Heartland Area Education Agency's Problem Solving Model: An Outcomes-Driven Special Education Paradigm

Summary

In the past, "help" for a student exhibiting difficult to manage behaviors was quite often equated with placement in special education. Often, the prereferral process was used to document that a student was not making progress, a traditional assessment was conducted, and the student was then placed in special education. Placement often was seen as solving a problem when the special education teacher was often left with little help to determine the type of curriculum and instructional strategies that would be of benefit to the student.

In rural areas, this scenario could be problematic if it was difficult to find educational interventions to meet the child's needs. In some rural school districts there can be a lack of in-house specialists to work with students exhibiting specific intense needs, e.g., autism, significant reading disability, etc. Thus, it can be left to the special education teacher to "fix" the problem once a student walked into the classroom. "Help" in the problem solving model is defined quite differently by providing immediate assistance to a student by engaging in an array of problem-solving activities and matching an appropriate intervention to an identified need.

New educational policy mandates require a heightened emphasis on improving the educational results of children with disabilities. With an increased emphasis on student outcomes and the academic growth of students with disabilities, accountability will shift from simply providing special education services to specific outcomes for students who receive these services (Deno, Fuchs, Marston, & Shin, 2001). As the problem solving model at Heartland AEA continues to evolve and additional information relative to its effects is analyzed, the potential of the Model to help meet these outcomes appears quite promising.

References

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