Inclusive Design & Learning Differences
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.
Each learner may have different needs and require specific accommodation in the following categories:
- Spoken language—listening and speaking.
- Written language—reading, writing, and spelling.
- Arithmetic—calculation and mathematical concepts.
- Reasoning—organization and integration of ideas and thoughts.
Focusing on assets and strengths:
- 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.
- 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.”
Strength based learning strategies:
- Who are these learners? How do they learn best? What strengths, cultural backgrounds, learning styles, and interests do they bring to the learning situation? What forms of communication do they use? How do they execute a plan for learning? What are their talents?
- 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 an