How to Teach Children in Elementary School That Have Learning Disabilities - Research Paper Example

?How to Teach Children in Elementary School That Have Learning Disabilities of the Teachingstudents with learning disabilities is a process which involves lots of disputes. Ample research had been carried out on the field for the past few decades. There are various scientific reasons for a child’s brain functioning slowly than others. The paper explores about the general characteristics of students with LD, the reasons for the same and proposes some useful methods to teach them effectively. The child’s linguistic skills, math skills and general behaviour in the society can be improved using these methods. The methods are suggested with reference to specialized researches conducted on the topic and the methods which are prevalent today to teach students with disability like IEP. How to Teach Children in Elementary School That Have Learning Disabilities What is a Learning Disability? Samuel Kirk, a notable psychologist who worked with thousands of students with very low academic performance, coined the term “Learning Disabilities” in 1963. LD or learning disability has been accepted as a disability under federal law ever since 1975. Though the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders- Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), used by psychologists and physicians all over the world , doesn't list "learning disability," or LD specifically as a serious mental or behavioural disorder, it illustrates disorders in various aspects of learning like reading, mathematics, and writing. A child is said to have LD if he or she does not meet the required standards a child of that appropriate age should meet. For example, if a first grader has severe problems in rhyming, has difficulty finding words while conversing with others and isn’t able to indentify alphabets easily, the child is said to have some form of “Learning Disorder”. Association for Children with Learning Disabilities (1986) describes LD as "Specific Learning Disabilities is a chronic condition of presumed neurological origin which selectively interferes with the development, integration, and/ or demonstration of verbal and/or non-verbal abilities." A child with LD does not necessarily show academic non-performance alone. They might have behavioural problems and low self esteem issues. Some children will excel in learning one particular subject like maths or English, while they lack back on all other subject. Some children with LD will excel in academic performance, but they will have issues mixing with other students, working in groups, communicating with others and suffer with low self-esteem issues. Others will have no such issues, but behave in a totally reckless manner, demanding whatever they like, be done immediately. What Causes Learning Disabilities? Why LD occurs is a question which has been a key area of research for over 50 years. Some children simply have less IQ than others. They have very little concentration power which may or may not improve with age. Scientifically there are various reasons for this condition to occur. Memory capacity, hearing impairments, vision impairments, and physical disorders, mental issues everything affects a child’s learning capacity. Some brains are programmed to work better than others naturally, while others take time to do even normal activities. Specific terms like “Word Blindness” (James Hinshelwood), and “Strephosymbolia” (Samuel Orton) were coined related to LD. Here is a table of a few more causes for the same. Understanding a child has issues and acknowledging the same will help in working on it at a very early stage. This will help the gain a better future. The Characteristics of Children with Learning Disabilities Swanson underlines the children with LD exhibit problems in four distinct areas. 1. They have ample difficulty in coordinating their mental activities which occur simultaneously. 2. They have great ideas, but are not able to use them effectively. 3. They lack self-discipline and cannot bring themselves to act with self-regulation. 4. They usually do not understand the effectiveness of strategies and fail to follow them. These problems occur normally in any person, even geniuses. They cannot be classified as people with learning disability. Consider a normal scenario. A student is preparing himself for the exam next day. He decreases the learning speed when the portion is too hard, concentrates on the subject by avoiding all other attractions like TV, and internet and has a planned strategy to finish the subjects on time. A student with learning disability will not be able to understand the importance of any of these cognitive strategies. They will not have the self-discipline to learn, or the ability to learn slowly according to the nature of the portion. They will have trouble communicating their feelings to others. They will not be able to take immediate decisions and perform very poorly under pressure. Their impulses do not act as a normal person and they will not be able to understand the importance of examination or the plan to study strategically. This will make them perform badly in academics, affecting their future life in indefinite ways. They will exhibit this same mentality while taking all major decisions in their life, making them a slow, isolated and unsuccessful person in the society. Elementary school children are generally said to have learning disabilities if they show following characteristics. Preschool 1. Does not understand orders and hence do not follow directions from teachers or parents 2. They are always restless and distracted. Wandering eyes, vague hand movements and constant fidgeting are symptoms of low concentration level. 3. Take a long time to speak. They talk with stammers and struggle to find suitable words during conversations. 4. Take a long time to differentiate between alphabets, colours, shapes and identify numbers. Kindergarten to Grade 4 1. Children are usually rebellious, crying all the time and getting into problems with peers. 2. They do not mix with other kids that easily. 3. They are slow in learning new skills like games, buttoning their shirt, drawing etc. 4. They make severe spelling mistakes and have difficulty in reading or doing maths. 5. They have difficulty in blending sounds and connecting them with letters or words. (Baumel, 1998 & Konza, 2003) How to Teach Children with Learning Disability? Teaching children with learning disability is a process requiring lots and lots of patience. Various theories and accepted methods had been established to do the same. IEP or Individualized Education Programs are offered in several private schools for the benefit of children with learning disabilities. The teachers and the parents work together to find out, the skills the child lacks and design a special program to teach him/or her, the same. Children with learning disabilities can be taught in a normal school environment in a special resource classroom in most cases. Only children with severe learning disorders require special schools designated for them (Hedge, 2000). Developing Social Interaction Skills Different strategies are followed for teaching children of different age. For elementary school students, basic skills like reading, writing, math and behavioural techniques are taught using various methods. Creative teaching will enable children with disabilities to learn reading, writing and doing math better, while behavioural therapies should be taught by increasing their social skills. Developing friendship with children without any disability is a major step in helping the elementary school children with LD. Several researches have been done on the concept. Various ways to make them interact with a group have been suggested. One important way to do this is to teach them use the phone and instil the habit of using it regularly to call friends. Using the phone might seem a normal day to day activity for us. But, calling the friends and family members regularly and talking to them directly or leaving a recorded message for them has a great influence in the learning abilities of students with LD (Manley K, et. al. 2008). 1. They learn to identify numbers better 2. They learn to communicate better by forming sentences 3. LD children learn to take orders and follow them at a particular time of a day 4. Their interactive skills are developed. They learn how to use a new object. 5. They learn to call people during emergencies, to differentiate between cordless, landline and public phones. What might take them a year or two to learn is taught by training them to use a phone twice a day at equal intervals. Talking to a friend regularly through phone eases their unnecessary fear and kindles them to interact with other children when they are met in person. Children who always refrain from group activities started to take part in them actively along with their telephone friends in a short time. Instilling Phonetic Skills Learning to understand sounds and correlating it with words is a very tuff task for students with LD. This can be eliminated by using creative teaching methods and adhering to certain methods. Using thematic teaching methods suggested by Houghton Mifflin have proven very effective in helping children with LD improve their linguistic skills. A theme means teaching words with similar sounds. For example, theme one will cover all words with consonants like m, s, c, t, n, f, p, b, r, h and g and vowels like a and i. The students will be given three to four weeks time to master the words and simple sentences with similar sounds. Once they are thorough with this, the teacher will switch on to differently sounding set of words (Reid & Lienemann, 2006). Students with LD will be handled by a teacher with special degree in handling such students. They will be formed into small groups and taught in the resource rooms. The teacher will show flashcards of similar sounding words slowly to these students and make them read it aloud with correct pronunciation. The assessment will take place periodically by making them identify and pronounce the words individually. The teacher will able to assess if the child has any hearing or vision impairment during these sessions. They can also make sure the child understand the instructions given to it well, when they interact with it closely. Based on their assessment a special IEP is created. Parents are required to teach the children extensively in the home following the same pattern the teacher does in the school(Reid & Lienemann, 2006). If the student is required to copy anything from the blackboard, different colour chalks should be used to highlight every alternate line. The words should be well spaced and huge enough to attract the LD students. Most students will have difficulty in identifying similar words like b and d. They will make minor spelling errors due to this. The teacher or the parent should explain the differences to them individually and give enough time for them to work on the wrong words again. Parents and teachers should read along with the child, award them with small prizes if they read a line or paragraph properly and encourage them to read in front of very small groups. Speech therapists, parents and teachers should work along with them to help them improve their reading skills. Making them read funny stories or short rhyming poems instead of paragraphs will help (Hedge, 2000). Most of the students with LD struggle to do mental calculations in maths. They should be encouraged to work out everything on an extra sheet. Most schools permit calculator usage for problematic students. They should be taught how to use it properly. Identifying word problems will be a great challenge for them. They should be taught to interpret these sentences by writing numbers and addition or subtraction symbols below the corresponding words in the question. Teaching them to use table squares and encouraging them to write mathematical symbols like +, - in bold red colours will help. If the child has difficulty in identifying numbers, personal attention should be given to ensure it masters the first ten numbers. The rest can be taught slowly. Making them write in pages with huge blocks, using lots of figures near numbers and simple brain games will help them understand maths better. For example, a parent teaching a child with LD can use objects of his interest like Ben 10 figurines to make him understand how many means 10. Parents can simply make them count their puppy’s legs, number of windows in the house or the cushions in the sofa and award them if they do the match properly. Taking math out of the book will enable them to learn it better than ever. Even children who find it so hard to identify numbers on books identify them so easily on the TV remote. Marking the children for their efforts and appreciating them for slight improvements will help them gain confidence. Teachers working with them should be informed about their improvement in the home regularly. Conclusion Teaching elementary school students with learning disabilities is a task which requires ample patience and understanding of the chemical process going on in their brain. It isn’t a tedious task if the parents of the child and the teachers are ready to help them do their best. Famous celebrities like Michael Phelps and Tom Cruise did have learning disabilities in their childhood. They fought it with determination to become doyens in their field. The same can happen to any child, if it is given proper professional guidance along with love. References 1. Hodge, P.L. (2000). A Dyslexic Child in the Classroom. Retrieved October 12, 2012 from Davis Dyslexia Association International, Dyslexia the Gift Web site: http://www.dyslexia.com/library/classroom.htm 2. Baumel, Jan (1998). Learning disabilities: What are they and what should you watch for? Retrieved October 12, 2012 from Great Schools website: http://www.greatschools.org/special-education/LD-ADHD/408-learning-disabilities-an-overview.gs?page=all 3. Konza, Deslea (2003). Teaching Children with Reading Difficulties. Social Science Press. pp. 36 4. Reid, Robert & Lienemann, Torri Ortiz (2006). Strategy Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities. The Guilford Press. pp.4, 36. 5. Manley K, Collins B, Stenhoff D, Kleinert H (2008). Using a System of Least Prompts Procedure to Teach Telephone Skills to Elementary Students with Cognitive Disabilities. Springer Science + Business Media. 6. Daly E, Johnson S, LeClair C (2008). An Experimental Analysis of Phoneme Blending and Segmenting Skills. Springer Science + Business Media. Read More