A child who deviates from the average or normal child in mental, physical or social characteristics to such an extent that he requires a modification of school practices or special educational services, in order to develop to his maximal capacity.
Variation may be with respect to:
- INTELLIGENCE
- APTITUDE
- CREATIVITY
- EMOTIONAL STABILITY
- SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT
- SELF CONCEPT
- INTERESTS
Issues and General strategies for special need children:
- SPECIAL SCHOOLS
- MAINSTREAMING
- INTEGRATION
- INCLUSION
Types:
1) Gifted Children
- INTELLECTUALLY BRIGHT CHILDREN
Definition: IQ or GMA score of 130+ on a standardised test of intelligence
Qualitative Indicators:
- Asks numerous questions
- Learn rapidly and easily
- Pronounced Mathematical ability
- Exceptional memory
- Good reasoning and insight
- Accurate and large vocabularies
- Read ahead of their grade level
- Show early interest in printed material
- High quest for knowledge
- Task persistence
- Enjoy older company
Identification:
- Individual or Group test of intelligence
- Teacher’s observation on qualitative indicators
- Performance on quizzes, puzzles, construction games etc.
Teaching learning strategies:
- Enrichment or broadening of the curriculum
- Acceleration or speeding up of the education process
- Double promotions
- Providing additional courses for stimulation
- Making provisions for advanced courses while in school
- Increasing the quantum of work for the child
- Ability grouping
- Special classes
- Groups within the regular classroom
- Encouragement of self directed learning rather than standards imposed from outside
- Provision of stimulation and challenging and varied enrichment opportunities to develop knowledge and talents and work habits
- Provision of extra assignments which
- Provide for individual exploration of interests
- Are thought provoking
- Utilise a wide variety of interests and resources
- Discouragements of marks orientation and competition with others
- Channelization of energy into peer tutoring and other peer dynamics
- CREATIVITY
Defining features
- Novel ideas
- Divergent thinker
- Not bound by limits and expectations
- Originality of thought
- It is the ability to discover new relationships, to look at subjects from new perspectives and to form new combinations from old concepts.
- It may be manifested through a PRODUCT or PROCESS.
Constituents of Creativity:
- Fluency or the ability to generate as many ideas as possible
- Flexibility or the ability to discover new perspectives in an existing phenomenon
- Originality- novelty, uniqueness
Identification:
- Performance or Creativity Tests
- Teachers, Parents or Peer Identification
Characteristics of Creative Children:
- Have wild ideas
- Open minded and not rigid
- Impulsive
- Humorous, playful and relaxed
- Not interested in facts and details but focus on uses and implications
- Strong sense of conviction
- Bright, energetic and bubbling with ideas
- Highly independent
Teaching Learning Strategies:
- Brainstorming
- Attribute listing
- Preparing questions about an object or phenomenon and finding answers
- Perpetuation of curiosity by giving special project work or assignments which involve thinking, discovering and applying of new and additional information on any subject
- Teacher to provide verbal appreciation and other rewarding gestures to divergence of ideas and thinking
- Teachers to free creative children from the feeling that they are atypical, odd and awkward
- Creation of a classroom climate of freedom and acceptance of the creative child
- Promote fantasy cognition and not insist upon reality cognition all the time
- Encouraging individual initiative in all school activities.
- Including a wide variety and range of activities in the school curriculum catering to the varying needs of creative children.
- TALENTED CHILDREN
Defining Features:
- Show specific abilities in some particular fields like art, music, languages, creative writing, mathematics etc.
Identification:
- Aptitude tests
- Interest patterns
- Manifestation of talent in day to day behaviour
Characteristics:
- Bold and outgoing
- Sensitive
- Socially ready to demonstrate their skills
- Bright in general
Teaching Learning Strategies:
- Provision of a supportive and encouraging teacher attitude for talent development
- Special project work in talent area
- School must have facilities for talent development through training provisions
- Hobby clubs to be set up in schools.
- Arranging simple displays/ exhibitions to provide encouragement to talented children
- Simple talent exposition activities must find a place in school curriculum
- In the school evaluation programme, a significant percentage of weightage should be given to talents
- Arranging field visits to art galleries, exhibitions etc. for more exposure
- Visits to the school by talented personalities
2) The Slow Learners:
Defining criteria:
IQ scores in the range of 70 to 90 on a standardised intelligence test. IQ is thus on the borderline. They are thus only slightly below average and can learn the same curriculum with more time, effort and specialized teaching-learning strategies.
Characteristics:
- Ask too many questions or remain passive
- Tend to become social loners since peers find them dull
- Use compensatory mechanisms, like aggression and disruption
- Verbalization of information is poor
- Have attention deficits
- Are poorly coordinated
- Generally get poor marks
Identification:
- IQ tests
- Poor performance on achievement tests
- Teacher’s classroom observations
- Personality inventories and in-depth studies
Teaching Learning Strategies:
- Teacher to provide attitudinal acceptance and realise that the child is not at fault
- Use classroom dynamics to create peer acceptance
- Highlight what the child can do and not what he cannot do
- The child’s mental age rather than IQ should be used to plan a special curriculum for him
- Individualization of instructions for academics and integration for all other activities
- Special coaching or remedial instruction in area of difficulty
- Child needs more learning time and so provision be made for this
- Subject matter to be broken up into smaller units and presented sequentially
- Lessons should be based on real world happening and reality orientation since these children have difficulties in transferring and generalizing knowledge from one subject to another
- Need many success experiences which should consciously be given
- The evaluation system should be descriptive and diagnostic
- Variety of pedagogy ensures better attention.
3) Underachievers:
Defining Criteria:
Gap between mental ability and academic performance and between capacity and achievement.
Characteristics:
- Lack clear goals
- Deficient in motivation
- Disinterested in school work
- Poor study habits
- Lack concentration
- Tend to daydream
- Cannot complete assignments in time
- Usually have poor interpersonal relationships
- May compensate by becoming aggressive or timid
Identification:
- Achievement tests
- Classroom performance
- IQ tests
- Teacher’s Observations
4) Emotionally Disturbed:
Defining Criteria:
The child who is persistently unable to cope with reasonable school environment even though expectations are geared to his age and potential.
Causal Factors: Organic and environmental
Categories of Behavioral Problems:
- Immature Behavior
- Insecure Behavior
- Habit Disorders
- Peer Problems
- Anti Social Behavior
Identification:
- Behavior checklists with rating scales
- Sociometry
- Observation of child’s behavior
- Diagnostic personality tests
Teaching Learning Strategies:
- Teacher must understand that children are not pretending the symptoms
- Individualized attention in an atmosphere of empathy and positive regards to get to the root cause of the problem
- Positive reinforcement for improvement in which mistakes are permitted and corrected with understanding
- Individual counseling in which active listening is a component
- Opportunities for success to be provided
- Networking with parents
- Provision of self analysis sessions
- Teaching them techniques like
- Self talk
- Rationale analysis
- Emotional balance sheet
- Focusing on positives
- Disputing irrational beliefs
- Setting goals and behavior contracts
5) Socially and Culturally Disadvantaged:
Defining Criteria:
- Differ in terms of Language, Culture, Life style and Behavior.
- Because of caste, class, region, gender and ethnicity factors
- Reserved Quota- SC/ST/OBC
- Girl child
- Tribal
- Migrant children
- Low SES
- Children who speak local dialects
Characteristics:
- Tend to be non-verbal
- Have limited vocabularies
- Lack basic language and communication skills
- Find it difficult to follow directions
- Generally do not have much cognitive stimulation from home
- Have not had much chance to explore and manipulate a large number of objects in their environment and thus need concrete learning experiences
- Find it difficult to follow rules
- More interested in instant rewards
- May also suffer from poor physical well being
- Malnutrition
- Poor sleep patterns
- Poor resistance to disease
- Have very sharp adaptive intelligence
Strategies:
- Teachers must start at the level of the children by teaching basic concepts and the language needed to communicate
- Lessons should be made concrete wherever possible and related to the real world
- Many opportunities for success should be provided for a sense of achievement
- Parents should be involved in the program for skill development wherever possible
- Early intervention should be made to provide compensatory programs for child’s deficiency:
- Language and communication
- Cognitive readiness
- Health and nutrition etc.
- Enrichment programs to make up for deficiencies and deprivations of the past should be planned
- All disadvantaged children should not be perceived as a homogeneous group since their needs are different. Individualization of instructions should be done.
- Bilingual instruction
- Integrated schools
6) Children with Learning Disabilities:
Those who have average to above average intelligence, but have difficulties in reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic and/or language skills despite appropriate academic exposure and a healthy home environment
It is related to a dysfunction in the language area of the brain
Three common manifestation of specific learning disabilities are:
- Dyslexia
- Dysgraphia
- Dyscalculia
Characteristics:
- May have difficulty following directions
- Difficulty adjusting to new teachers and new situations
- May have poor pencil grip
- May have perceptual problems
- May have clumsy motor activity
- May have difficulty with timed tasks
- May consistently sole problems the same way despite instruction in alternative strategies
- Desks and bags are messy, writing is disorganised, is unprepared for classes
- Inconsistent discrepancies between oral and written skills
- Carelessness in reading, writing and maths
Characteristics of Dyslexic Children:
- Hesitant and laboured reading
- Missing out words
- Failing to recognize familiar words
- Poor reading progress in light word reading and phonetic reading
- Inability to blend letters together
- Missing out lines/ reading same line twice
- Confusion with similar looking words
Characteristics of Dysgraphic Children:
- Poor standards of written work in comparison to oral ability
- Persistent confusion with letters which look alike
- Disregard for punctuation
- Low vocabulary skills in written work
- Inability to copy from the board
Characteristics of Dyscalculiac Children:
- Slow in the process of operations and simple calculations
- Problems in coping steps, directional difficulty/ sequential difficulty
- Difficulty in remembering tables and formulae
- Needs time to interpret symbols
Classroom Strategies:
- Build self confidence in the child
- Seat the child in front of the class
- Teach organization skills
- Provide adequate stimulation and reinforcement
- Use a multi-sensorial teaching approach
- Link new concepts to prior knowledge
- Balance verbal discussion with visual models and hands on experiences
- As far as possible assess the child orally
- Give additional time for work
- Give clear and brief instructions
- Ensure that homework is copied and understood
- As far as possible give typewritten notes, write them on the blackboard or allow the child to tape record your lectures/ teaching
- Give key outlines, use graphs, charts and pictures to illustrate key concepts
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