Getting a job for the mildly handicapped : [an honors thesis (HONRS 499)]

As a special education major, I have a keen interest in the welfare of students who have handicaps. The mildly handicapped are those that exhibit a slightly below normal mental capacity to handle the tasks of everyday living. Almost all of these students can master the skills needed to live independent of parental or sheltered care, but they need more individual instruction and an approach to the curriculum which is more concrete and focused. As an educator of handicapped students, I believe that. one of the highest priorities in the instruction of the mildly handicapped is to prepare them to obtain and maintain meaningful employment. Far beyond alleviating the financial stress upon the society in wich they live, meaningful employment can create a purpose and organization for living which their lives often lack. Since it is my belief that this is a priority for the curriculum of this population, I have chosen as my creative project to develop a unit plan consisting of sixteen individual lesson plans named "Getting A Job For The Mildly Handicapped."This unit can be used in its entirety, or separate lessons can be pulled from it according to the individual needs of students. It consists of sixteen individual lesson plans, teaching aids to accompany teacher-directed instruction, and many activities for the students to use for practice and mastery of the skills taught. The unit was not designed to be self-instructing, but many of the activities are selfcrecking and. can be adapted to individual needs. In addition, the unit was not developed to exhaust the instruction of obtaining employment, but rather as a core of objectives and instructional approaches which can be expanded upon limitlessly.