Inclusive Design & Learning Differences

Notes from related articles

Neurodiversity paradigm:

• suggests that we take the positive attitudes and beliefs that most people hold about biodiversity and cultural diversity and apply them to differences among human brains. We don’t look at a calla lily and say that it has “petal deficit disorder”; we appreciate its beautiful shape.
• It is an umbrella term that encompasses neurocognitive differences such:
  • Auditory Processing Disorder: affects how sound that travels unimpeded through the ear is processed & interpreted by the brain
  • Language Processing Disorder: affects attaching meaning to sound groups that form words, sentences and stories.
    
  • Visual Perception Deficit affects: the understanding of information that a person sees, or the ability to draw or copy.
  • Non-Verbal learning disabilities: affects interpreting nonverbal cues like facial expressions or body language and may have poor coordination.
  • Dyslexia: affects reading and related language-based processing skills.
  • Dyscalculia: affects a person’s ability to understand numbers and learn math facts.
  • Executive functioning disorder: affects, planning, organization, strategizing, attention to details and managing time and space.
  • Disorders related to memory: impair the ability to store and retrieve information required to carry out tasks.
  • Dysgraphia: affects a person’s handwriting ability and fine motor skills.
  • Dyspraxia: causes problems with movement and coordination, language and speech.
  • ADHD: includes difficulty staying focused and paying attention, controlling behavior and hyperactivity.
  • Tourette’s syndrome
  • Anxiety
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder
  • Depression
  • intellectual disability
    

Focusing on assets and strengths:

• Individuals with autism, for example, appear to do better than typically developing people on the Embedded Figures Test, which requires focusing on small details within more complex patterns (Baron-Cohen, 1998). They also tend to be systemizers rather than empathizers: They have a fascination with logical structures

• Students with dyslexia often demonstrate superior artistic abilities (Appleyard, 1997). In another study, people with dyslexia showed a capacity to identify impossible three-dimensional objects (like those made famous by the artist M. C. Escher) more quickly and with greater efficiency than a matched group of typically developing individuals (Karolyi, Winner, Gray, & Sherman, 2003).

• Students with learning disabilities also often show higher-than-average entrepreneurial ability. A survey of U.S. businesspeople, for example, indicated that one-third of entrepreneurs reported having dyslexia, compared with only one percent of middle managers in large corporations (Warren, 2008).

• Many kids with ADHD, for example, have a tendency to seek novelty, an important prerequisite for creative behavior (Cramond, 1995).
• Children with bipolar disorder have scored higher than other children on a popular test of creative thinking (Simeonova, Chang, Strong, & Ketter, 2005).
• People with Williams syndrome often show welldeveloped musical capacities and interests (Levitin et al., 2004).
• Children with intellectual disabilities often have strengths related to the emotions and personality—Down syndrome, for example, has been referred to as “Prince Charming syndrome” because of the friendly attitude and disarming smiles of many people with this genetic difference (Dykens, 2006).
  
  

Positive Niche Construction:

• Once we recognize the strengths of individuals with special needs, we can start to create positive environments within which they can thrive; “the least restrictive environment.”
• We need to find ways to collect positive information about these individuals' strengths in order to provide personalized learning options, e.g. strength inventories, journals, work samples, list of accomplishments, etc.

Strength based learning strategies:

• Once the individual strengths are known, we can design learning options that are tailored to their individual needs. e.g. student with autism will probably do better with small details than with the big picture, a teacher can design lessons that begin with concrete examples and then move toward generalities. Understanding that students with ADHD are often more playful and physical than their peers enables teachers to create learning strategies that integrate games, role-play, and hands-on exploration into academic lessons. Realizing that students with learning disabilities may often show artistic tendencies, a teacher can integrate drawing, cartooning, or other art-related activities into reading and writing assignments.
• holding Neurodiversity Fair at school " where both typically developing kids and kids with various learning differences would showcase their gifts and strengths through art, plays, musical performances, sports, and other creative channels
• for students, create a classroom curriculum on the importance of diversity (in general) and neurodiversity (in particular) for creating positive changes in the world
  

• Presuming competence is a vital communicative ideal. It is the starting point for interactions that honor “another human being . . . as a true equal” (Zurcher, 2013), particularly interactions involving neurodivergent individuals who may be nonspeaking or labeled ‘low-functioning.’
• Considering alternative learning methods to enable students with different learning needs to receive, process, recall and communicate information:
  • Verbal - Lingusitic
  • Naturalistic 
  • Logical - Mathematical
  • Visual - Spacial
  • Musical - Rhytmic
  • Kinaesthetic
  • Interpersonal
  • Intrapersonal