ACHIEVEMENT BY ALL STUDENTS WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING GROUPS

Three elementary-aged students with multiple severe disabilities acqui red basic communication and motor skills within cooperative learning a ctivities conducted in their general education classrooms. With gradua lly fading assistance from the instructor, the members without disabil ities of the cooperative learning groups provided cues, prompts, and c onsequences to promote the learning of the member with disabilities. T he results showed that the three students with disabilities not only i ndependently demonstrated targeted basic skills within cooperative aca demic activities, but also generalized those skills during follow-up s essions to activities with other members of a newly formed cooperative learning group. In addition, tests of achievement of targeted academi c objectives by the members without disabilities in their cooperative learning groups indicated that they performed as well as members of a control group within the classroom that did not include a child with s evere disabilities and that members of both the target group and the c ontrol group significantly increased their knowledge in targeted acade mic areas.