Exceptional Lives: Practice, Progress, & Dignity in Today's Schools, 9th edition

For introductory courses in special education or inclusion.

Real students, real stories and real solutions

Exceptional Lives pairs real-life stories about children, their families and their educators with the most recent evidence-based research on inclusion of students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment.

The 9th Edition highlights the important themes of ensuring students' progress using research-based instruction and the ethical principle of dignity. New chapters examine educational progress and long-term outcomes, school-wide supports, cross-cutting instructional approaches, and diversity and social justice.

Hallmark features of this title

• Real-world chapter-opening vignettes tell the stories of actual students with exceptionalities, their families, their teachers, and the other important professionals who impact their lives.
• My Voice features highlight the collaborations, challenges, and triumphs involved in special education through the first-person experiences of students, families, and teachers.
• Into Practice features describe practical, step-by-step strategies. Every categorical chapter presents strategies across grade levels to give all prospective teachers real-life examples.
• Inclusion Tips provide helpful advice and strategies for inclusion in regard to including students with specific disability issues in the general curriculum.

New and updated features of this title

• NEW: A focus on educational progress reflects the recent Supreme Court decision (2017) that says special educators must offer their students an education that is appropriately ambitious and offers them challenging objectives (Chapter 1).
• NEW: A chapter on diversity and cultural justice describes the progress of the civil rights movement in education; summarizes research findings about cultural bias related to disability and race; teaches readers about how disability intersects challenges of students from diverse populations and provides strategies for teaching restorative practices and being a culturally responsive teacher (Chapter 3).
• NEW: A chapter on progress examines how the Supreme Court decision affects special education teaching and learning (Chapter 4).
• NEW: A chapter on school-wide supports describes the most common and most research-based tiered systems to promote educational progress and self-determination: school-wide positive behavior intervention and supports (SW-PBIS); response to intervention (RTI) and comprehensive, integrated 3-tiered systems (Ci3T) (Chapter 5).
• NEW: A chapter on cross-cutting instructional approaches focuses on designing learning environments that promote students' progress (Chapter 6).