Intellectually+Disabled+Students+and+Blogging.

Intellectually Disabled Students and Blogging. by: Peggy Leggett

Student that are intellectually disabled mild (IDM) or in the past were labeled as EMD –(Educable Mentally disabled) suffer from very severe cognitive delays in all academic areas. To be categorized as IDM is known as mild mental retardation. Students of this caliber will always face many barriers due to their disability. However, one of their primary struggles is the inability to accurately and fluently decode single words as well as a dysfunction in the awareness of the phonological structure of words. This student will always have an arduous struggle when it comes to becoming better readers and writers.

Fortunately, as our world continues to change so does our ability to communicate and acquire knowledge. Having IDM students use blogging in and out the classroom is simply a new way to teach students these students how to read and write. Although blogging is a way to network socially it’s also a great way to actively engage students. Blogging can help teach disabled students how to exercise their memory and become more familiar with basic sight words. Blogging is way to make students want to read and write by implementing a computer or ipad by accessibility of a Web 2.0 tool. Blogging is way to help improve spelling, word recognition and basic writing skills. While there will be barriers such as difficult in spelling and comprehension there are still far more benefits to blogging than barriers. Nevertheless, a learning disabled student will be able to get beyond these barriers as they continue to read and write. Over-all as students continue to exercise the neurons in their brains, word recognition and basic cognitive skills will increase.

[] [] (Heward, 2000,1996 by Prentice-Hall,Inc, Exceptional Children 6th Edition