Reaching and Teaching Students with Special Needs Through Art

This second edition of Reaching and Teaching Students with Special Needs Through Art is written for art educators, special educators, and those who value the arts for students with special needs. It builds on teachers’ positive responses to the first edition, and now combines over 700 years of the educational experience of arts and special educators who share their art lessons, behavior management strategies, and classroom stories. The revised second edition provides updated chapters addressing students with emotional/behavioral disabilities, learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities, and visual and hearing impairments.

The newly revised second edition includes chapters on students with autism spectrum disorder, preschool students, and students experiencing trauma. All chapters have been updated to include current definitions and language, recommended teaching strategies, art lesson adaptations, behavior management strategies, and references to related chapters. Follow-up activities are provided for further insights into each group of students. A new summary chapter connects how the authors’ collaborations resulted in changes to two professional organizations. Since the first edition, many of the featured authors established the new Division of Visual and Performing Arts Education (DARTS) at the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) and earlier, formed a new National Art Education Association (NAEA) Interest group--Special Needs in Art Education (SNAE), now Arts in Special Education (ASE).

This edition is ideal for preservice arts methods courses and education courses on accessibility and inclusion at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It continues to offer current yet proven best practices for reaching and teaching this ever-important population of students through the arts.

Beverly Levett Gerber is Professor Emeritus of Special Education at Southern Connecticut State University, USA. She has been an advocate of the arts for students with special needs for over 50 years, and is a founding member and Past-President of both CEC’s Division of Visual and Performing Arts Education (DARTS) and NAEA’s Interest Group for Students with Special Needs.

Doris M. Guay is Professor Emeritus of Art Education at Kent State University, USA. She previously served as a teacher in Columbus Ohio’s Arts Impact program and as a Consultant in the Arts for the Handicapped at the Ohio Department of Education.

Jane Burnette has been an analyst, writer, and editor in special education for more than 30 years. She was publications manager for the ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education and the ERIC/OSEP Special Project at the Council for Exceptional Children.