Curricula for Students With Severe Disabilities ─ Narratives of Standards-Referenced Good Practice

Students with severe disabilities comprise 2% of the population of learners who are impacted by intellectual, communicative, social, emotional, physical, sensory and medical issues. Increasingly, however, teachers are required to meet the challenges of creating a pedagogical balance between individual student strengths, needs and preferences, and core academic curricula. The need to embrace the current initiative of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in the debate of curricula relevance, breadth, balance and depth for students with severe disabilities is not just timely—it contributes to the evolving debate of what constitutes an appropriate curriculum for severely disabled learners.

Common Core Curricula for Students with Severe Disabilities supports the development of greater understandings of the role that CCSS play in the pedagogical decision-making for students with severe intellectual disabilities. The book first discusses the nature and needs of these students, the curriculum for this group of learners, and the recent contributions of CCSS before presenting narratives of real classrooms, teachers, and students who have meaningfully integrated CCSS at the kindergarten, elementary, and high school levels.

Phyllis Jones is Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of South Florida, USA.