Special+Education+or+Desirable+Difficulties

This page is intended to help students better understand themselves and give parents information on what is involved in Special Education and the [|Individual Education Program (IEP]) process. And having certain difficulties could be an advantage.

Robert Bjork's introduced a concept of desirable difficulties (Bjork, 1994; McDaniel & Butler, in press), which suggests that ** introducing certain difficulties into the learning process can greatly improve long-term retention of the learned material. **

"The biggest obstacle in implementing desirable difficulties into classroom curricula is likely to be convincing teachers and students alike that these difficulties are indeed desirable. When learning is difficult, people make more errors, and they infer from this that their method is ineffective. In the short term, difficulties inhibit performance, causing more errors and more apparent forgetting. But it is this forgetting that actually benefits the learner in the long term; relearning forgotten material takes demonstrably less time with each iteration. These "savings" that arise from forgetting and relearning in spaced trials were first documented over 120 years ago (Ebbinghaus, 1885/1964), and yet they still are not well utilized in [|education]  or understood by the general public. This is likely because long-term benefits are less noticeable.

Education is supposed to be about teaching knowledge and skills that students will use throughout their lives. So it should go without saying that teachers should utilize methods that facilitate long-term retention, especially when those methods are easy to implement. However, it's important to realize that certain students might be turned off if learning is made too hard; difficulties aren't always going to be desirable for every student." (Adi Jafe, Phd, May 5, 2011, Psychology Today)

Students often unknowingly make accommodations in their learning unknowingly which give them advantages elsewhere.

Special Education/Desirable Difficulties Wiki Page Guidelines: [|IDEA] (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) has categorized 13 different disabilities that qualify for special education services.
 * Please add information only for missing special education categories or to add subcategories to a category like Visual Impairment. If you add a subcategory please create a new page for the subcategory and create the link from this page to the subcategory page you created.
 * You may also create a new page to link to from any of the 13 IDEA disabilities categories listed below if you would like to add additional content.
 * Only 1 photo per page
 * 1) [|Visual Impairment]
 * 2) [|Speech and Language Impairment]
 * 3) Auditory Impairment
 * 4) Deaf/Blind
 * 5) [|Autism]
 * 6) [|Developmental Disabilities (mental retardation)]
 * 7) [|Multiple Disabilities]
 * 8) Orthopedic Impairment (Physical)
 * 9) [|Specific Learning Disabilities]
 * 10) [|Emotional/Behavior Disorder]
 * 11) [|Traumatic Brain Injury]
 * 12) Multi-sensory Impairment
 * 13) Other Health Impairments
 * Attention Deficit Disorder (A.D.D.), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

[|Gifted and talented] are viewed as exceptional under IDEA, some jurisdictions may include Gifted in part of their legislation.

Additional Resources:
 * Bill of Rights For Behaviorally Challenged Kids
 * National Center For Learning Diasabilities
 * Tools of the Mind
 * UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center

Rick Lavoie video on Motivation Breakthrough: media type="youtube" key="GfBx8tM7B2c" width="420" height="315"