Visual Arts Education For Students With Significant Disabilities

This dissertation proposes to understand how the goals and theories of special education, art education, and the learning sciences intersect in a visual arts class for students with significant disabilities. Art teachers often have caseloads of hundreds of students, including many with special needs, yet arts-based resources for teaching students with severe disabilities are very limited in both number and depth (Loesl, 2012). There is extensive research in the visual arts, the learning sciences, and special education, yet very little of that research examines how these areas intersect, support or contradict each other. For students with disabilities, art-making experiences may be as beneficial if not more so than for their peers (Loesl, 2012), hence the need for studies such as this. This study examines learning both in and through the arts, considering what learning objectives are most relevant and valuable for these students, and how the necessary modifications and accommodations are made to maximize meaningful learning. The art-making processes of 34 students at a specialized school for students with significant disabilities were observed and documented, and data was collected and analyzed in an effort to answer the following three research questions: What do students learn in this self-contained specialized art class? What does student learning in this setting suggest about the balance between predictable structure and open-ended opportunities for creativity development? What attributes of classroom context foster or inhibit learning in this setting? Data collection also included parent questionnaires, staff questionnaires, and teacher journaling and memos. Themes explored include physical and intellectual access to arts programming, instructional and contextual classroom strategies, and relational, behavioral, and communicational programming considerations. Choice making is explained as an essential step in the development of creativity and self-determination. A lens of distributed cognition was used to understand learning supported by assistive technologies, structured routines, support staff, and communication supports. While this study closely examines visual arts learning in this unique setting, I hope this research will provide insight into how to better provide arts access and opportunity for students with significant disabilities, enhancing learning, sensory exploration, creativity development, personal expression, and of quality of life.