Melissa,

Thanks so much for sharing your special daughter's issues and how the information has helped you.  Could you please share your thoughts on how much time you feel a teacher needs to spend during the regular class room with a disabled student dependent on their disability severity of course. 

There is no set time amount a teacher should spend with any child. Our job is to assess their strengths and weaknesses and help them become better at the subject matter that we are presenting to them. We should be doing this with all our students and meeting them at the level they are at. Only then can we say are truly successful. I strongly believe that if our students do not learn it is not their fault. All students have the ability to learn. We as teachers just need to help them find out how to do so. If they lack the coping skills mentioned in the class I took, then it is our job to help them find them. I don't set a time on anything I do. I measure my success by the success of my students. I am having issues with some of my daughter's teachers failing to do these things. She does not speak, but does communicate if you take the time to learn her communication method. The teacher and instructional aid have not taken the time to do this. As a result, when my daughter tries to communicate through vocalizations, she is sent to the office for disrupting class instead of praise for contributing to the class. As a result, my daughter does not say anything and pretends to be asleep in class now. They are now saying this is a problem but they creating it. If we as teachers realize that every little contact we make with our students is important to the student for advancing their learning, motivation, and behavior, then time would not be the issue.

I hope that I answered the question you want me to about time. I know that I didn't give a set time. I did so intentionally because I don't want anyone to think that educating others is a set time such as 9 - 5 job. Educating others has no time limit.