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Designing from the Ground Floor: Alternate Assessment on Alternate Achievement Standards

The advent of the functional curriculum in the late 70's and early 80's followed students with disabilities into the community and public schools. Functional curriculum activities addressed age-appropriate activities for high school age students regardless of developmental age and opened the doors of many regular public schools including high schools. Lou Brown (1982) and others put together the "functional curriculum model" where teaching "life skills" made sense, particularly for high school-age students. This model was useful for promoting transition services, (e.g., vocational training, community referenced instruction, recreation and leisure) especially as a large number of individuals moved from institutions into community settings. 

Curriculum planning during this time emphasized the use of ecological inventories to assess the environments in which students would live and learn. Curriculum guides during this period advocated the selection of functional activities from home, school, and community domains. Task analysis again served a prominent role in the design of instruction. During this era, many students began to receive services in age-appropriate settings including high schools. The principles of partial participation emphasized the need for students to engage in the activity regardless if they could perform all the steps of the task analysis. In addition, the readiness hypothesis was called into question. We found that if students had to master a certain set of skills before they could progress to the next set, the progression often did not occur because of the perceived level of mastery. The functional curriculum model was and continues to be the most popular curricular model for students with significant cognitive disabilities.

The problem, however, with both of these models is that social and communication skills are often the most deficient and most often the reason that students were being excluded from community settings including job sites. From our experience with community-based instruction for children and youth with the most severe disabilities, we learned that even developmental skills (e.g., reach/grasp) could be effectively embedded in activities that provided both an appropriate context along with natural prompts and cues. However, some argued that a large portion of this population would still not become completely independent in community-based situations and, therefore, this curriculum model appeared also to be inappropriate for some students. In addition, while this model worked well for high school students, there appeared to be a "push-down effect" for elementary students, where students began working on community skills in elementary school outside of their school community which again created a disparity in perceived competence between students with disabilities and their non-disabled peers. Because children were still largely segregated in self-contained classrooms; social, communication, and literacy skills still seemed to languish.

With the advent of inclusive education and community based service delivery in the late 80's and early 90's, we began to see students who previously exhibited serious communication and social problems now had something to communicate about and someone to receive the communication who could respond appropriately - both highly functional skills. A social justice perspective began to influence curriculum. Neighborhood schools, membership, and belonging were key words. In addition, social interactions and self determination began to emerge particularly as more students began to use communication systems. We began to recognize that the practice of embedding developmental skills that were learned in the community could also be applied to school and classroom routines and that a school day already has both functional and academic opportunities to learn. Most importantly, albeit secondarily, we found that students could learn academic content which in turn provided natural opportunities for enhancing communication and social interactions. As students acquired academic content, perceptions about their ability to learn raised important questions about our expectations for their achievement.

We learned that academic opportunities to learn are found in the explicit curriculum or the standards-based activities that provide students with rich opportunities to communicate and achieve literacy skills (math, language arts), while the implicit or hidden curriculum still provided opportunities to learn such functional tasks as negotiating classroom routines, keeping up with materials, waiting in line, using the restroom, enjoying lunch and snack time, engaging in homework, working in groups, and using the school library (all opportunities to learn "functional skills"). We found that students acquired skills at a higher rate when opportunities to learn were provided in natural environments and distributed across the day rather than in mass trials in context free situations. Generalization of skills occurred naturally as the contexts for learning became inherently authentic. 

Simultaneously, general educators were facing their own crisis with curriculum. Students with disabilities were not the only ones who needed functional application of skills. With the advent of standards-based instruction, general educators found the need to explicitly link classroom learning to real-life problems and situations. Because of the vast amount of knowledge in our digital, technological age, general education students needed to construct knowledge and engage in disciplined inquiry rather than simply memorize facts. The effective construction of knowledge necessarily required that there be some value beyond the classroom either to public problems or personal experiences (Newmann & Wehlage, 1995; Wiggins & McTighe, 1998).

The 2000 era ushered in the requirement for academic standards for all students. The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind, 2002) required both achievement and grade-level content standards. This type of curricular experience provides optimal opportunities to learn both academic and functional skills for all students. Indeed, the quality of instruction in standards-based classrooms has evolved to include curricula that are universally designed and instruction that is differentiated so that the widest array of students can be accommodated in the general curriculum (Rose & Meyer, 2002). Assistive technology, too, opened the door for many students to participate meaningfully in classroom activities in more independent ways. Thus, some of the important features of standards-based, general education are increasingly becoming intertwined with what has been traditionally accepted as special education.

The Importance of Assistive Technology

Assistive Technology (AT) and the General Curriculum

The discussion of assistive technology at this point in the training is linked to general curriculum access. The Merriam Webster online dictionary defines access as the "freedom or ability to obtain or make use of," which, in this discussion, is the general curriculum. Advances in the design, function, and availability of assistive technology have increased access to, or increased the "freedom or ability to obtain or make use of" the general curriculum for individuals with the most significant cognitive disabilities.

We have already heard from CAST how multiple means of representation, expression, and opportunities for practice are essential to making learning accessible and meaningful to the widest array of learners. The use of assistive technology is one way to facilitate access to the general curriculum, and may, for many students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, be the best way to access learning.

Remembering that access refers to "the freedom or ability to make use of" the general curriculum, the Stepwise Process (Clayton, et al) suggests the following questions to ensure that the student is indeed able to "make use of" the general curriculum:

• Is the student actively participating in each part of the instructional activity? That may include reading, writing, speaking, listening, answering questions, doing research, taking tests, etc. These activities may be done in the context of different instructional formats, such as group or individual work. The focus is not upon which instructional activities will the student participate in, but how.
• What is needed to engage the student in the instruction? This may not require anything additional to what all students are receiving, but may be something as simple as the student having an object representative of the concept to hold while listening. The engagement should be matched to the particular learning style of the student and facilitate the acquisition of the content.
• Does the student have a means to demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and concepts acquired? Again, preferential learning styles should play a role here, and multiple intelligences ( Gardner, 1993) should also be considered. Even though the student may be learning more complex and sophisticated ways to communicate knowledge, it may be preferable to rely on a more established means of communication so that the demonstration of new knowledge is not compounded by a "new" communication mode as well.

A means of communication is essential to active participation within the general curriculum, but is too often ignored, likely due to the complex nature of communication styles of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. There are many different ways that students may develop a system – using graphics or symbols, objects, simple communication aides, or complex programmable devices such as the Dynavox. The most crucial element here is that the student has a way to communicate within the context of the class, and not be limited to basic wants and needs (drink, more, restroom, etc.).

All students are expected to read as part of general curriculum activities and this provides a challenge for individuals with the most significant cognitive disabilities as they may not have been exposed to the years of instruction and opportunities of practice afforded to their typical peers. The preceding slide illustrates several ways to actively participate in reading. It should be noted that reading is defined by varying philosophies across states, and a discussion of supports may be framed by that definition. However, the message here is that it is essential to facilitate access to grade level content material and this may require thinking in ways that are outside our immediate frame of reference.

Writing is also expected of all students as a means of expression, and again provides a challenge to individuals with the most significant cognitive disabilities. Think again in terms of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the Stepwise process discussing active participation. Individuals must be afforded a way to demonstrate what they know in a manner consistent with learning style. This may be through objects, graphics, laminated symbols and words, as well as the flexible media of digital text.

Assistive technology is developing at an unbelievable rate and is making things possible that were unheard of just a few years, months, or even days ago. It is important to check your state's resources in terms of assistive technology support – trainings for all those involved with the student, loan programs, conferences, and be sure that your state has guidelines in place for AT assessments and consideration of assistive technology through the IEP by those who are knowledgeable about devices and services.

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