Effective Instruction

Effective instruction of students with disabilities draws upon effective methods or instructional techniques that educators use to facilitate learning. The difference lies in how, when, and why the strategies are implemented. Strategies such as visual organizers, highly structured materials and directions, teaching sequences for facts, and sensory specific activities are some examples of strategies that assist in effective educational design.

Students who require speech and language support need direct, systematic, and evidenced-based instruction in order to remediate their communication difficulties. Once initial skill acquisition is obtained, instruction shifts to more natural settings in order to produce transfer to the general education curriculum and to the school setting.

Evidence-based practice entails the use of current best research results to make clinical decisions about student needs. Based on the evidence from a comprehensive literature search and review of published research studies, practice guidelines are developed to assist clinicians, parents, students and school personnel in choosing the appropriate care for specific conditions. Guidelines are designed to address a specific issue in areas such as screening, diagnosis, or treatment, and should be systematic, logical, defensible, practical, feasible, and understandable.