Dear Masta,
Children who have auditory figure-ground problems (which is an unusual term--it's usually applied to visual stimuli) probably have difficulty picking out the teacher's voice or other salient auditory stimuli from background noise.
Therefore, I would want preferential seating close to the teacher in an atmosphere that is not noisy. Noise is a major distractor for some kids and a major DISadvantage to some inclusion classrooms, is even if the teacher is a good one and trying hard, 30 kids make a lot of background noise. Smaller settings are much less auditorially distracting.
If your children are in regular classes, then the noise level should be a concern. Other than preferential seating (or removal to a quiet part of the room for seat work) this is a hard accommodation to make in a general ed. classroom.
Do you have any evidence (beyond the normal that most people concentrate better when it is quiet) that auditory stimulation interferes with your difficult children educational progress? If so, bring this up as a "problem" and use problem soolving techniques to try to hammer out a solution with the rest of the IEP team.
Does anyone reading this know of modle wording on an IEP for this accommodation? I have never seen anything but "favorable seating" and "testing in a separate (quiet) room."
Martie
