Interdisciplinary Connections to Special Education: Key Related Professionals Involved: Volume 30B

The role of the school nurse has evolved. It has expanded from administering first aid and promoting hand washing to key participation in program planning for health and educational outcomes for the school-aged child. Nurses provide leadership in promoting a healthy and safe school environment, case management of chronically ill children, collaboration between family and school, and referral to essential community resources. Additionally, the school nurse is a valuable resource on the multidisciplinary special education team. The school nurse is the health care expert in the school and is in a unique position to meet the actual and potential needs of all students – including those with special needs.

The relationship between learning and mental health, as well as a growing body of literature, underscores the need for art therapy in educational settings. This is particularly true for learners with special needs. Shostak et al. (1985) affirmed that “for children with special needs, art therapy in a school setting can offer opportunities to work through obstacles that impede educational success” (p. 19). School art therapy facilitates improved social interaction, increased learning behaviors, appropriate affective development, and increased empathy and personal well-being. It can be adapted to meet the specific developmental needs of individual students and to parallel students’ developmental, learning, and behavioral objectives. This chapter introduces the reader to the history and basic constructs of art therapy as a psychoeducational therapeutic intervention in schools. Model programs are identified, as well as the role of the art therapist within the context of K-12 education settings. Additionally, examples of special populations who benefit from art therapy intervention within school systems are provided, along with considerations for school-wide art therapy.

Children must meet various physical demands during the school day in order to be successful from both an educational and a social standpoint. They use important motor skills to move in the halls, sit quietly at a desk, and participate with peers on the playground. Physical therapists play an important role in facilitating the development of these motor skills in order to allow for optimal participation and socialization for each student. This chapter provides a description of the various roles played by the physical therapist within the school setting. The physical therapist may provide direct service to children receiving related services, indirect service to teachers and other staff by providing instruction or recommendations for children within the classroom setting, and consultation for staff and administration addressing issues that affect the student population as a whole.

This chapter provides an overview of speech-language pathology including education and training requirements of the field of speech-language pathology and the typical role that speech-language pathologists play as members of school-based teams serving children with speech-language-hearing related delays and disorders. A description of the primary areas of treatment is provided along with suggestions for how collaboration with additional team members and families are involved in school-based intervention plans.

Music education and music therapy offer many positive benefits for students with disabilities. This chapter highlights some of the most recent research in both fields and in neuroscience that offers strategies for special educators to use to increase inclusion in music classes and ensembles.

The focus of this chapter is to provide an overview of the role of adapted physical education in the school curriculum as determined by federal law. Adapted physical education is not a new concept, yet dependent upon school district resources, students with unique motor needs may or may not have access to adapted physical education provided by professionals trained in this special education field.

General education and special education teachers may have limited experience working with students who are deaf/hard of hearing and be unaware of the professionals and specialist who may work with those students. When a student has a hearing loss, there are a variety of additional professionals with whom teachers must collaborate. The roles of these professionals may be different than those experienced by other educators. An understanding of the roles of these various professionals is important to ensuring the most appropriate service provision for students with hearing loss. This chapter will specifically discuss the roles of teachers of the deaf, interpreters, and audiologists as well as some other related service providers within the context of a fictional case scenario.

The treatment and care of persons with a disability should and must be all encompassing. With the expansion of the knowledge that proper dieting can make a difference in the individual’s development and quality of life, attention must be focused on using proper food intake to remediate the negative impact of a disability. Food is related to proper healthcare; therefore, we must include proper nutrition in working with learners with exceptionalities. We must add to the list of treatments not only educational intervention, social interaction, and independent living, but also food intake. This chapter looks at the dietary needs of several disabling conditions, and addresses how particular dietary food selections help in their development and their ability to learn integration, playing skills with others, and working independently when called on to do so. Therefore, for the purposes of this chapter, we focus on exceptionalities such as cognitive disability, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Down syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), muscular dystrophy, and cystic fibrosis.

Eating and swallowing are natural processes for sustaining life. Every occasion that we celebrate involves food. Swallowing is a complex and intricate process that involves the coordination of neural control, muscles, nerves, and respiration working together for normal swallowing to occur. When a traumatic event occurs that compromises those systems, swallowing will inevitably be affected. Children who have sustained traumatic events will have devastating effects on normal development and swallowing. Some may require feeding tubes as their primary source of nutrition while others may require the assistance of a speech-language pathologist. This chapter will provide insight in conditions that impact feeding and swallowing and the role of specialists working with learners who exhibit those problems.

In most classrooms, where information is presented orally via spoken language, accurate knowledge of a student’s hearing status is crucial so that the interdisciplinary team can ensure appropriate service provision. Audiologists play a key role on the interdisciplinary team to provide other professionals with information about children’s hearing status, communication needs, device use, and intervention strategies. Conversely, audiologists gain valuable information and strategies from other team members.

The role of the teacher of students with visual impairments and the role of the orientation and mobility specialist are presented and discussed in this chapter. Background information about the population of students who are visually impaired and their unique disability-specific characteristics is also provided to situate the role of vision specialists within the context of the population that they serve. The population of students served by teachers of students with visual impairments and orientation and mobility specialists is incredibly diverse. Vision specialists enable students who are visually impaired to overcame barriers and create educational successes within the Common Core and Expanded Core Curriculum. The Expanded Core Curriculum is an additional set of disability-specific skills and a framework used in the planning, instruction, and assessment of student learning. Vision specialists work closely with parents and school professionals to adapt the educational environment and support their students.