Teaching Methods for Children with Intellectual Disability - Essay Example

Addressing Intellectual Disability and Autism Name Institution Intellectual Disability and Autism Introduction Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by communication deficits as well as difficulties in social reciprocity. In addition, people with this disorder also portray repetitive and/or restricted behaviors and alteration in sensory processing (Stevenson et al, 2013). Generally, it has been accepted that children and adults diagnosed with autism exhibit some deficits, delays, or atypical characteristics in the quality, frequency, type, and quality of social relationships and social interactions with other individuals (McConnel, 2002). On the other hand, intellectual disability refers to a generalized disorder characterized by noteworthy compromised cognitive functioning as well as deficits in more than one adaptive behavior. It is also referred to as general learning disability and in the past it was referred to as mental retardation. There are two types of intellectual disability namely; syndromic intellectual disability (intellectual deficits combined with behavioral and medical signs and symptoms) and non-syndromic intellectual disability (intellectual deficits in absence of other abnormalities) (Carulla et al, 2011). This paper aims at discussing instructional issues that need to be addressed while teaching individuals with autism or intellectual disability in general education setting. Instructional Issue: Individuals with Autism There are several legislative mandates like ‘individuals with disabilities education act’ and ‘no child should be left behind’ that ensure that individuals with disabilities get exposed to general education curriculum and also show progress in it. Due to rising number of individuals with autism, more students diagnosed with autism get admitted in general education systems. Teachers are therefore faced with the duty of determining appropriate strategies essential in helping students with autism to thrive in class work (Flynn, 2010). There are several issues that need to be addressed while teaching students with autism. One of the issues that need to be addressed is communication. This is because individuals presenting with autism have been identified as having pervasive inadequacy in social communicative behaviors such as pretend play, language as well as joint attention (Ingersoll & Schreibman, 2006). Communication encompasses a wide assortment of challenges for individuals who present with autism. These challenges include coding and processing of information, representational or verbal output, reading and writing skills. It is therefore important for the teachers, instructors, peers and parents to support communication in those individuals with autism. This helps the students with autism in understanding, expressing their wants, needs, opinions, feelings and knowledge (ASI, 2008). Instructional Issue: Individuals with Intellectual Disability Generally, children who present with intellectual disabilities develop in a similar order to that of other children without intellectual disability. The outstanding difference is the time taken to achieve the developmental milestones. Therefore the development of a child with intellectual disability is dependent on severity of the disability. Characteristically, individuals with this disability have memory challenges that need to be addressed by teachers and other instructors (GSA, 2013). Memory is an important aspect of cognition and it plays a fundamental role in development of cognition. There are different domains of cognition which include declarative/ explicit-consciously recalled memory, procedural/implicit, semantic-knowledge that is concept based, working and episodic memory. Memory impairments have negative consequences in development of social skills, literacy, language, personal relationships as well as a sense of individual history. This means that academic performance in areas such as arithmetic is impaired and this can lead to low self esteem (Rasmussen et al, 2014). Instructors and teachers make use of various strategies in improving memory in students who present with intellectual disabilities. Addressing Communication Challenges in Students with Autism A trained speech pathologist is of great benefit in strategizing how a child with autism can be helped. Since some children may have no speech at all, the pathologist together with teachers, and parents, should offer an alternate means of communication such as PECs, sign language or augmentative devices. Where the children are portraying emerging language, therapist should focus on building expressive and receptive languages. Some children with autism may express high verbal skills and therapist should therefore put their focus on more restrained conversational aspects of reciprocity and pragmatics. While implementing various strategies of communication support in autism, pathologists help in improving the social as well as interaction- a component of language since they are often intertwined. Of great importance is the understanding that some children with autism are predominantly auditory learners but they tend to be more of visual learners. This means they understand more and retain more of what they see than what they hear. Given the challenges of shifting attention and language, visual support is therefore very helpful as they offer extra processing time usually afforded by static presentation instead of the fleeting character of spoken communication (ASI, 2008). Children with autism experience challenges while communicating and teachers or instructors need to address various issues related to communication. These children have problems in functional language in that they are echolalic-they repeat what has been said by others. Their verbal language is also impaired with 40-45% of individuals being nonverbal. Similarly, individuals with autism have problems in reciprocal conversation where they may show inadequacy in ‘give and take’ while in conversation and mostly may speak only of what they are obsessed in. Their language comprehension and imitation has deficits in that they may demonstrate hyperlexia which means having reading ability that is above average while understanding of the written and spoken language is below average (Flynn, 2010). Potential Strategies in Addressing communication in Children with Autism Intervention strategies employed to enhance communication in children with autism has been classified into three major categories. The first classification is usually known as didactic. These methods are founded upon behaviorist theory and assume behavioral technologies such as operant conditioning, massed trails, prompting, shaping and chaining. In addition, in didactic category, reinforcement is applied as a means of increasing the frequency of a desired behavior. While applying these approaches, teachers or therapist give a lot of control and there are also repetitive phases of drill and practice, defined antecedent and their consequent sequence, as well as a passive responder role for the student (Paul, 2008). The second category of strategies is often referred to as naturalistic. In this approach, behavioral principles are incorporated in a more natural environment applying functional, pragmatically apposite social interactions rather than stimulus-response-reinforcement sequences. The naturalistic approach lays it focus on the application of intrinsic instead of edible or tangible reinforcers. The intrinsic reinforcement includes the satisfaction brought about by the achievement of a desired goal via communication rather than through extrinsic reinforcement such as receiving a token or appraisal words. Naturalistic approaches also help the student to be the initiator of communication rather than taking a responder role (Paul, 2008). The third category of approach is known as pragmatic or developmental. These approaches put their emphasis on functional communication instead speech as the goal to be achieved. The approaches encourage acquisition of multiple aspects of communication including gestures, affect, gaze and vocalization. These behaviors are held as important precursors of speech production. The teacher provides various activities that offer an opportunity and temptation to communicate. The child initiates communication and the teacher responds in a supportive way by rewarding the action (Paul, 2008). There are several strategies that can be employed to effectively boost communication skills in students with autism. Antecedent Packages is an intervention that includes a package of treatments that are designed to modify particular environment before targeted behavior is achieved. In most cases, antecedent package interventions require observing a student in the setup where the problem is observed. This is followed by determining which appropriate environmental changes should be made. It is recommended that teachers should consult with a behavioral specialist who is experienced while deciding on the environmental changes to be made as well as in identification of the events that precede the behavior in question. Antecedent modifications includes treatments such as choice, cueing and prompting, behavior chain interruption, priming, stimuli manipulation, high probability sequencing, incorporating echolalia, non-contingent reinforcement, time delay, satiation, errorless learning, adult presence, inter-trial intervals, habit rehearsal, and contriving motivational operational (Freeman & Dake, 1997). For instant a teacher may want to help her student to learn how to say ‘open the door’. The teacher knows that she needs to prompt the student initially but helps him to make the first move independently in situations that are naturally occurring. The teacher may use a time delay prompt intervention as outlined below. The student is given a weekly half-hour sessions by an occupational therapist. The teacher ensures that the student is motivated to attend the sessions and also responds positively all activities offered in the session. When the occupational therapist goes to pick the student up, his hand is put on the door handle and she looks expectantly at him. She then utters the word ‘open’ and the student is encouraged to imitate her. When the student utters the word, the occupational therapist opens the door. Progressively, the occupational therapist waits for few seconds without uttering the word ‘open’ and the student learn to say without prompts (NAC, 2011). Time delay intervention is usually used to fade prompt or to prevent dependency on prompt. Communication can also be taught using bubbling intervention strategy. A teacher may want to teach a student to ask for a preferred item. The teacher may ask the student, ‘what do you want?’ When the boy fails to respond, the teacher models the accurate response- ‘bubbles’. If the student still fails to respond, the teacher then models the first phoneme of the correct response. With time, the student develops the ability to make request for the favorable item in an accurate way. For this intervention to be effective, an item that is highly preferred should be used so that the student will be highly motivated to seek for that item (NAC, 2011). Reinforcement is another intervention strategy which includes doing or saying something that increases the probability of a behavior to take place. This means that when a person is reinforced for performing a particular activity, they are more likely to repeat the action once more. For instant, when a student is congratulated or appraised using words like ‘well done’, ‘great job’, ‘brilliant child’ or by clapping, he/she is more likely to repeat the action in an even more accurate way (NCDPIECD, 2011). Pivotal Response Training is another intervention strategy that coaches students to react to learning opportunities that occurs naturally as well as to seek such opportunities. This intervention builds on the initiative and personal interest of individual student. The pivotal response training was developed as a means of creating a more effective and efficient intervention that capitalizes on enhancing learning variables namely, social initiations, motivation, self regulation and responsivity to multiple cues (NCDPIECD, 2011). Addressing Memory Challenges in Students with Intellectual Disability Students who present with a mild form of intellectual disability also do experience difficulties remembering what they have learnt. They experience difficulties remembering spellings or even matt facts and although they may remember one day, they tend to forget the following day. Since children with intelligent disability also suffer from attention deficits, this may explain one reason as to why they experience short term memory loss. This is so because students will eventually have difficulties recalling what they failed to orient into. Rehearsal strategy may be adequate in helping these students to enhance their short memory. They also experience difficulties in generalization which involves generalizing acquired information to other settings or materials. Instructors and teachers should therefore use strategies such as teaching materials in contexts that is relevant, reinforcing any attempt of generalizing information from one setting to the other, reminding the learners to use information learnt from one setting to the other and also teaching information in different settings (Rosenberg & McLeskey, 2013). Effective memory teaching strategies are based on Applied Behavioral Analysis which utilizes principles such as operant conditioning and classical conditioning. The approach works by rewarding correctly performed tasks and ignores or fails to reward unwanted behaviors. Consequently, unwanted behavior fades out while correct behaviors are retained (Reynolds et al, 2013). Effective Memory Strategies for Students with Intellectual Disability There are several strategies that are applied by teachers in assisting children with problem in memory retention. Mnemonics is a learning strategy in which students are encouraged to associate words that are familiar, rhyming phrases or words, and songs with the terms they are struggling to recall. Some common mnemonics include the ABC song which is popular among early school learners, before E apart from after C, and the FANBOYS which helps to remember the seven coordinating conjunctions namely for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. Another strategy is that of Rote Practice Exercise which involves repetition of concepts with children struggling with memory retention. Teachers most often create drills which can be completed by students on their own. They can also conduct drills involving all the students in the whole class. Another strategy is that of Hands- on Learning which is used when students familiarizes with a concept. For instant when students learn about a historical event that took place, they may tour the associated historical site to enhance their memory. This is a very effective strategy since most learners are kinesthetic-learn best by getting involved in performing a task (Education Corner, 2013). Another strategy involves breaking down learning assignments into small steps. Every bit of learning task is presented step by step at a time. This prevents students from getting overwhelmed. After mastering one step, the next one is then introduced. Conclusion Children with various developmental disabilities such as intellectual disability and autism have the learning ability although they experience difficulties that results in delay in developmental milestones. Notably, not all developmental areas are affected equally but this is dependent on the severity of the disability. Since there are particular patterns associated with learning difficulties, different strategies should be applied to effectively teach challenged children in general learning institutions. Teachers handling students with autism or intellectual disability should be well informed on how learning process for challenged students differs from that of other students who have no developmental disabilities. They should also be well equipped with various strategies that will ensure effective teaching. References Autism Speaks Inc. (2008). General Strategies for Intervention: Why a Team Approach. Retrieved from http://www.autismspeaks.org/docs/family_services_docs/sk/General_Strategies.pdf Carulla, L. S., Reed, G. M., & Saxena, S. (2011). Intellectual Developmental Disorders: Towards a New Name, Definition and Frame Work for Mental Retardation/Intellectual Disability in ICD-11. World Psychiatry. October 2011. 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