Running head: COMMUNITY-BASED INSTRUCTION FOR STUDENTS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION.
The Value of Community-Based Instruction for Students with Mental Retardation.
Community-based instruction is "teaching a skill to a student in the actual environment as opposed to teaching the skill in a classroom with the expectation of transference, generalization, and application of knowledge when skill use is required" (Beirne-Smith, Ittenbach, & Patton, 2002). The five major areas of community-referenced curriculum are work, leisure and play, consumer, education and rehabilitation, and transportation. .
Normalization is "the process of providing for, and to the maximum extent possible, treating an individual with special needs in the mainstream of society as if the individual has no special needs" (Beirne-Smith et al ., 2002). According to Beck, Broers, Hogue, Shipstead, and Knowlton (1994) normalization stresses environments and circumstances that are as culturally normal as possible to enhance behaviors that are culturally normal as possible. An example would be teaching the skills needed for daily living in the community. Practicing skills in the environment in which the skills are to be used gives the students with mental retardation a greater chance these skills will be remembered when it comes time to use them. .
Community-based instruction is most widely used by special education students with severe mental retardation. As reflected in Chapter 8 of Mental Retardation, students with mental retardation do not benefit from wasted time in the classroom learning unnecessary skills. The most useful learning activities are both functional and age appropriate. Learning for these students is most greatly enhanced through direct experience. According to Beirne-Smith et al. (2002) typically curriculum for students with severe mental retardation includes skill in the domains of self-help, domestic, leisure, communication, vocational, community, and social/friendship.