Teaching Students With Communication Disorders: A Practical Guide for Every Teacher

Communication disorders affecting speech and language rank as the second most common reason students receive special education. How can special and mainstream education teachers help these students achieve successful outcomes academically and in their interpersonal relationships? Which approaches provide the most beneficial learning experiences, and help build confidence and self-esteem?

Teaching Students With Communication Disorders offers tools to help teachers identify communication disorders, distinguish speech from language impairments, reduce common communication problems, and eliminate negative stereotypes. Providing a pre-test, post-test, key vocabulary terms, and additional resources to help teachers and speech therapists increase their understanding about communication disorders and effective intervention strategies, this valuable resource highlights:

1. Criteria for identifying speech and language disorders
2. Cognitive, academic, physical, behavioural, and communication characteristics of common communication disorders
3. Appropriate teaching and class management strategies
4. Trends and issues influencing instructional approaches and the delivery of speech and language services

About The Authors:

Jim Ysseldyke, Ph.D., is Birkmaier Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, director of the School Psychology Program, and director of the Center for Reading Research at the University of Minnesota. Widely requested as a staff developer and conference speaker, Ysseldyke brings more than 30 years of research and teaching experience to educational professionals around the globe.

As the former director of the federally funded National Center on Educational Outcomes, Ysseldyke conducted research and provided technical support that helped to boost the academic performance of students with disabilities and improve school assessment techniques nationally. Today, he continues to work to improve the education of students with disabilities.

The author of more than 300 publications on special education and school psychology, Ysseldyke is best known for his textbooks on assessment, effective instruction, issues in special education, and other cutting-edge areas of education and school psychology. With A Practical Approach to Special Education for Every Teacher, Ysseldyke seeks to equip educators with practical knowledge and methods that will help them to better engage students in exploring—and meeting—all their potentials.

Bob Algozzine is a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at the University of North Carolina and project codirector of the U.S. Department of Education-supported Behavior and Reading Improvement Center. With 25 years of research experience and extensive firsthand knowledge of teaching students classified as seriously emotionally disturbed, Algozzine is a uniquely qualified staff developer, conference speaker, and teacher of behavior management and effective teaching courses. He is active in special education practice as a partner and collaborator with professionals in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools in North Carolina and as an editor of several journals focused on special education. Algozzine has written more than 250 manuscripts on special education topics, including many books and textbooks on how to manage emotional and social behavior problems.