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1. What are the three key components in the IDEA definition of intellectual disabilities?

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1. What are the three key components in the IDEA definition of intellectual disabilities?

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(1) There should be "significantly subaverage" intellectual functioning present. In other words, the student scores 2 or more standard deviations below the mean on a standardized intelligence test.
(2) Significant difficulty with everyday living tasks, or adaptive behavior, must be evidenced by the individual.
(3) Throughout its development, the individual must show low in intellectual functioning and  adaptive behavior, this will help to tell apart the intellectual disability from other types of disabilities.
(Heward, Alber-Morgan, Konrad, 2017, pp. 109-110)

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2. What are the generalized characteristics of children and youth with intellectual disabilities?

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2. What are the generalized characteristics of children and youth with intellectual disabilities?

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Slow learning rates, poor memory, attention problems, difficulty maintaining and generalizing what they have learned, and poor motivation are general cognitive functioning and learning characteristics of individuals with intellectual disabilities.
(Heward, Alber-Morgan, Konrad, 2017, pp. 114)

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3. How can one distinguish across the mild, moderate, severe and profound levels of intellectual disabilities?

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3. How can one distinguish across the mild, moderate, severe and profound levels of intellectual disabilities?

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Basic academic skills and vocational and activities in every day life are learned by individuals with mild disabilities, this helps them function independently in their environment. Mild levels of disabilities are identified in children until they start their school years.

Significant delays in development are evidenced in children with moderate intellectual disabilities which show during their preschool years. These children show inconsistencies in their overall intellectual development and adaptive functioning with children their same age that don´t have disabilities, these gaps grow wider as they grow. Children with moderate disabilities are more predisposed to have health and behavior problems than those with mild intellectual disabilities.

Children with severe or profound intellectual disabilities have significant central nervous system damage, and this condition is almost always identified at birth or soon afterward. Babies with this disability often have other disabilities and health problems as well.
(Heward, Alber-Morgan, Konrad, 2017, pp. 114).

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4. What are some of the most prevalent prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal causes of intellectual disabilities?

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4. What are some of the most prevalent prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal causes of intellectual disabilities?

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Prenatal Timing
Biomedical Factor
1. Chromosomal disorders

2. Single-gene disorders

3. Syndromes

4. Metabolic disorders

5. Cerebral dysgenesis

6. Maternal illness

7. Parental age
Social Factor
1. Poverty

2. Maternal malnutrition

3. Domestic violence

4. Lack of access to prenatal care
Behavioral Factor
1. Parental drug use

2. Parental alcohol use

3. Parental smoking

4. Parental immaturity
Educational Factor
1. Parental cognitive disability without support

2. Lack of preparation for parenthood.

Perinatal Timing

Biomedical Factor
1. Prematurity

2. Birth injury

3. Neonatal disorders
Social Factor
1. Lack of access to birth care
Behavioral Factor
1. Parental rejection of caretaking

2. Parental abandonment of child
Educational Factor
1. Lack of medical referral for intervention services at discharge

Postnatal Timing
Biomedical Factor
1. Traumatic brain injury

2. Malnutrition

3. Meningoencephalitis

4. Seizure disorders

5. Degenerative disorders
Social Factor
1. Impaired child caregiver
2. Lack of adequate stimulation

3. Family poverty

4. Chronic illness in the family

5. Institutionalization
Behavioral Factor
1. Child abuse and neglect

2. Domestic violence

3. Inadequate safety measures

4. Social deprivation

5. Difficult child behaviors
Educational Factors
1. Impaired parenting

2. Delayed diagnosis

3. Inadequate early intervention services

4. Inadequate special educational services

5. Inadequate family support

(Heward, Alber-Morgan, Konrad, 2017, pp. 122).

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5. What are some of the most effective current instructional methods utilized with students that have intellectual disabilities?

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5. What are some of the most effective current instructional methods utilized with students that have intellectual disabilities?

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Instructional methods resulting from empirical research facilitates learning for children with disabilities, as do the following practices:
1. Evaluate each student´s performance levels to identify and highlight his instructional goals.
2. Define and task-analyze new information and skills
3. Create instructional activities that allow the student to react in a guided and independent manner.
4. Provide for the student to respond to an unconditioned or natural stimuli by delivering and fading prompts and cues.
5. Provide systematic consequences for student performance in ways such as contingent reinforcement, instructional feedback and error correction.
6. Include fluency-building activities into student´s lessons.

7. Apply strategies that stimulate the generalization and maintenance of newly learned skills.

8. Perform direct and recurrent student performance measurements and use such to report instructional decisions.
(Heward, Alber-Morgan, Konrad, 2017, pp. 129).

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6. What are the three key components in operationalizing the IDEA definition of learning disabilities?
Most states require the following three components to identify students with learning disabilities:
1. A severe inconsistency between the student´s intellectual ability and academic achievement.

2.  The reasons for the student´s learning disabilities are not derived from another known condition that can obstruct learning conditions.

3. A need for special education services.
(Heward, Alber-Morgan, Konrad, 2017, pp. 144)

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7. What are the characteristics (in general) of children and youth with learning disabilities?

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7. What are the characteristics (in general) of children and youth with learning disabilities?

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Children and youth with learning disabilities experience perceptual and cognitive processing difficulties assumed to be the underlying cause of the following characteristics endured by these students: reading problems, written language deficits, math underachievement, poor social skills, attention deficits and hyperactivity, behavior problems, and low self-esteem or self-efficacy.
(Heward, Alber-Morgan, Konrad, 2017, pp. 146)

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8. What are the suspected causes of learning disabilities?

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8. What are the suspected causes of learning disabilities?

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While the cause of an individual´s learning disability is still unknown, there are sources that have proposed three types of suspected causes which include brain damage or dysfunction, where some professionals believe that a child´s learning disability has some type of neurological injury or apparent central nervous system dysfunction; there is also evidence that learning disabilities are caused by heredity, since relatives of individuals with these disabilities are more likely to have these problems; and a third suspected cause are the environmental factors, which evidence that children growing in very poor living conditions have limited exposure to effective educational instruction, or have been “seriously mistaught” (Siegfried Engelmann, 1977). (Heward, Alber-Morgan, Konrad, 2017, pp. 153--155)

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9. What are the educational placement alternatives for students with learning disabilities?

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9. What are the educational placement alternatives for students with learning disabilities?

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Following the IDEA principles, students with disabilities should be taught in general education classrooms, and only be removed if the severity of their disability requires it, making general education classrooms one of the placement alternatives for students with learning disabilities. A consultant teacher also offers a placement alternative, supporting the general education teacher to select curriculum and instructional activities, making the necessary accommodations. When children need further assistance, a resource room offers fewer students in a classroom and a teacher works closely with each student´s program. Finally, a separate classroom is designed for children with severe learning disabilities needing special trained attention.
(Heward, Alber-Morgan, Konrad, 2017, pp. 172-174)

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10. What are the key components in defining emotional disturbance or behavior disorders?

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10. What are the key components in defining emotional disturbance or behavior disorders?

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A child with emotional disturbance may exhibit one or more of the following components during a long period of time and severely affecting his educational performance:
1. Having an unexplainable inability to learn that cannot be clarified by intellectual, sensory, and health factors;
2. Failure to have and maintain satisfactory interpersonal relations with people;
3. Experiencing inadequate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances;
4. Demonstrating persistent mood of unhappiness or depression;
5. Showing physical symptoms or fears towards himself or school issues.
(Heward, Alber-Morgan, Konrad, 2017, pp. 181)

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11. What are the causal factors associated with this disability?

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11. What are the causal factors associated with this disability?

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Though it is difficult to understand the origin of a child´s emotional or behavioral disorder, there are suspected causes such as biological and environmental factors. Biological factors include brain disorders, which could be the result of a brain injury or abnormal brain development; genetics, where a human genome is usually linked to schizophrenia; and temperament, which depends on the person´s behavior and the way he reacts to certain situations. The environmental factors involve the individual’s development of conduct disorder and anti-social behavior which could occur at home, at school or the community. Children that have experienced love and affection at home tend to have less problems than children that lack a proper parent-child relationship. Other children are identified with emotional or behavioral disorders until they reach school, where teachers could adversely affect the behavior pattern of the child by not fully understanding his behavioral disorder, what could possibly end in the child getting in trouble in the community
(Heward, Alber-Morgan, Konrad, 2017, pp. 191-194)

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12. What are the characteristics (externalized and internalized behaviors) associated with this disability?

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12. What are the characteristics (externalized and internalized behaviors) associated with this disability?

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Children with emotional or behavioral disorders are characterized by having externalizing or internalizing behavior patterns. Children with externalizing behaviors in a classroom often get out of their seats, yell, talk out, curse, disturb their peers, hit or fight, ignore the teacher, complain, argue excessively, steal, lie, destroy property, have temper tantrums, and are noncompliant. Children with internalizing behaviors act immature and keep to themselves, they lack social skills and seldom play with others their own age. Other children are often fearful of something with no reason, and tend to feel sick, resulting in anxiety and mood disorders.
(Heward, Alber-Morgan, Konrad, 2017, pp. 183-184)

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13. What are the educational placement alternatives for students with emotional disturbance or behavior disorders?

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13. What are the educational placement alternatives for students with emotional disturbance or behavior disorders?

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A critical challenge of placing students with emotional or behavioral disorders is creating an environment in which social and academic skills can be taught ensuring the safety of all people. It is believed that a regular education classroom meets such requirements and can arrange for the individual needs of each student to be met. Some figures show that, during the year 2012 to 2013, approximately 44% of children with emotional and behavioral disorders were taught in general education classrooms, 18% in resource rooms, 20% in separate classrooms, 13% in special schools, 2% in correctional facilities, 2% in residential schools, and 1% in home or hospital placements. We can see that the trend has been for the placement of students in the general education classroom with a lower percentage in the different placement facilities. However, there are other beliefs that suggest that IEP teams must thoroughly analyze the students´ overall academic and social condition before placing him in a general education classroom, this includes his social academic expectations, his social and academic skills, and of greatest importance, it is vital for the general education teacher to be prepared and supported before and after the placement.
(Heward, Alber-Morgan, Konrad, 2017, pp. 211-213