This page contains links to lesson plans and resources for students with disabilities, particularly those receiving special education. It also contains lesson plans about individuals with disabilities (Helen Keller or FDR, for instance). Resources for students who are gifted and talented have been moved to a separate page but can still be accessed from the site index. If you are looking for lesson plans and resources for creativity, critical thinking, or problem solving, click here. All links on this page were verified and updated on August 26, 2007

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Site Index: lesson plans for special education, lesson plans about people with disabilities, resources and lesson plans for gifted and talented, resources for inclusion, disabilities directories, ADD/ADHD, blindness/visual impairments, chronic health impairments, deafness/hearing impairments, ASL resources, emotional/behavior disorders, learning disabilities, mental retardation/intellectual disabilities, disability history

Special Education Lesson Plans
Special Education
Lesson plans from the Awesome Library.   

Mark Sheehan's Lesson Plans Page
Site contains fourteen lesson plans for the elementary grades with "modifications for special needs."

Art for Children and Adults with Special Needs
More than 20 lesson ideas.

Kodak Special Education Lesson Plans
Lesson plans using photography. 

Teachnology Special Education Lesson Plans
Links to many special education lesson plans. See also Great Ideas for Special Artists.

Special Education Lesson Plans
Several short lesson plans and activities. You'll have to scroll down the page to find them all.

TeachNet Special Education
Twenty-two lesson plans, activities, projects, and resources.

Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) in Writing: Story and Opinion Writing for Students with Disabilities
This site from the University of Maryland provides information about SRSD as well as lesson plans for implementing it.

Learning Abilities Books
Lesson plans, resources, and books for pre-k through grade 5 regular and special education.

Mrs Donn's ADD/ADHD & Special Needs
Lesson plans and units from my friend Mrs. Donn.

Celebrations Around the World
A multicultural, thematic unit for students with severe disabilities.

Vocabulary and Language Development
A lesson plan for 3 to 5-year-old children receiving special education.

Monster Fun: Learning the Five Senses
Though this K-3 lesson is not necessarily designed for special education students, it could be easily adapted to meet their needs.

Centigrade and Fahrenheit: What's the Difference?
A multi-level, cooperative learning lesson plan for fifth-grade science/math. It is designed to accommodate the needs of learners with varying abilities.

Water, Weather, and the World
A unit developed for students with severe mental retardation and limited language abilities.

Ocean Animals
A lesson plan for grades K-2 that would also be appropeiate for special education students.

Bits of Braille
A Braille study lesson plan for fourth through sixth grades.

Friendship and Stories
This excellent site from LD Online provides information and a sample lesson plan for using children's literature to teach friendship skills to children with learning disabilities.

Using Collaborative Strategic Reading
A primer from LD Online on the use of this strategy for teaching reading to students with learning disabilities. See also Improving Comprehension for Students with LD and Phonological Awareness: Instructional and Assessment Guidelines.     

Sign the Alphabet
An on-line activity from Funbrain.com.  

Real Estate Project
A unit for special education students in grades 6-8.

Using Poetry in Teaching Reading to Special Education Students
A unit intended for middle school students with linited reading skills.

Kennedy Years Unit
An eighth-grade unit adapted for inclusion of special education students.

Speaking Out: Self-Advocacy for Students with Learning Disabilities
A unit in which students with learning disabilities explore the importance of becoming self-advocates through a technology-based project .

Teaching Volleyball to Students with Diverse Physical Abilities
A high school PE lesson plan.

The Constitution, Juvenile Justice, and You
A lesson plan developed for Special Education Students in grades 9-12.

Lesson Plans about People with Disabilities
Speaking and Writing About People with Disabilities
Ideas and a worksheet I use for teaching about appropriate language (including people-first language) for speaking and writing about individuals with disabilities.

Citizenship and Disability
A resource for teachers provided by the Disability Rights Commission. It povides lesson plans and worksheets designed "to provoke thought and reflection amongst students about disability issues."

Teaching about Mental Retardation: Ideas for Classroom Activities
Two activities, complete with handouts, that I use in my Exceptional Learners class (Education 105) to teach college students (mostly first-year) about mental retardation. I believe the activities would also be appropriate for use at the high school level, perhaps in a psychology class.

Getting to Know Your Classmates with Special Needs
Though this lesson was developed in 1992 and does not use people-first language, it includes many good ideas for teaching elementary students about disabilities.

Myths and Misconceptions
A sample lesson plan from the "Yes I Can" Curriculum in which students identify common myths and misconceptions about people with disabilities.

Be Good to Eddie Lee
This lesson plan for 1st or 2nd grade titled "Dealing with Differences" uses Virginia Fleming's Be Good to Eddie Lee   to help teach tolerance of students with disabilities. It is part of a unit titled " Differences: Opening Doors to Social Studies with Children's Literature." Click here for reviews of this book as well as ordering information.

Helen Keller (Famous Person)
There are many lesson plans and units about Helen Keller available on the Internet, including this one for middle-grade students titled Famous Person: Helen Keller, which uses Keller's book, The Story of My Life . Helen Keller: In a World of Darkness and Helen Keller: A Life of Triumph (which are meant to be used together) are two other lessons using this book. For an interesting lesson plan on Braille meant to be used in a unit on Helen Keller, see Bits of Braille . For a secondary thematic unit using Gibson's The Miracle Worker and other plays, see Inspirational Voices Unit.   Click here  to find links to sites with information about Keller, blindness, and deafness.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
There are many lesson plans and units about FDR, including the secondary lesson linked above titled Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Disability: Was He Successful in Concealing It? However, only that lesson and one other titled Debating the FDR Memorial, a web-based high school lesson plan, examine the issue of Roosevelt's disability. Other units and lessons available online include The Age of Franklin D. Roosevelt: 1933-1945, The Foreign Policy of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the U. S. Entry Into World War II, Documents Related to Churchill and FDR, FDR's Fireside Chat on the Purposes and Foundations of the Recovery Program, A Date which Will Live in Infamy, and FDR's First Inaugural Address. There are also some excellent lessons that use the FDR cartoons, including the FDR Portfolio Project (11th-grade AP history). None of these, however, examine FDR's disability.

The Polio History Pages
No unit on the the history of disabilities or disease would be complete without some mention of polio, the near hysteria caused by the epidemics of the early 1950s, and the euphoria that greeted the development of the Salk vaccine. Drawing from my book, Polio's Legacy: An Oral History, this site provides excerpts from polio narratives, a polio timeline, and information about the disease, its history, and late effects.

A Polio History Quest
A set of 25 questions, complete with a printable worksheet, coinciding with the information provided within the Polio History Pages. It should be appropriate for use with grades 5 and up. See also Understanding Viruses (grades 9-12).

Resources for Inclusion:
Keys to Sussessful Inclusion
From Teacher Vision.

SERI Inclusion Resources
An annotated list of links.

The Inclusion Network

Special Education Inclusion
An article from the Wisconsin Education Association.Council.  

Inclusion.com
The index page for Inclusion Press, Inclusion Network, and Marsha Forest Centre (Canada).

Inclusion
Several articles and resources from Education World.

General Disability Directories
Yahoo Disabilities Directory

eiNET Disability Directory

disABILITY Information and Resources

Untangling the Web: Disability-Related  Resources Menu

Internet Resources for Special Children

ADD/ADHD
Diagnosis ADDADHD: Now What?
"Strategies that work" for parents teachers and para-professionals.

ADD Activities and Strategies
From Indiana University, this site lists suggestions for successfully teaching students with ADD/ADHD.

Helping Children with ADD Focus in the Classroom
An article from Lesson Tutor.  

Identifying ADHD in the Classroom and Strategies for Helping Students Learn
A Power Point presentation.

one ADD Place
Many resources relating to ADD/ADHD and SLDs.

The ADHD Owner's Manual

Blind/Visually Impaired
Bits of Braille
A Braille study lesson plan for fourth through sixth grades.

Braille on the Internet
Links to information about braille, its history, and its inventor, Louis Braille, from the Blindness Resourrce Center.

American Foundation for the Blind

Central Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Chronic Health Impairments
Chronic Illness, Children, Health Education
A site designed to help people understand what it's like to go to grow up with chronic medical problems, from the perspective of the children and teens who are doing just that.

Children and Chronic Illness
Treatment resources for children with chronic illness.

Yahoo Directory: Diseases and Conditions

Chronic Ill Net
A forum for examining information about chronic illness.

The Center for Research on Chronic Illness

Deaf/Hearing Impaired
National Association of the Deaf
Excellent source of information.

The Deaf Resource Library
An online collection of reference materials and links intended to educate and inform people about Deaf cultures in Japan and the United States as well as deaf and hard of hearing related topics.

Resources for Learning and Teaching American Sign Language
A Basic Dictionary of ASL Terms
A dictionary with both animated and text definitions.

Sign Language Dictionaries Online
Links to manu online dictionaries.

American Sign Language Sites
Links.

Sign the Alphabet
An on-line activity from Funbrain.com.  

ASL Activities, Books, and Teaching Materials

American Sign Language Teachers Association

American Sign Language Fonts
Download sign language fonts.

Emotional/Behavior Disorders
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill
A very good source for information on mental illness/ebd. Click here for information on disorders affecting children and adolescents.

The Schizophrenia Home Page
Information and resources regarding schizophrenia.

ADAA Homepage
Excellent site for information on anxiety disorders.   

ConductDisorders.com
A site for parents who are raising challenging children. See also About Conduct Disorders.

Illinois' Voice on Mental Illness: Families Helping Families
Information and links to educate family members about mental illness.

Council for Children with Behavior Disorders

Specific Learning Disabilities
Learning Disabilities Association

LD Online
A terrific resource packed with information.

The Foreign Language Teacher's Guide to Learning Disabilities
A list of helpful links.

National Center for Learning Disabilities

Mental Retardation/Intellectual Disabilities
Teaching about Mental Retardation: Ideas for Classroom Activities
Two activities, complete with handouts, that I use in my Exceptional Learners class (Education 105) to teach college students (mostly first-year) about mental retardation. I believe the activities would also be appropriate for use at the high school level, perhaps in a psychology class.

Water, Weather, and the World
A unit developed for students with severe mental retardation and limited language abilities.

Mental Retardation
A chapter from an unpublished book. It provides a good introduction to mental retardation from an educational perspective.

Mental Retardation: A Symptom and a Syndrome
Another well-written book chapter.

Resources on the History of Idiocy
Online articles and links.

Genetic Causes of Mental Retardation
A concise and highly-readable article.

Down Syndrome: Health Issues
An excellent resource. If you are doing a report on DS, be sure to see Doing a High School or College Report on Down Syndrome? See also The Down Syndrome WWW Page and UPSIDE!

American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (formerly AAMR)

The ARC in the United States

Disability History
Disability Social History Project
An excellent page with many resources for those wishing to learn about disability history. See also A Chronology of the Disability Rights Movement.    
The Polio History Pages
No unit on the the history of disabilities or disease would be complete without some mention of polio, the near hysteria caused by the epidemics of the early 1950s, and the euphoria that greeted the development of the Salk vaccine. Drawing from my book, Polio's Legacy: An Oral History , this site provides excerpts from polio narratives, a polio timeline, and information about the disease, its history, and late effects

Resources on the History of Idiocy
Online articles and links.

Definitions of Mental Retardation
A chronological list with dates and references.