This best-selling volume is widely recognized for its innovation and accessibility: it equips the reader with principles, values, and practices that support teaching the majority of students with disabilities within the scope of general education programs. The authors showcase real students with real disabilities--letting their stories illustrate, as nothing else could, the challenges faced by people with exceptionalities, and the myriad factors those working with them must consider when making decisions about how, where, and what to teach. Through four engaging themes--universal design for learning, inclusion, collaboration, and multicultural awareness--this book explores the processes necessary for using " best practices" to achieve the goals set forth by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997. Packaged with a CD-ROM that contains more than an hour of actual classroom footage, this book actually puts the reader " in the classroom." This engaging book addresses general learning disabilities, emotional or behavioral disabilities, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, giftedness, mental retardation, severe and multiple disabilities, autism, physical disabilities, traumatic brain injury, communication disorders, hearing loss, and visual impairments. For special education educators, curriculum planners, therapists, school administration employees, and parents of children with special needs.