Comparison of the instructional contexts of students with severe disabilities and their peers in general education classes

This study examined the instructional contexts of six students with severe disabilities and six peers without disabilities enrolled in the same genera l education classes. The two groups of students were compared on (a) the ex tent to which they were the exclusive focus of instruction: (b) the amount of one-re-one, small group, and whole group instruction that they received and the amount of independent work they were asked to complete; (c) who del ivered instruction; and (d) the types of instructional interactions that we re directed toward them. Data were collected using The Cone for Instruction al Structure and Academic Response - Mainstream Version (MS-CISSAR; Carta, Greenwood, Schwartz & Miller, 1990). The results indicate that students It with severe disabilities were much more likely than their typically develop ing peers to have instruction focused exclusively, on them and to receive o ne-to-one instruction. The results are discussed in terms of the implicatio ns for educational programs for this group of students and future research.