ECE 499 CAPSTONE DRAFT PROPOSAL
Name: Antonela Saenz
Proposed Topic: Educating toddlers and infants having learning disability
Overview: I came about this topic because in my teaching profession, I am passionate about helping children with learning disability. Most often than not as educators at times we disregard this area and in order for these children to excel later in life then the foundation which is early education is quite important. The idea for this project is to understand and know more about children with disability and getting to know on how to manage children with disability. Although babies grow and develop at different rates, most follow a predictable path and learn to walk, talk, and gain new skills in expected ways. For those infants and toddlers with a disability or developmental delay, intervening early can make all the difference in the world.
Goal: My goal is to better understand our children that have learning disability and how we can show them that everything will be just fine and they’re just like anyone else but in a special way. There is need for educators to have a better understanding on how to help the children with learning disabilities and I believe that my project will be an opener into getting a better insight. I want our children to have TLC tender love and care wherever they go no matter how they’re categorized as different. I want people to also know that these children are our future and because of their disability that doesn’t change them who they are. The
Objectives: In order to complete my project, I will have to undertake the following:
Develop a guide that will help the families and caregivers to recognize, understand, and accept the child’s problems and how they can help them learn.
Meet with parents and other educators in order to evaluate as well as select programs that meet the child’s individual’s needs
Come up with five interventions that may be used by educators in improving the learning abilities of these children
Evaluate the proposed evaluations in order to determine if it will help improve the learning abilities or not.
Production Activities: The following activities will help me in the completion of my project.
Write the extent of the current challenges being experienced when it comes to helping children with learning disabilities (8-10 pages).
Write a literature review on the current situation when it comes to helping children with learning disabilities in the early childhood education stage (15-20 pages).
Come up with a plan on the intervention that have been proposed (2-4 pages)
Implement the plan and then create a report on whether the plan did work out. The report will include a comprehensive narrative including impact on how the intervention helped the parents, educators as well as the children. These children are still young thus the caregivers mostly parent and teachers will be in a better position to highlight the impacts of the intervention (5 pages)
Evaluation: To determine the success of this project, I will complete the project evaluation form.
ECE 499 CAPSTONE PROJECT- THE RESEARCH PLAN
Name: Antonela Saenz
Proposed Topic: Educating toddlers and infants having learning disability
Subject: The subject that I will be addressing is the difficult that children with learning disability go through. The problem is to look for better ways that [we can help these children get to improve their learning abilities and grasping activities. The foundation of a child’s education teaching them how to read and write is important in ensuring that they will have a better transition when they start their upper education.
Area of Study: Toddler Education
Project Objectives: Through this project, I will
Get to interact with toddlers who are already in school in order to establish the current teaching methods that are being employed by educators
Meet with the children’s parents to discuss ways in which even while at home they can be able to help their children learn.
Develop as well as implement five interventions that may be used by a teacher in classroom so that they can improve their learning.
Make a final evaluation and reflection if the interventions that have been proposed were helpful or did they bear any success while being used by both the parents and the teachers.
Research Outline:
Defining basics around toddler education
Why it is important to help children with disability become better learners
Anything currently in place focusing on toddler education
How helping student wit disability is important.
Intervention strategies that can be used in helping the children with disability to become better
Breaking of learning into small parts as it allows for the children to process what they have learnt.
Administering of probes or question especially after teaching a topic in order to see if they have been able to understand anything
All instructions that should be followed by the students need to model instructional practices as it is easier for students to follow.
Use diagrams including both pictures and graphics to augment what they are teaching in class as students can quite easily remember things in relation to pictures
Provision of an independent as well as a clearly designed intensive practice that will help the students understand.
Communication strategies that may be utilized in helping children learn even while at home
Addressing importance of love and parental care as an important tool in helping children become better learners
Emphasizing the importance of parental guidance while working on homework or assignment from school.
Thesis: Children with disability may be faced by learning challenges as the try to get education, however with the importance of basic education when it comes to reading and writing it is important that the educators as well as parents help children with learning disability become better learners.
Literature Review on Working with Children with Disability in Early Education
Introduction
Working with children who require special need requires a lot of patience, love and understanding. Different special kids have different special needs. These needs range from autism, vision impairment, and deaf to dump. Some of these problems Different individuals will be taught on the different ways to handle this kids but love and understanding are constant factors no matter the special needs. For a teacher or instructor trying to include a child with special needs into the curriculum comes with a lot of challenge especially if they do not have training on how to handle kids with special needs. In cases where a teacher knows they are going to deal with kids with special needs they ought to understand the values as well as ways to handle different situation that will arise
Dyslexia is a learning disability characterized by difficulty to identify learning as well as speech sounds and how they are related to the words and letters. The reading disability affects the part of the brain that is associated with language (Sandman-Hurley, 2013). A professional should always be completely equipped with the full knowledge on how to handle kids with special need. Understanding a child development is key. Child development is the different stages that a kid goes through as they grow up. Some of these stages include talking as well as walking and sitting. For a child with a special need sometimes these things do not just happen or take extremely long. There are five major areas of development: cognitive, social and emotion, motor movements (sitting, crawling, walking), speech development. Different kids will develop at different rates but most have the same period unless something is wrong.
Getting a child to understand all the concepts that are needed from an early age is quite vital and important. Children with disability are no different and it should be the main goal of the educators to ensure that these children are able to understand basics they need so that in primary schools they can be at par with children. It is for a fact that teaching children with disability will often be different than teaching children without disability. Most children with disability require a need-based approach where the educator is able to identify the needs of the child and use the needs in helping the child learn. Different children tend to have different needs and this may be the reason why the needs based approach has often been cited as one of the key techniques that can be successfully used to help children with disability
Literature Review
According to Doris Johnson, early childhood learning in a child’s life is important because at this stage learning occurs so rapidly. Children at this point evolve from complete dependence to relative independence as they can now start doing things for themselves. Much learning during this period tend to occur without a child even being given formal instructions. The parents also at this stage start teaching their children basic skills such as dressing, grooming including combing one’s hair or brushing the teeth, buttoning up clothes, tying shoes among other things. Although these thing may appear easy to do, children with disability may find it difficult to do the seemingly natural skills. For example, tying a shoe may not be so easy or doing grooming however, educators and parents need to be supportive of these children and help them learn and become better (Johnson, 2014).
Children with learning disabilities may not benefit from the basic instructions that are given either by the educator or the instructor. Even when there is good stimulation, children with learning disability may not grasp these basic skills as they may find it difficult processing some type of information. Despite these, it has been established that children with disability may actually get to perform better than their peers in certain aspects of development. They tend to have an uneven pattern of development that affects their learning thus in areas such as listening, expressive language, nonverbal behavior and perceptual motor skills are affected. Due jot these unexpected as well as uneven profiles, they become difficult to understand.
In order to understand how one can help children with learning disabilities, it is important to understand various symptoms that are associated with learning disability. These symptoms may vary differently among children. Some children may experience difficult time while processing auditory information while others may find it difficult doing visual tasks. Another symptom is language as some children have a problem processing language being used as well as grasping it thus impending verbal communication. Non-verbal skills may also be affected for example some may not be able to process facial expression, they may find it difficult to also learn skills such as dressing and may also find it difficult to play. As a parent it is important to be on the lookout as a child grows as this will be important in being able to spot certain symptoms fast and getting the help needed from the doctors and getting support also from educators.
According to research journal by Slentzs K. (2010) where he highlights how children with special education can be helped when the start school he points out the need for identifying a child’s disabilities at a very young age. The research examines the life of a toddler from the moment that they are born and to when they start school. Some newborns receive the diagnosis of their disability since birth while others get to learn about it later in life. Some disabilities often interfere with the children’s learning abilities and thus it is important to come up with approaches that educators can be able to use in order to help the children. Children begin learning since the day they become aware and in identifying what the children does. In order to be able to catch the disability early enough it is important to keep track of the child’s growth. The article suggests a needs-based approach as way of supporting children with disabilities. As a parent being keen on what your child is doing and keeping track of everything may be quite important in helping them create a plan on how to help them. It is quite possible for an educator to identify individual needs of each child and thus have a better engagement and access across environments.
According to Björklund, M. (2011), children with learning disabilities were just as likely to become successful just as the other children. Over the years, the educators have tries coming up with ways that tend to help children with learning disabilities grasp content just as well as other children. As an educator dealing with a dyslexic child, exercising patience is important. Including children into the school environment will help her become better by helping her to be more outgoing and free with the other students. One strategy that may be put in place that may help these children is employing memory aid as it has been proved there exist certain tricks that may help a child remember a word. A rhyme often referred to as mnemonics can be used so a child may associate something to the word that they are learning. Multisensory learning may be employed for these children where senses are used such as sight and hearing in order to help the student. Use of multisensory learning has been found to help learners remember what they have been taught and it is an approach that can be used on all the students. Educational games are also an important strategy that can help these children out. With technology, there are educational apps that have been created that will help dyslexic patients improve their learning (Bjorklund, 2011). Educators have often pointed out that dyslexic children are just as much as likely to become successful like other students if the educators implement strategies and program that makes it easier for them to learn.
According to Zeitlin V. and Curcic S. (2014), they proposed Individualized Education Program as one of the best ways of helping children with dyslexia. Individualized Education Program is key in helping out children with learning disability so that they can improve. This is a meeting that occurs between a parent and the educators and other stakeholders. The meeting access a child’s environment, history as educators now are able to have a clear understanding on how to help out the child. A child with special needs such as dyslexic home environment is important. She needs to feel the love and support from the parents that they are ready to help her out. If a child is constantly being condemned and being made to feel that all mistakes were her fault, she may develop a hate towards herself and may eventually not work on her weaknesses. However, a child who constantly receives love and care from home is most likely to become a better student. IT is therefore important to understand the environment she leaves in by asking questions that will help the educators know her life. By understanding the background as well as the environment the evaluation will help describe the student’s needs, their current performance as well as behaviors and services or techniques that may have been employed in the past that has seen her improve
Often parents with disabilities get concerned on what best they can do in order to help out their children learn. Learning not only takes place at school but it also takes place at home and that is why parents also play quite a huge role. According to an article by Doris Johnson, she states that first parents need to understand the difficulties their children are facing. The educators can offer great ways and solutions to which the parents can use in order to help their children. By understanding a child’s weaknesses and difficulties, the parents can be in a better position to help a child. It is important for both the educators as well as the parents to encourage the student’s strengths as this is an important factor in helping them build their self-esteem. Just like all parents, parents to children with disabilities need to understand the balance that existed between helping a child too much and giving them to little support. There needs to be a balance between under and over expecting what one’s child can be able to do independently. This is a great that a parent can be able to know what their child can do best by themselves and in areas where they identify that the child cannot do so on their own, then they can offer to help them.
During speech and language development a kid will always start talking at the age of 9 months or one year. In cases where a child does not do this there may be something wrong. This are cases for children with autism or those who become dumb. Understanding a child’s development is important. A baby may require special attention for some development to actually place. A good example is a baby suffering from cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is a disorder that actually affects motor skills and muscle control. It is usually as a result of brain damage which happens before or during birth. It is difficult to diagnose cerebral palsy especially in cases where a baby was not born prematurely. With the knowledge on child development you may be able to actually spot this problem. For example, between 4-8 months a baby should already be sited or can grab stuff, a baby with CP will actually not be able to do this. This can be an early detection of CP.
When you realize child has special needs such as CP you should start striving on ways to actually provide cohabit able environment for the kids. Most of the disorders do not usually have a cure and the kids are supposed to be accorded with help in order to help them adapt and live their lives almost normally. For a baby with autism physiotherapy and resources may help the kid improve their quality of life CITATION Nov13 l 1033 (Novak, 2013). Medicine, surgery and braces are ways that can also be used to improve motor functions. The classes that kids with cerebral palsy understand should be easy to get around. They should also be allowed to participate in school activities such as physical education.
The Americans disability act which was reinforced as a law in 1990 stated that children with special needs should be included in learning as well as other activities. This law has actually seen many kids go to school and enjoy participation just like the rest of the kids. The act also states that all barriers that cause constraints to a kid with special needs should actually be removed. The law is applicable even to family members. When this law is broken there is stiffer penalties.
A child with special needs should not be left out just that they are different. They can as much do what the other kids can do or even much better. All professional should actually have patience when dealing children with special kid’s children.as they deserve special care and attention. It is always a good thing when you see a child being threated right no matter. A teacher should always be on the fore front in ensuring that the kids with special needs are actually included in the school; activities. They should ensure that also the rest of the kids treat them with utmost respect and show them. We should always disability is not inability
Carol Copple and Sue Bredekamp talks of practices that can be utilized by educators in early childhood education. The book is essential as it discusses the development, learning, and effective practices that guide the decision of educators appropriate to the developmental characteristics of children from birth to 8 years. This edition of the book is designed to meet the needs of experienced teachers, professionals, experienced teachers as well as children joining early childhood schools. The book discusses the concepts and theoretical foundations of progressive practices and discusses the implications for teachers and caregivers (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009). This book, specifically this particular edition, comprises content that on supporting early childhood teaching practices and aligning them with state and national education standards, in addition to many other features and applications that are student-oriented.
The learning outcome of teaching diversity in primary grade children is to promote awareness of other cultures and instill healthy social skills to flourish in a multicultural setting. Multicultural classes allow for brainstorming of ideas, experiences, and stories that enrich the educational outcomes in children. The book teaches educators to incorporate books that feature diversity as a conscious way of incorporating diversity. Diversity is necessary because the world is changing each day, and people should be prepared from a young age to interact with others from various races, cultures, ethnicities, and religions.
Creating or adding a challenge is an activity that ensures that a task goes slightly beyond what a child can do. Using counting chips, for instance, can allow a teacher to challenge students to count what is left after the teacher removes some of the chips. To heighten the challenge, a teacher can hide the chips that remain after removing some and let them use another strategy to determine the remaining chips without counting. The challenge can be reduced by allowing the child to touch each chip as they count. This also allows the teacher to ask questions that provoke the children’s critical thinking. The environment can be changed by adding certain activities and games that make learning fun.
Strategic Interventions
Institutionalized Education Program
Inclusion is popularly known for its effective evidence-based practices. However, the implementation of the inclusion policy can be attributed to the special federal laws established to improve the experience for Students with Disabilities (SWDs) as well as their parents. In 1975, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was ascended into law as “Education for all Handicapped Children Act.” IDEA advocates for free appropriate public education (FAPE) for every SWD in the least restrictive environments (LREs). The development of LRE and FAPE undergoes rigorous team processes to create an Individualized Education Program (IEP) (Wright & Wright, 2013). When a school identifies a disabled student, it alerts the IEP team to convene. The team consists of the student’s guardian/parents, general and special education teachers who sincerely understand the child, and members of the school who can interpret the evaluation’s results, other care providers, and in most cases, the affected student. During this meeting, the team recognizes the annual targets for the student, which represent the student’s “appropriate education.”
This model understands that teachers play a significant role in influencing SWDs’ behaviors. This model evaluates how teachers treat SWDs undertaking learning sessions in the general environment (Gilmour, 2018). This model is advantageous since it enables most educators to allow SWDs in their classrooms under particular conditions, such as the provision of additional support to educators and the probability of the SWD portraying disturbing behavior. The disadvantage of this method is that most general teachers do not have the specialized training or skills to satisfy the student’s special behavioral or academic needs while teaching other non-disabled students at the same time.
This model evaluates the difference in educating SWDs in special-education settings compared to those taught in general settings. Most researches reveal that teaching SWDs in general settings equips them with better scholastic, public, and long-term awareness (Gilmour, 2018). For instance, most students who spend most of their academic sessions in inclusive settings have higher math and reading comprehension more than SWDs in select settings. According to this model, SWDs who learn in general environments experience better outcomes and tend to graduate faster as well as enroll in colleges compared to their counterparts who learn in specially-designed settings (Gilmour, 2018). However, educating SWDs in general settings is disadvantageous since it prevents them from discovering the student’s other aspects like behavior, which might affect their future interaction and outcomes. The use of student IEP team decisions includes other factors that are not available in the general academic curriculum.
This model evaluates the effects of combining SWDs with other peers who have no disabilities. However, there is little research to reveal how the interaction of SWDs with other peers affects their general education. Some pieces of research show that behavioral and academic performance depends on the interaction with other students who exhibit challenging traits (Gilmour, 2018). The interaction between an SWD and another peer who exhibits negative moral behavior may discourage the SWD from going to school, thus hinder their chances to develop into responsible adults. The theory is compounded by the understanding that disabled students tend to showcase challenging behavior more than their peers with no disabilities (Gilmour, 2018). The advantage of using this model is that it enables the teacher to determine the student’s improvement by providing comparisons with other students who attend the same institution. This theory seeks to develop a different idea from the inclusion model by eliminating the probability that the performance of SDWs is an upgrade of the inclusion model. The disadvantage of using this model is that it does not explain why teachers sort out students within school environments using unobservable traits. For instance, this method may wrongly group a student who suffers from home affairs together with SWDs, thus affecting their development (Gilmour, 2018).
Use of Technology
Many teachers are increasingly adopting the use of technology in classrooms, such as devices to help improve the child’s learning experience such as digital books, access to applications, video chatting software, games, and other interactive technologies. The first principle that teachers should consider is that the correct use of technology is an active learning channel that can help children grow and improve their academic performance (Dikusar, 2018). Exclusive technology accords a student more independence from teacher involvement. Unique technology enables a student to select the preferred learning speed that suits their understanding/development. Implementing technology in education programs for SWDs simplifies communication and improves the student’s academic performance. For instance, before implementing a strategy, the teachers should seek user-friendly techniques, easy to execute technology, the possibility of affecting customer functionality, or one that is highly reliable is easy to integrate with educational programs (Dikusar, 2018). For instance, teachers can use web-based distance learning, especially when handling students who have to cover long distances to get to school. Web-based learning enables educators to avail information to institutions and students easily with highly interactive courses, better scheduling, and tracking of academic progression.
Another strategy could also involve the use of special education evaluation software to determine whether they have achieved their desired goal (Dikusar, 2018). For instance, teachers could use the Individualized Education Program (IEP) Software that simplifies work for children with learning disorders caused by developmental delays, brain injuries, or intellectual incapacitation. This strategy is essential to an educator as it enables them to track the student’s development and suggest areas that require improvement (Dikusar, 2018).
Learning environment.
Learning environment can be defined as a physical location that students learn. Physical room where a students learn is an important factor when it comes to helping children learn through the process of reinforcement and association. According to Bandura’s theory on development, observation requires students of different ages to be in the same room. This also applies for children with learning disabilities, they need to be at par with their age mates, simply because they may be slow to learn should not give a parent or an educator reason to hold a child back when their classmates are advancing to the next class. By being in the same class with their age mates they are able to learn through observation. When students of the same age group are in the same class they will tend to behave the same way and they can learn through each either by observation for a dyslexic kid learning through observation is very important.
Studies have shown lighting in a classroom, color, air circulation as well as acoustic are likely to help children with learning disabilities. If a room has dull colors, students too are also likely to be dull.
Choosing the best Curriculum
There exists different Curriculums in education and these curriculums are different from each other. A good curriculum in a school is s important as picking the teaching staff. I was also able to establish that with a curriculum even with your absence or a transfer to a different location, a new teacher can be able to pick up quick enough from where one left off. The new generation also has different learning styles that ought to be incorporated. Such styles include use of technologies. Technology is an integral part of the modern life and thus the curriculum ought to build on the digital literacy students possess. A curriculum will also help the stakeholders see how the students are fairing performance wise. If students are falling measures can be taken in ensuring that they improve or the root cause is easily established.
I believe it is important to choose the best curriculum for one’s child in order to help them excel. A child with learning disabilities may require an education plan that is curtailed specially for them for example Montessori or Region Amelia. Different curriculums will be different and will have different needs.
Montessori
Montessori Curriculum has been in use for 100 years and is still being used by teachers today. It is based on scientific observations from the moment they are born to when they grow to young adults. As a teacher using this curriculum, the first thing to do is discovering true nature of the child and then help them work on their development. Montessori curriculum emphasizes that learning is not dependent on a child’s age but rather how fast a child can acquire skills before moving on to the next skill CITATION Ame18 l 1033 (American Montessori Society). In a Montessori setting children of different age may be in same classroom setting due to their rate and speed to acquire skill
The curriculum guides children through main five areas: practical life, sensorial, language, mathematics and cultural object. In this curriculum children choose their work and not the teachers as they serve as guides. A teacher using a Montessori curriculum will observe the child’s skills and then access their mastery skill. A Montessori classroom will have materials that are appropriate for students to explore based on their interest (Damote, pg. 30). This will prompt the student to want to learn by exploring their surroundings. The sensitive period in this curriculum is that between births to six years. It is during this period, they learn to talk, movement and speech, by tapping on a student interest then you will help t
