Understanding students with additional needs as learners

This book brings together a compendium of the collaborative research from eight PhD students and three researchers, addressing an existing problem for teachers of students with additional learning needs in mainstream classes. The purpose of this research is to describe the development of growth progressions in communication and literacy, interpersonal skills and understanding of emotions, learning skills, numeracy, movement, digital literacy, thinking and problem-solving skills among students with additional needs in the classroom, known as SWANS (Students with Additional Needs). The research has grown over a decade or more and this volume brings all that research together under a single cover in a way that has not been done before. It shows how work conducted at the same system and school level that led to the design of curriculum support for SWANS, drawing on the research to establish expected learning progressions, was linked to a mainstream curriculum. It also illustrates strategies and materials that could be used by mainstream teachers or special education teachers to make teaching SWANS practical and effective. The book offers new insights, and a ready to use volume of material for curriculum writers, student teachers, researchers, and special education teachers and administrators.

1. Profiling developmental learning for students with additional needs (SWANs) / Patrick Griffin -- 2. Competence assessment / Patrick Griffin -- 3. Functional communication competence for students with additional needs / Kerry Woods and Patrick Griffin -- 4. Using symbols to make meaning: Functional literacy for students with additional needs / Kerry Woods and Patrick Griffin -- 5. Interpersonal competence for students with additional needs / Bernadette Coles-Janess and Patrick Griffin -- 6. Cognitive skills, Students with additional learning needs and autism spectrum disorder / Eileen Roberts and Patrick Griffin -- 7. Profiling transitions in emotional development for students with additional learning needs / Eileen Roberts and Patrick Griffin -- 8. The development of problem-solving rubrics to define learning progressions for students with additional needs / Toshiko Kamei and Kerry Woods -- 9. Assessing and understanding early numeracy for students with additional needs / Jane Strickland, Kerry Woods, and Masa Pavlovic -- 10. Understanding and mapping digital literacy for students with disability / Emily H. White, Masa Pavlovic, and Shiralee Poed -- 11. Supporting motor learnin…