Introduction to Special Education - Case Study Example

Introduction to Special Education: Case Study Introduction In this case study, few important points about Juan are worth noting before proceeding further into the issue of his special education. He is in the primary school; he is bilingual; Spanish dominant for receptive language, but English dominant for expressive language. His IQ is good, and he is better than average in Mathematics. He has a family calamity and has been segregated from the rest of the boys since childhood, and mother has depression. He lost his father in an accident. Juan is experiencing multiple disabilities. These include reading disability, problems with expressive language, receptive language, poor hand-eye coordination, visual confusion, problems with socialization, behavioural difficulties, possible depression, social isolation, difficulties in visual motor skills, and over all learning disabilities. Each of these conditions would lead to disparate variety of educational needs for the student, and it seems none of these can be addressed at home, given the fact that Juan's mother is suffering from severe depression, and she needs Juan's help for her own care. Although his socialization, visual motor skills, and language had not developed, there is no help, supervision, or guidance at home that can help him improve. As is known, special education centres on a process of evaluation of Juan's development of skills in this area; it seems Juan is eligible for an individualized education programme. Examining the legal criteria for eligibility to be included in a special education programme, it must be stated that Juan satisfies the following criteria which qualifies him to be a child with disability. Juan is an individual between ages 3 to 22. He may have mental retardation, which has not been clearly mentioned in this case history. He has definitely established speech and language impairment. Although he is not blind, he has visual impairment. Although there is no indication in the history about any serious emotional disturbance, from the case it is apparent that he might as well have depression. His socialization skills might have been lacking due to this. He was observed to be a loner in the class without any friends. His reticence in the class is pointing to this fact with stronger possibility. This may be due to his basic learning possibility, but a mental health assessment is necessary to rule out whether this is a mental health problem or a result of emotional disturbance. Fortunately, he does not have any orthopedic impairment. These disabilities are affecting Juan's academic performance. It appears from the very beginning, Juan was suffering from such problems, and these were affecting his learning and academic performance. Juan had severe discrepancy between achievement and intellectual ability in oral expression, listening comprehension, written expression, basic reading skills, reading comprehension (Wolff Heller et al., 1996). It appeared that his mathematical calculation and mathematical reasoning was just age-appropriate. Assessing the student's needs and designing the modifications in instructions form the basis of special education. When Juan has been diagnosed with learning disability, he will need special education services, and it can also be expected that scientifically validated interventions against his problems in the rural primary school was not able to result in an expected positive response. This also indicates presence of some unique and individualized learning needs. This analysis does not point to the presumptive cause of this disability. Therefore, a comprehensive evaluation of the cognitive abilities, processes, and deficits in Juan must be available before a final decision. This would also need to include an assessment and correlation with the academic achievements and the forms of psychosocial functioning. His ability has been attempted to be characterised by the estimates of his IQ. For the reference of this discussion, his WISC-III profile indicated his verbal IQ to be 82 and the performance IQ was 74. A student with an IQ of 70 to 85 represents a slow learner, who would need special education. It can be argued that a slow learner is not necessarily an underachiever. Achievement is related to cognitive ability. These can be indicated by disabilities in learning. He had knowledge about word attack skills, but his sight word vocabulary was lower, mainly due to the fact that he had to do numerous reversals in his reading. These could have been due to poor visual abilities. It has been acknowledged that to understand any student's strengths and weaknesses, a comprehensive cognitive assessment can reveal the cognitive integrities and deficiencies. Now the neurologic bases of the specific learning disabilities are known, and therefore, it is now possible to determine how specific cognitive deficits may be related causally to specific deficits in academic areas (Bainter & Tollefson, 2003). The history suggests that Juan has co-occurring visual problems. It has been stated that in academic learning, the eyes should ideally cope without strain in order to smoothly continue reading and learning. In his case, obviously, there is a lack of normal maturation of the central nervous system and the neural connections within them. This could result in overlapping images leading to wrong information about letter formation. This defect in itself leads to several problems in reading words, interpretation of pictures, estimating distances, and in writing on lines. Poor visual discrimination in his case might be the reason for reversal tendencies in both writing and reading. He has difficulty writing on a board. This indicates, he has problems in tracking. This is an example of inability to use vision in the functional mode. This means in relation to assessment of Juan due to the fact that he had learning difficulty, all forms of vision must be tested including distant vision, tracking, and spatial decisions. This could have another effect on Juan. When he is facing difficulties with tracking, he would lose pace due to the constant need for checking and readjusting the work. This would be time consuming, and he would naturally fail to keep up with the rest of the class (Gonzalez & Garcia, 1995). This is also a contributing factor to his reading difficulty. The general language system that guides listening and speaking develops continuously with the language system of reading. It is now known that each modality of language acquisition, such as, listening, speaking, reading, and writing is based upon special functional components. Obviously, from the case history, Juan has poor word recognition difficulties as well as poor comprehension of language. He is disabled in language learning. As a result, he has also reading comprehension difficulty, which may be due to inaccurate or slow decoding. He has learning disability, which means he has reading comprehension difficulty in listening comprehension and word recognition. On assessment Juan had learning difficulty. He had specific difficulty in reading and writing with bizarre spelling. The possible characteristics have not been delineated in the case study, but in his case these could be due to poor visual discrimination of letters, inadequate phoneme-grapheme memory and sequencing for achieving a match between written or printed sound. There can also be contributions from poor mirror imaging and poor writing skills die to poor hand-eye coordination. These have made him a slow learner, and he would need help throughout. Although his mathematics abilities are at par with his age, it may appear later on (Garcia, 1991). Fortunately, Juan did not have any health problems. Thus it is expected that he might not have been having these problems with learning due to some health problems. However, his visual problem is indicated by the fact that Juan did make frequent mistakes in copying from the board. An ophthalmologist eye evaluation must be a part of his assessment. Although, there is some hint regarding the psychosocial needs of Juan, the history is not detailed. Therefore accurate inferences are difficult. However, from the lead from this case history, it can be stated that at the baseline Juan has behavioural problems. This needs professional intervention. His problems and difficulties in reading and writing in the class room place him in a vulnerable position to be ridiculed and bullied. Difficulty in board work would further accentuate the situation within the class affecting his self esteem. His socialization was a matter of concern. He was identified as a loner without any friends. He could not speak up in oral discussions, and his reticence was also a matter of concern. These would place him in a unique situation highlighting his psychosocial needs. This social isolation and lack of peers are known predisposing factors for being exposed to bullying, and students without a peer group are frequent targets for that. Juan will have to be worked upon empathically to improve his social skills which may also help his self-esteem grow to the appropriate level. Legislation and state educational policies require the schools and the teachers to deploy appropriate protective measures to prevent such situations where the students with disabilities may be humiliated and harassed. This may also indicate his increasing loss of self-esteem and developing depression. This becomes a matter of higher possibility due to his mother's depression, father's untimely death, her mother's fear of accidents, lack of exercise, dropping self-esteem due to educational lack of performance, lack of support. All of these may induce behavioural problems in him and possibly, if not intervened, will lead to depression (Rutter and Smith, (eds) 1995). In case of Juan, admission to a residential facility is out of question due to her mother's condition, and her mother has no approval on this. Therefore, the best for Juan may actually come from an inclusive education, where an individualised educational plan for Juan may be implemented. To start with based in IEP and initial assessment, the needs for Juan's plan can be assessed by the teachers, which can be fostered further by the other assessments by the multidisciplinary team. His bilingual status is an angle of strength which can be utilised to his benefit. There must be special approaches to teach him spelling where pictures may be used to boost his memory. Help from other medical, psychological, and educational authorities may be sought. On the whole, the aim of this IEP would be to enable him and to help him function as independently as possible in order to bring out the full potential in him (Lewis, (Ed.) 1984). Apparently, Juan does not have any physical needs or medical needs. However, given his defective hand-eye coordination, a detailed neurological examination is necessary to ascertain that there would be no such condition in the near future. However, in this IEP, it is evident that there must be measures to improve her sensory and visual disabilities. Visibility and comfort in the classroom environment are important, and hence he must be placed near the blackboard in a well-lit class room. The teachers must also adjust according to feedback from Juan. In the assessment, there must be a clear cut needs assessment with priorities identified. He must have assistance with reading and writing. The educational support must focus on areas such as reading, maths, written, and spoken language (McLoughlin 2005). The point of behaviour problems has already been mentioned, which may be associated with depression. Other behavioural problems may creep in, and they may include laziness, lethargy, inattention, and aggressive behaviour. The help of speech pathologists and behavioural psychologists will be sought, but over all, the teachers must use different other teaching aids and strategies to draw his attention. The issue of psychosocial situation of Juan has been discussed earlier, and integration to the mainstream could be the key to his improvement. Empathic friends and peers may actually improve his situation drastically, and the teachers must promote that. The goals of such interventions are to help him gain friends and social contacts which will elevate his self esteem and help him achieve sound emotional health. There must be continuous monitoring done by the teachers. The case does not reveal Juan's mother's opinion, but it appears in all likelihood, she will object a residential placement. There must be appraisal of Juan's mother about his situation and the need for a supportive environment at home. If there are any differences in opinion, the Australian law does not provide a solution. This study provides the perspectives of IEP and the implementation of findings in the real settings, and how different disabilities can be related with specific learning disabilities. These were unknown, and therefore, this assignment adds to the knowledge. This study also helps to understand the range of support services necessary for an ideal educational environment. This is a vast subject area, and awareness of the teachers is an important issue while implementing these changes in the classroom. Moreover, the legal and human rights aspects of special education have also been elucidated in this assignment. References Bainter, T. R. & Tollefson, N. (2003). Intellectual assessment of language minority students: what do school psychologists believe are acceptable practices Psychology in the Schools, 40, 599-603. Garcia, G. E. (1991). Factors influencing the English reading test performance of Spanish speaking Hispanic children. Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 371-392. Gonzalez, J. E. J. & Garcia, C. R. H. (1995). Effects of word linguistic properties on phonological awareness in Spanish children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 193-201. Lewis S, (Ed.) (1984). Education for Children with Physical Disabilities. Special Education Service UK), London. Monograph. McLoughlin J (2005). Assessing Students with Special Needs. Upper saddle River, New Jersey, Chs 1 and 2. Rutter, M. and Smith, D. (eds) (1995) Psychosocial Disorders in Young People. Chichester: Wiley. Wolff Heller K, Alberto PA, Forney PE, & Schwartzman MN (1996). Understanding Physical, Sensory and Health Impairments. Pacific Grove, California. Brookes/Cole (Ch 28 p351) Read More