Course Syllabus: Facilitating Social Relationships for Students with Disabilities

2007

This course will focus on the supports students with significant disabilities need in order to have a wide variety of satisfying social relationships. Students will learn to identify and facilitate the factors essential to the development of friendships such as: full inclusion; valued membership and belonging; shared experiences; an effective means of communication understood by everyone; and access to typical school, extracurricular, and community environments and activities. Additionally, students will learn to identify and mitigate the barriers to friendships, such as: low expectations; devaluing of differences; age-inappropriate experiences; and educational practices, such as pull-out and separate special education programs. Students will learn about appropriate relationship supports, especially relating to the facilitation of communicative interactions.

Academic Course Development

Professionals, Students

N/A