Product Description:
To make informed decisions about the best instruction and assessments for students with cognitive disabilities, several questions need to be answered. For instance, how many students with cognitive disabilities can be expected to achieve the same level of proficiency as other students? To what extent can we predict who these students are? Can we discern whether a student's failure to meet proficiency is due to the student?s disabling condition or lack of appropriate instruction? Finally, what effects do teacher expectations have on student achievement?
This report addresses these questions, and includes an analysis of nationally representative cognitive and achievement data to illustrate the dangers in making blanket assumptions about appropriate achievement expectations for individuals based on their cognitive ability or diagnostic label. In addition, a review of research on the achievement patterns of students with cognitive
disabilities and literature on the effects of teacher expectations is included.
The literature raises numerous issues that are directly relevant to today's educational context for students with disabilities in which both the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 are requiring improved performance. Particularly for those students with cognitive disabilities, the information on expectancy effects should cause us much concern. Is it possible that expectancy effects have been holding students back in the past? Are we under the influence of silently shifting standards, especially for students with cognitive disabilities? It is anticipated that the information in this report will help guide decisions about appropriately high and realistic academic expectations for students
with cognitive disabilities.
Available online at: http://www.cehd.umn.edu/nceo/onlinepubs/synthesis55.pdf
