Page 2847 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 14 August 2019
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assessments, and records of discussions with parents, guardians or carers and (if appropriate) the student as part of the process for determining and providing adjustments. The NCCD enables schools, education authorities and governments to better understand the needs of students with disability and how they can be best supported at school. It reinforces best practice in learning and support systems, supporting a better understanding of the functional needs of students with disability and developing professional judgement to inform appropriate educational adjustments. A comprehensive web portal provides teachers from across Australia with access to rich resources including, for example, a podcast on classroom adjustments for specific learning needs (dyslexia) and case studies of students with learning difficulties.
The Education Directorate supports schools and families to identify individual student needs and any required adjustments. Reasonable adjustments may include use of assistive technologies such as text to speech and voice recognition software, iPads, tablets and digital recorders and predictive text applications for writing and visual supports and/or intensive one-to-one teaching intervention using a structured personalised approach to teaching phonics.
The Google Suite of applications for education, accessible to all ACT public school students, includes functionality such as Read&Write for Google Chrome which automatically reads text to students and can capture speech and turn it into text. There are also apps that will convert handwriting to characters. Although available to all students, these features are particularly beneficial in supporting students with learning difficulties. All students in an ACT public school in years 7 to 11 receive a Chromebook integrated with this G suite for Education. The provision of note-takers and/or assistive technologies might be provided for assessments tasks where appropriate.
The documentation of planning and implementation of adjustments for students, for example in an ILP, is particularly valuable in supporting effective transitions for students when they are moving from one educational setting to another.
Support for students with reading difficulties, access to educational psychologists and literacy specialists
ACT public schools have a range of support mechanisms for students who are demonstrating difficulties with learning, including dyslexia. This includes access for every ACT public school to educational psychologists and literacy specialists qualified in evidence-based literacy instruction and provision of qualified professionals such as speech pathologists and literacy specialists for students requiring such support during school hours. The ongoing professional learning and support provided for the literacy coaches across EYLI schools increases the access to in-school literacy specialists.
The school psychology service can assist school staff to support students with reading difficulties and may complement the teacher’s data with additional assessment to better understand areas of strength and areas of concerns. School psychologists can help determine the presence of learning difficulties (difficulty in an academic area but not yet clear if a student will meet diagnostic criteria for learning disorder) or a Specific Learning Disorder.
School psychologists may initially be involved in supporting a school to implement a response to intervention (RTI) model, assisting the class teacher in
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