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This session presents a researched curriculum for middle school students with significant disabilities (including early symbol users and/or those nonverbal) that aligns English/language arts instruction and content to Common Core Standards; it will include demonstrations of evidence-based teaching procedures (including use of AAC) and age-appropriate content.

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This presentation will inform participants on a study targeting teaching Middle School ELA skills via an App to students with significant disabilities. Based on results of a single subject study, participants will learn about apps to make accessing the general curriculum motivating and easy to use while promoting best practices. Learner outcomes: • This presentation will provide an interactive session on the use of the iPad app for use in grade aligned ELA instruction for students with significant disabilities from diverse backgrounds; • Participants will learn about the results of the single subject study conducted on the app with students with significant intellectual disabilities including autism; and • Participants will gain information about the scripted lesson, which promotes best practices in teaching ELA.

This presentation will inform participants of the results from a year-long randomized control trial study targeting a comprehensive approach to teach grade aligned ELA via an App for middle school students with significant disabilities. Participants will learn about the embedded evidence based practices that led to significant outcomes. By the end of this session, participants will be able to: a) identify instructional strategies that lead to increases in grade aligned ELA skills. b) discuss ways to provide meaningful grade aligned access to ELA skills for students with significant disabilities from diverse backgrounds c) incorporate technology (ipad) and grade aligned adapted fictional and nonfiction novels that address complex and diverse themes into ELA instruction as a means for increasing engagement and access for students with significant disabilities.

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Four studies demonstrate student gains in Common Core Standards in English Language Arts for middle school students with significant disabilities.

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English/language arts (ELA) is one of the core content areas of the general curriculum. Through ELA instruction, students gain a means for accessing and understanding the various forms of text they encounter in daily life as well as skills in research and communication. The overarching goals of ELA focus on effective communication, including comprehension: a goal critical to students with significant disabilities. Typical ELA curriculum creates opportunities for students to communicate in different contexts, for different purposes through exposure to culturally diverse text (Browder & Spooner, 2014). The challenge in developing language-arts instruction for students with significant disabilities, however, is that they may have few skills to engage with text (Mims et al., 2012). Recent research has helped to bridge the gap between the incoming skill set of individuals with a significant disability and the gains in effective literacy skills, communication, writing and comprehension skills. This presentation will highlight some of the most recent research that features strategies for providing meaningful-access, grade-aligned fiction and nonfiction text depicting diverse cultural and socioeconomic themes, but adapted for greater student access. Highlighted strategies will include a discussion of how grade-aligned adapted books and systematic instruction such as response-prompting strategies, error correction, positive reinforcement, data collection and graphic organisers can promote student gains in literacy, communication, writing, student-led research and comprehension across Bloom’s Taxonomy. In addition, this presentation will discuss ways to meaningfully adapt grade-appropriate text for students who have limited-to-no reading ability, as well as provide resources for fiction and nonfiction texts that have already been adapted. Finally, this presentation will provide participants with strategies to promote personalised learning in concert with maintaining a high level of rigour for students with intellectual disability and autism. - See more at: http://sydney.edu.au/education_social_work/professional_learning/teachers/2016/major-events/successful-learning-conference.shtml#sthash.hTRDzYbP.dpuf