundamental of educational outcomes—for communication lies at the basis of all that we do. In terms of the subject of this article, it is also an important factor related to educational placement. In our own study (H. Kleinert et al., 2015) examining educational placements for students with significant cognitive disabilities across 15 states (N = 39,837), communicative status did make a difference: We found that “for all states combined, findings indicated a statistically significant, positive correlation between expressive communication and increasingly inclusive classroom settings” (p. 320). Clearly, if we are not enabling students to acquire symbolic modes of communication to express a variety of intents across a variety of contexts with their teachers, families, and peers, we are denying them the benefits of more challenging educational environments, and further restricting both their opportunities and their placements.
Promising Practices and Resources
Agran et al. (2020) have noted several promising, federally funded initiatives to help address the considerable challenges to more inclusive placements for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. As I have previously noted, the TIES Center is specifically focused upon students participating in state alternate assessments, the approximately 1% of all students who have the most significant cognitive disabilities. Moreover, the TIES Center has as one of its foundational principles the importance of communicative competence for all students. Two resources that can help both practitioners and policy makers in addressing communication competence are the following:
National Center and State Collaborative (NCSC) Communications Tool Kit (TIES Center, n.d.): a package created for practitioners to address the communicative competence and the provision of AAC for students with significant cognitive disabilities who most need that access. The Communication Tool Kit is a set of free, online modules designed to provide educators, speech/language pathologists, and other related service personnel with a collaborative set of tools for understanding student communication in its most basic forms and for problem-solving next steps. The modules are approved for Continuing Education Units (CEUs) by the American Speech/Language/Hearing Association (ASHA).
Communication Competence in the Inclusive Setting: a comprehensive review of evidenced-based practices for promoting communicative competence in inclusive settings (J. Kleinert et al., 2019). Among the practices identified by these authors are (a) aided language and communication modeling (teaching all communication partners to use and model the student’s AAC instrument in all interactions with the student with complex communication needs), (b) peer-mediated interventions (including peer network and peer support arrangement strategies (Carter, 2019), and teaching peers how to communicate via the student’s AAC), and (c) collaborative teaming (structured planning and communication across educators, speech/language pathologists, other related services personnel, paraprofessionals, and most importantly, the family).
Conclusion
As Agran et al. (2020) have noted, the educational separation of students with the most significant disabilities is an ongoing challenge, and over the past 20 years, very little progress has been made in addressing that challenge (Brock, 2018; Morningstar et al., 2017; Thompson et al., 2018). In no way can the extent to which these students experience educational separation be explained as a reasonable interpretation or application of the principle of least restrictive environment, especially given the variation we find in placement rates across states (Kurth et al., 2014), and the broad evidence for improved outcomes associated with more inclusive settings (Agran et al., 2020; Thompson et al., 2018). In this brief response, I have attempted to illustrate the full extent of educational separation for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, to identify and discuss some of the factors that may be contributing to that separation, and to suggest some promising practices and evidence-based resources that can help us begin to address it.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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