Interpretive Exercise Michael,a Nine Year-Old Fourth Grader,has Been Referred for Special Education

question 69

Essay

Interpretive Exercise
Michael,a nine year-old fourth grader,has been referred for special education testing.According to his teacher,Michael has difficulty following directions in class and seldom completes his assignments on time.Michael's parents,who speak only Spanish at home,request that Michael be tested in Spanish.The psychologist,however,says that testing should be done in English because that is the language spoken in school.When the tests reveal that Michael is significantly behind the national norm for 4th graders in cognitive and academic development,school personnel recommend a special education placement.Michael's parents are perplexed.At home,Michael seems like any other nine year-old.He makes friends easily and can be trusted to operate the cash register in the small grocery store that his grandparents own.
-Suggest a strategy that school personnel could have used in Michael's case to distinguish between cultural diversity and exceptionality.

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Definitions:

Voluntary Responses

Actions that are under conscious control, often in contrast to reflexive or automatic responses.

Unconditioned Response

A natural, automatic reaction to a stimulus that occurs without the need for learning.

Classical Conditioning

An educational method where pairing two stimuli repeatedly results in a response initially triggered by the second stimulus becoming triggered by the first stimulus alone.

Pavlov

Renowned for his work in classical conditioning, signifying the learning process through which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus.