Instructional Practices in General Education Academic Classes

To understand the instructional experiences of students with autism in general education academic classes, teachers were asked to report the frequency with which they used various practices with a specific student with autism and with their class as a whole.¹¹

Access to the general education curriculum. General education academic teachers often modify their course curriculum to accommodate the individual learning needs of the students with disabilities in their classes. Teachers were asked to indicate the extent of such modifications to the general education curriculum for individual students with autism in their classes. Overall, one third (33 percent) of secondary school students with autism receive the standard general education grade-level curriculum used for other students in their general education academic classes (figure 3). However, almost half of students with autism (47 percent) have teachers who report making "some modifications" to the general education curriculum. For another 12 percent, "substantial modifications" are made to the general education curriculum they receive, and 8 percent receive a specialized curriculum.

Instructional groupings. Students with autism are in general education academic classes that have an average of 22 students per adult. Considerable research suggests that low student/teacher ratios help teachers meet student needs by facilitating effective instruction, communication, and individualization (Achilles and Finn 2000; Gersten and Dimino 2001; Thurlow, Ysseldyke, and Wotruba 1989). Instructional strategies, such as using small-group or individual instruction, can be used to help reduce the student/teacher ratio for some classroom instruction.

Students with autism, as well as their classmates as a whole, experience whole-class instruction more frequently than other instructional groupings; 63 percent of students with autism are reported by teachers to experience whole-class instruction "often," and 72 percent have teachers who report that their classmates receive whole-class instruction "often" (figure 4). Students with autism differ from their class peers in the amount of individual instruction received from an adult other than the classroom teacher (e.g., a special education teacher or an aide). They are six times as likely as the class as a whole to receive instruction "often" from an adult other than the general education teacher (18 percent vs. 3 percent, p < .001).

Instructional materials and instructional activities outside the classroom. Textbooks, worksheets, and workbooks are the most frequently used instructional materials in general education academic classes in which secondary students with autism are enrolled. Teachers of students with autism report similar frequencies of using print material for students with autism and for their classmates (82 percent and 85 percent of the two groups, respectively, are reported to use print materials frequently).

Computers can provide important instructional supports, including being used for academic drills, word processing or spreadsheet activities, and access to the Internet. Although 98 percent of students with disabilities attend schools that report having computers in at least some academic classes (Newman, Marder, and Wagner 2003), many teachers of general education academic classes report that students "rarely" or "never" use computers in their classes, with no statistically significant difference infrequency of use by students with autism and the class as a whole. Less than 20 percent of students with autism "often" use computers in these classes for any purpose. Computers are the least likely to be used for academic drills, with three quarters (74 percent) of students with autism "rarely" or "never" using computers for this purpose; almost half (45 percent) "rarely" or "never" use classroom computers for word processing (p < .001 for drills comparison) or for accessing the Internet (p < .001 for drills comparison).

Instruction does not occur only within the confines of a classroom; teachers can offer students opportunities to extend their learning through the use of libraries, computer labs, or other types of resources at the school, as well as through field trips off campus and through community-based instruction or experiences, such as service-learning projects. However, these types of experiences occur infrequently as part of general education academic classes that include students with autism. Similar to many other teacher-directed aspects of the class, students with autism do not differ from classmates in their participation in activities outside the classroom. Teachers report that two-thirds of both groups "rarely" or "never" go on field trips, and approximately 90 percent of the two groups "rarely" or "never" have community-based instruction or experiences.

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