Julia Larson SPED 199 Michelle Bonati 4/27/13

Journal Reflection #6

This past week I thought that the participation of students with disabilities was equal to the participation of the students without disabilities. I was really excited that for the first week, all of the students with disabilities were participating meaningfully in the project. In the past weeks I felt like we got most of them participating but it was always like a balancing act, as soon as Nicole or I left them alone they wouldnt be doing much anymore. Since we learned the techniques for providing physical supports last week I was able to use them with one of the students. As I was using it, I realized that if I held the bead on the chopstick she could paint it for the most part she just needed a little support at the wrist or the elbow every once and awhile. One of the other students who usually sits with her is very good with her so I decided to ask him if he would mind working together with her on the beads, and he agreed. You could tell that the other student was genuinely really happy that he was helping her. It was so cool to see them working together. I realized that it is necessary to facilitate those relationships because sometimes they dont happen naturally but thats only because other students dont know how to interact with students with severe disabilities. Once I was able to show him exactly how to help her, he was able to do it, and he seemed comfortable with doing it. The Gent & Gurecka article mentioned that often students with severe disabilities are seen as child-like. I have noticed in the interactions of these two particular students and the other boy that is usually

with them that they really dont see her as child-like. They talk to her like they talk to everyone else and it has been really awesome to see the way they treat her. One thing that hindered the inclusion was trying to the paraprofessionals to kind of back off a little bit. I was able to work with one of the other girls with severe disabilities, however I didnt start working with her until late in the period and since the periods were shortened I didnt have enough time to try to show one of her peers how to help her. Still, I was able to get in their and help her paint a bead and when I started working with her the paraprofessional definitely left us alone so that was really good. Next time I think I will start working with that student first because I think she is the one student who is consistently with a paraprofessional so I want to make sure that she is more included next time. The other students with disabilities have established a pretty good rapport with their peers but this one particular student still has not.

Citation: Gent, Pamela J. , and Louis E. Gurecka. "Service-Learning: A Disservice to People with Disabilities?." Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 8.1 (2011): 36-43. Electronic Reserves. Web. 27 Apr. 2013.