ACCESS! Teaching Writing Skills to Students With Intellectual Disability

Given the expectations that all students receive access to the general curriculum, instruction for students with intellectual disabilities (ID) must include teaching written expression. There is evidence to suggest that with proper instruction, students with more intensive support needs can indeed learn to write (Joseph & Konrad, 2009). The purpose of this paper is to provide teachers with tools they can use to teach and support the development of written expression skills for school-age students with ID. These tools will be presented around the mnemonic “ACCESS” (Accommodations and Assistive technologies, Concrete topics, Critical skills, Explicit instruction, Strategy instruction, Systematic evaluation).