Adapting Curriculum

Pathways to learning for students with cognitive challenges: Reading, writing and presenting

Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) emphasizes the fact that all learners differ across brain networks with strengths and weaknesses that make each learner unique. Teachers must dig deep to reach these networks so that learners with multiple challenges have a pathway to learning uniquely suited to their learning strengths and needs. The results of using this approach can change learning for all students along the continuum as each learner utilizes his or her strengths.

CAST (2002) draws upon the research of neuroscience that identifies three interconnected brain networks that control the path to learning, and carries these networks into the concepts and theory behind the Universal Design for Learning (UDL):

• Recognition networks that receive and analyze information
• Strategic networks that are specialized to plan and execute actions
• Affective networks that are specialized to evaluate and set priorities

The material provides suggested pathways for students as they access the general curriculum. UDL can be reflected in the way information is presented, the way students are expected to express themselves and how students are engaged in learning.

Denham, A. Pathways to learning for students with cognitive challenges: Reading, writing and presenting. Lexington, KY: Human Development Institute, University of Kentucky, 2004.