6141.3 - Critical Skills Instruction

Rationale

Purpose Statement

The major goal of education, and specifically the education of students with disabilities, is the development of necessary skills for students to actively participate in their present and future natural environments (home, community, vocation) with maximum independence.

The use of community resources as an instructional setting for disabled students complements the ongoing classroom instruction and allows for the utilization of those skills in the students’ natural environment. Specifically,

1. The acquisition of functional skills on the part of disabled individuals increases with instruction in natural environments;
2. The use of natural environments reduces the need for conceptualization, and minimizes the need for transfer of skills;
3. The natural environments provide appropriate role models for the student and the development of appropriate social and work behaviors.

Specific Outcomes

Current research from program implementation suggests the following outcomes may be obtained from involvement in natural based education programs, and concurrent ongoing classroom instruction.

1. Students
   • Increased appropriate social and community behaviors, and appropriate work habits.
   • Decrease self stimulatory, ritualistic and antisocial behaviors.
   • Develop specific skills critical to the individual’s independent functioning within the community.
   • Increase independence in community mobility.
   • Develop appropriate social skills necessary to complete community transitions.
   • Develop skills and work habits appropriate to sheltered and/or unsheltered employment settings.
2. Parents
   • Increase commitment and involvement in program planning.
   • Increase responsibility in the identification of skills that a student needs to function within the home and/or community.
   • Increase parent/school communication, cooperation, and participation.
3. Staff
   • Increase creativity and commitment to the instructional program as a result of the development of a more functionally based curriculum.
   • Increase communication as a result of program development, coordination, and implementation.
   • Increase teacher motivation due to implementation of programs in a variety of environments, other than the classroom.
4. Community
   • Increase positive awareness of realistic potential of individuals with disabilities.
   • Increase partnership with the private sector by cooperatively providing instructional settings appropriate to individuals with disabilities.

Critical Elements

Critical Skills Instruction (CSI) focuses on those activities and abilities which the child needs in order to succeed in present and future least restrictive environments. Its goal is to provide students with individualized, relevant instructional programs.

The following are basic elements of Critical Skills Instruction:

• The development of a relevant curriculum for the individual through: comprehensive discussions with the parent; age appropriate activities; building independents self care responsibility; teaching social skills; teaching how to relate in a work setting, and teaching life long recreation skills.
• Is community referenced.
• Focuses on natural cues and prompts and natural consequences.
• Emphasizes group participation in natural proportions.
• Utilizes real world manipulatives.
• Emphasizes integration with non disabled students through the training and awareness of both groups.
• Emphasizes improving communication skills.
• Calls for the teaching of survival vocabulary and money skills when appropriate.
• Utilizes the concepts of planned generalizations and natural consequences.
• Stresses the need for providing adaptations to permit students with severe disabilities to participate in activities.

The requirement for an individualized plan and the differences of skills needed depending on the community in which the child lives, necessitates the C S I model to exclude sets of pre written lesson plans, lists of sequential activities, or systems for behavior management, and the plan be totally individualized to the needs of each student.

Critical Skills Instruction Handbook

Critical Skills Instruction A procedural handbook will be made available to all teachers of the severely handicapped. The guide will provide a systematic approach to develop, implement, and evaluate instructional goals and objectives that emphasize the critical skills needed for each student to participate in relevant, functional, age appropriate activities in present, and future environments. Critical skills are defined as those essential skills that are deemed important by all significant individuals in the student’s life (and the student if appropriate) which will increase the student’s level of participation in activities.

Approved: May 10, 1994