Students with significant cognitive disabilities are to be provided access to and make progress in the grade-level general education curriculum. It should not be an alternate curriculum. Determining whether this is happening can be difficult.

The purpose of this Brief is to help parents determine whether their child with significant cognitive disabilities is provided meaningful access to the general education curriculum. It addresses the myth that students with the most significant cognitive disabilities who take the state’s alternate assessment based on alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS) need an alternate curriculum. This myth is often the basis for inappropriately educating these students in separate settings. See Taking the Alternate Assessment Does NOT Mean Education in a Separate Setting! (TIES Center Brief #2).

This Brief highlights information that you need to know as you participate in discussions about instruction for your child with significant cognitive disabilities. During Individualized Education Program (IEP) team meetings, parents should make sure that instruction for their child is based on the general education curriculum, not an alternate curriculum. They should also make sure that IEP goals support access to and progress in the general education curriculum. IEP goals are not the curriculum. These goals should focus on the skills and knowledge needed to work on grade-level content, including subjects that may not be in the IEP goals such as social studies.

For more detailed information on this topic, read Providing Meaningful General Education Curriculum Access to Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities (TIES Center Brief #4). It includes multiple instructional examples and details on the provisions of federal policy related to curriculum requirements.

How Does an Alternate Curriculum Differ from the General Education Curriculum?

Some ways to tell whether your child with significant cognitive disabilities is provided the general education curriculum or an alternate curriculum are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Characteristics of Alternate Curriculum and General Education Curriculum

Key Features of Participation in the General Education Curriculum for Students Who Take the State AA-AAAS

First, it is important to remember that curriculum content is different from the performance expectations for students with significant cognitive disabilities. The curriculum is to be based on grade-level academic content standards defined by the state.

Expectations for student performance on state assessments, in contrast, are defined by the state’s achievement standards. The state alternate achievement standards are used for the AA-AAAS taken by students with the most significant cognitive disabilities and cover less academic content than the state’s general assessment. Achievement standards should not limit instruction because students may be capable of learning more than is covered by the assessment. The achievement standards can be useful to prioritize which content should be addressed first before moving on to other content.

Three key features to remember about what the general education curriculum looks like for students with significant cognitive disabilities are provided here. Instruction using the grade level curriculum supports the inclusion of students who participate in the AA-AAAS in the general education classroom.

The same content standards are used for all students.

All instruction starts from the same content standards, regardless of the student’s disabilities. However, the expectations for how much a student will master of the grade-level general education curriculum can be modified. Assignments and materials may be adapted based on the needs of the individual student. There can be less depth (e.g., learning the general concepts of poetry, but not all the details), less breadth (e.g., learning about the most important causes of the Civil War, but not all of them) and less complexity (e.g., counting squares on graph paper to calculate area of a rectangle, instead of using an equation).

Accommodations such as more time to work on an assignment or using a text-to-speech program or a calculator also may be provided without changing the content of the curriculum. For example, when the peers of a second-grade student with significant cognitive disabilities are working on a worksheet on fractions using cut-out pictures of pizza slices, the student with significant cognitive disabilities in the same classroom may solve similar problems by using wooden slices of pizza. This accommodation can also be used by other students who need a more hands-on strategy to understand fractions.

All content provided to the peers of a student who participates in the AA-AAAS also should be provided to the student with significant cognitive disabilities.

If a subject area such as social studies or literature is important to teach to a student without disabilities, it is also important to teach to students with disabilities, including students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. For example, a unit on Shakespeare in an eighth grade English class might be adapted for the student with significant disabilities by providing a simplified modern English version of the text and providing a movie version for the student to watch at home. These materials can also be used in addition to the regular text for other students in the class to help with comprehension.

Decisions about modifications and accommodations of assignments and materials are tailored to the individual student.

All decisions about needed modifications of instructional materials and accommodations should be based on the individual characteristics and needs of the student with significant cognitive disabilities. This means that decisions should not be based on what is easiest to do or easily available. Federal policy is clear that the need for modifications cannot be used as the reason for removing a student with disabilities from the age appropriate general education classroom.

What Does the Law Say?

Federal education laws are clear that ALL students are to be taught using the grade-level general education curriculum. No student, including those with significant cognitive disabilities, is to be taught an alternate curriculum.

For students with significant cognitive disabilities, the U.S. Department of Education¹ recommends that:

• Annual IEP goals should reflect high expectations and be based on the state’s content standards for the grade in which the student is enrolled.
• For students performing significantly below the grade level in which they are enrolled, IEP teams should determine annual goals that are ambitious but achievable. This means that the annual goals need not necessarily result in the child reaching grade level within the year covered by the IEP, but the goals should be sufficiently ambitious to help close the gap.
• The IEP must identify the specially designed instruction needed to address the unique needs of the student to ensure access to the general education curriculum, so that the student can meet the academic content standards that apply to all students in the state.

For example, a student who reads below grade level can receive modifications for all grade-level reading assignments. The student’s reading assignments could be based on the grade-level content, but could be shortened, or the text adapted with simplified language (or picture symbols, if necessary).

This information is very important in the discussion of a student’s educational setting. Often the myth that these students need an alternate curriculum is used incorrectly as an argument against educating the student in the general education classroom. See Taking the Alternate Assessment Does NOT Mean Education in a Separate Setting! (TIES Center Brief #2).

Look Fors

Table 2 lists some quick ways for you to determine whether your child with the most significant cognitive disabilities is being provided meaningful access to the general education curriculum.

If unclear about whether the Look Fors are present, ask to see the curriculum for your child’s grade and compare the content to what is being used for your son or daughter with the most significant cognitive disabilities who participates in the AA-AAAS.

Table 2. Look Fors

Summary

Access to the general education curriculum is critical to a meaningful education for students with significant cognitive disabilities. Federal law says that students who take the AA-AAAS are supposed to be prepared to pursue postsecondary education and competitive integrated employment. Determining that the student who participates in the state’s AA-AAAS has access to, and makes progress in, the grade-level general education curriculum requires that parents become familiar with the instruction that is being provided. They must also ensure that their student is given the opportunity to master as much of the grade-level general education curriculum as possible, with the help of any needed modifications, accommodations, or adapted materials.

Endnotes