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How Other Health Disabilities Impact Students’ Learning

It is important to learn about how a health condition can impact a student’s learning development, especially his/her behavioral, cognitive, social, and emotional development. The paraprofessional should know about the processes of analysis, assessment, and evaluation of these conditions. As you may have learned in Core Competency Area 3: Assessment, Diagnosis, and Evaluation, before a team can set educational goals with a student, information about the student must be gathered and analyzed. The process of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting information related to the student is called assessment. Observing and recording skills in the classroom environment are important to the assessment and evaluation of student’s needs. As part of the assessment process, you might be asked to observe the student as he/she interacts with the environment and learns new skills. In order to make full use of the observational data, objective and accurate records must be kept. You need be well skilled in this area because monitoring a student’s behavior and documenting his/her progress on learning objectives is an essential part of educational services. The data that you collect are used to make decisions that impact students’ lives. Using the information from the observation and assessment processes, the team is better able to develop goals that meet the needs of the student.

Many factors affect test results, regardless of the quality of the tests being used. Test results can be skewed by factors beyond the control of the student. Your role, as a paraprofessional, should never include evaluating test results. However, in assisting with this process, you can offer valuable information to the assessment team. If you think that something may be affecting a student’s test results, share your concerns with the teacher who directs your work or other members of your team.

The following example from Core Competency Area 3: Unit 3.1, Lesson 3: Factors Affecting Assessment Results discusses several factors that a team might want to examine to help determine how a health condition affects a student’s cognitive, mental, emotional, and behavioral learning development:

Sensory and physical health factors

• Sensory functions (hearing, vision, etc.)
• General health condition
• Does the student have a chronic health condition (e.g., diabetes, asthma, cancer)?
• Does the student have an acute health condition (e.g., nasal congestion, headache, influenza)?
• Is the student getting enough sleep?
• Does the student eat breakfast/lunch?
• The student's school attendance record
• The student's school learning ability levels

Home factors

• Do the parents participate in their child's education?
• Is the student a native speaker of another language, or is he/she bilingual?
• Is there stimulation for learning within the home (i.e., books, television, Internet access, etc.)?
• Is the student able to receive help with school work at home?
• Are there stresses at home that might affect the student’s ability to function well at school?

School factors

• Does the student appear interested in school work?
• Is the student a typical age or older or younger for the grade?
• Is instruction generally at an appropriate level for the student?
• Is there sufficient time allotted to the subjects that present the greatest difficulty for the student?
• Does the student appear fearful, compulsive, frustrated, insecure, rejected, withdrawn, etc.?
• Is the school program challenging to the student?
• What are the student's study and work habits?
• Is the student able to meet classroom expectations, classroom activities, homework, timelines, behavior standards, etc.?
• Are there social relationship issues: teacher, staff, peers?

To learn more about how specific health conditions or disorders may impact a student’s learning development, review the fact sheets for any of the health conditions referred to in Lesson 1 of this unit. Specific areas to review include the following three sections:

1. Symptoms and Behaviors,
2. Educational Implications, and
3. Instructional Implications and Classroom Accommodations.

References  

Information in this unit was used with permission from:

The Para eLink is sponsored by the Minnesota Paraprofessional Consortium, in collaboration with the Minnesota Department of Education, located at the Institute on Community Integration in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota.

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