Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Try and find what works about constructivism and use it. I agree that not all of it is applicable, but it could be a tool to be used on that special student who just doesn't seem to "get it."
Radical constructivism does not work. But we are not talking about that. I don t think constructivism would work for special students but maybe only for the more advanced ones. I recommend Sweller's paper " Why minimal guidance doesn t work". Our working memory capacity is limited and a constructivist spproach might overload it. On the other hand I have tryed to replicate one of Sweller's experiment but I got different results which could mean that constructivism approach might not overload our working memory........maybe I didn t do it exactly the same way he did.....