Teaching methods provide great foundations for the classroom, but what if that class includes children with special needs? Or, if you want to focus on special-needs children, who do you expect to lean on to learn new techniques for the classroom? While local support groups may provide great peer advice, some of the best teaching tools are online, as they often pertain to specific special education teaching methodologies. The following list of 40 informative sites to learn about effective special education teaching methods includes all-inclusive tips, specific teaching aids and collaborative teaching methods with parents and with other teachers.

Teaching Tips

1. Academic Accommodations for Students with Disabilities: Although it is difficult to obtain accurate figures, between three and ten percent of college students report having physical or learning disabilities that require compensatory classroom teaching accommodations.
2. Anita Archer Special Education Teaching Strategies: Teachers like Dr. Anita Archer have gone on to develop specific teaching strategies that can apply not only to special education students but to all learners.
3. Disabilities and Special Education: This page contains links to lesson plans and resources for students with disabilities, particularly those receiving special education.
4. Educating Children with Special Needs: One of the most critical steps in aiding children with learning disabilities is early detection and intervention.
5. Invervention Techniques: Students studying special education at the University of Virginia Curry School of Education and East Tennessee State University College of Education read and summarized scores of research articles about teaching techniques for exceptional learners.
6. Special Education: This entire site addresses special eduction, including programs, teaching plans and other resources.
7. Special Education in the Science Classroom: Strategies for Success: The first principle underlying this road map to scientific literacy is that science is for all students.
8. Strategies for Teaching Students with Learning Disabilities: This site carries information ranging from specific disorders to teaching techniques and offers individual lesson plans.
9. Teaching Resources for Learning Disabilities: The Learning Disabilities section of this About.com site offers a wide variety of resources for teaching, including tips and tools you may need for effective instruction.
10. Teaching Special Education: This site focuses on assisting the teacher in preparing more effective lesson plans for the whole class and for each individual student.
11. Teaching Strategies for Students with Learning Needs [PDF]: This material uses the Nebraska K-12 Social Studies Framework specifically, but the adaptations and suggestions can be applied to other curricular areas.
12. Teaching Tips and Strategies: About.com’s Special Education’s module provides a number of strategies and tips to help special education teachers deal with the many challenges of teaching children with disabilities.

Specific Techniques

13. 50 Tips on the Classroom Management of ADD: The suggestions provided here are intended for teachers in the classroom, teachers of children of all ages.
14. A Dyslexic Child in the Classroom: How to integrate the dyslexic child into the class environment, where he/she can feel comfortable and develop confidence and self esteem.
15. Accommodations and Modifications for Students with Handwriting Problems and/or Dysgraphia: For some students and situations, accommodations will be inadequate to remove the barriers that their writing problems pose.
16. Education Resources and Teaching Sites: This directory is for teachers, providing articles, research, curriculum, assessment and learning styles for students with ADHD.
17. Education Techniques For Children With Cerebral Palsy: Teachers who have students with this disorder in their classrooms should read information on cerebral palsy when considering educational accommodations.
18. Hard of Hearing and Deaf Students: A Resource Guide to Support Classroom Teachers: This resource guide for teachers is provided by the BC Ministry of Special Education.
19. How to Teach Pivotal Behaviors to Children with Autism: A Training Manual: The examples in the manual focus on family interactions between individuals with autism and their parents and siblings.
20. Internet Resources for Special Children: IRSC tackles every known learning disorder and provides teaching and parenting tools and techniques.
21. Modifications for Students with Tourette Syndrome, Attention-Deficit Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome, and the associated disorders of ADHD and OCD require that modifications be made in the classroom setting due to the neurological origin of the disorder.
22. New Teaching Methods for Deaf Children: François Grosjean, professor for psycholinguistics at the University of Neuchâtel, has researched the bilingual concept in educating deaf children.
23. Online Resources for Teaching Blind Students: An extensive list of online resources for teaching blind students, from text accessibility to tactile graphic resources.
24. Teaching Methods for Dyslexic Children: Studies from the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development have shown that for children with difficulties learning to read, a multi-sensory teaching method is the most effective approach or treatment.
25. Teaching Strategies and Content Modifications for the Child with Deaf-Blindness: An examination of a variety of issues that might be addressed for three different children with disabilities in a regular preschool class.
26. The Arc: For 60 years, The Arc has been on the front lines in making change happen for people diagnosed with a range of diagnoses across the spectrum of intellectual and developmental disabilities.
27. The Behavior Home Page: The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) and the Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling at UK (SERC) are collaborating on this Web page on student behavior.

Collaborative Teaching

28. American Academy of Special Education Professionals: AASEP dedicates its efforts and resources to the enhancement of the academic, psychological, physical, and social needs of infants, toddlers, children, adolescents, and young adults receiving services for their special needs.
29. Collaboration Between General and Special Education Teachers: This Digest explores the facets of this new collaboration between general and special education teachers, termed “cooperative teaching.”
30. Inclusive Teaching: Inclusive Teaching means teaching in ways that do not exclude students, accidentally or intentionally, from opportunities to learn. Includes teaching strategies.
31. Integrating Inquiry and Technology into the Middle School Curriculum: Make It Happen! is an approach that improves middle school education for students with diverse learning abilities.
32. LD Online: This section includes articles about how to create a useful IEP, understanding the IEP process, and the importance of good communication.
33. Learning Disabilities Association of America: Parents and teachers can use the tools and techniques offered by this group. LDA is the largest non-profit volunteer organization advocating for individuals with learning disabilities.
34. Models of Inclusion — Four Techniques for Successful Implementation: In response to the call for full inclusion, several alternative service delivery models have been developed and implemented.
35. National Association of Special Education Teachers: NASET provides members with a variety of teaching tools and techniques. NASET is the only national membership organization dedicated solely to meeting the needs of special education teachers and those preparing for the field of special education teaching.
36. Research in Special Education: Scientific Methods and Evidence-based Practices [PDF]: The purpose of this paper is to set the context for the development of research quality indicators and guidelines for evidence of effective practices provided by different methodologies.
37. Special Education Advisor: This site is suitable for parents as well as for teachers to understand special needs and teaching techniques.
38. Special Needs Resource Magazine: Cindy Golden is the editor of Special Needs Resource Magazine. She is now serving as the principal of a program for students with severe behavioral disabilities, neuro-cognitive disabilities and autism.
39. Teachers Helping Teachers Special Education: This site provides a number of activities that are specifically geared toward teaching basic skills to special students.
40. Understanding Special Education: This site, intended for parents, also contains teaching techniques and tools.

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