Comparing Different Theoretical Approaches for Two Disabilities - Research Paper Example

?Comparative Essay of Disabilities Among School Children Introduction There are many disabilities which children and adolescents suffer and educationists dealing with them need to be aware of those conditions to impart special training to those children and help them turn into confident individuals as adults. In this comparative essay, dyspraxia and dylexia will be compared and discussed with reference to suitable literature. The essay will include definitions, problems encountered by the students suffering from the disabilities and finally special education needs of these students in an educational set up. Definition Dyspraxia or developmental dyspraxia is 'an impairment or immaturity of the organisation of movement' (Dyspraxia Foundation, 2009). It is also known as 'developmental coordination disorder' and 'clumsy child syndrome'. According to the American Psychiatric Association (2001), developmental dyspraxia is "marked impairment of motor coordination which significantly interferes with academic achievement or activities of daily living and is not due to a general medical condition." Dyslexia, also known as developmental reading disorder is the most common childhood learning disability which primarily manifests in school going children. There is no single definition that exists for dyslexia. However, those who know about the condition and have worked with dyslexic children are in a position to easily identify the condition. According to the NINDS (2009), dyslexia is defined as "a brain-based type of learning disability that specifically impairs a person's ability to read." The World Federation of Neurology (cited in British Dyslexics, 2009) defines this condition as "a disorder manifested by difficulties in learning to read, despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence and socio-cultural opportunity." The British Dyslexics (2009) puts the definition as "Intelligent, bright or even gifted individuals, that for no obvious reason, struggle to learn through the medium of written or spoken language." Other commonly used definitions include "learning difficulty characterized by problems with written or spoken language such as reading, writing, spelling, speaking, or listening" and "congenital disturbance of brain function causing a variety of learning difficulties, especially relating to reading, writing and spelling" (British Dyslexics, 2009). Magnitude of problem Developmental dyspraxia is mostly diagnosed in childhood. It occurs in 2 to 5% of children between the ages 5 to 11. It affects boys more than girls (Dorset Country Council, 1998). Infact, boys account for 70% of dyspraxic cases. The most important symptoms of dyspraxia are poor motor coordination, clumsiness, lack of movement fluency and the difficulty in application of motor skills mastered in one setting to another setting. Dyslexia affects about 80% of all individuals diagnosed to be having learning disabilities (Shaywitz et al, 2007). When only dyslexia is present, the condition is characterized by an unexpected difficulty in reading in otherwise intelligent children who are motivated and have ample learning opportunities considered necessary for accurate and fluent reading (Fisher et al, 2001). The incidence of dyslexia has been estimated to be about 8 to 15% (Earl, 2006). Although epidemiological studies show equal incidence of this condition in both girls and boys, boys are 3-4 times more likely to be referred for reading problems (Tynan, 2006). All dyslexic children share some common aspects enabling them to be easily diagnosed. The increased awareness of dyslexia has led to many parent and teacher teaching programs, mostly based on multi-sensory learning. Mechanism of disability The exact cause of developmental dyspraxia is unknown. Neurological immaturity is the most probable cause of this condition. Failure of the neurones of the right hemisphere of the brain to form precise pathways during the development of brain leads to lack of accuracy in the instruction of the brain for performing movements (Bowens and Smith, 1999). Prematurity and family history of coordination disorders or other developmental disorders increases the risk of this condition. Dyslexia involves deficient processing of individual linguistic units, called phonemes, which comprise all spoken and written words (Tynan, 2006). A child with dyslexia typically has problems with segmentation, the process of recognizing different phonemes that constitute words or with blending these sounds to make words (Tynan, 2006). The disability in dyslexia can involve any task in reading. While a significant number of children with dyslexia share an inability to distinguish or separate the sounds in spoken words, others may have trouble with rhyming games, such as rhyming cat with bat or cannot recall seeing a specific word previously and have poor "word confrontation" memory recognition (Earl, 2006). Many theories have been put forward to analyze the etiology dyslexia. Dyslexia is usually considered of constitutional origin, but its actual mechanisms are still mysterious and currently remain the subject of intense research endeavour in various neuroscientific areas and along several theoretical frameworks (Habib 2000). Difficulties faced by the children in educational institutions Children with dyspraxia have limited ability to mingle with other children, leading to lowered self-esteem, decreased self-confidence and social isolation (Gibbs et al, 2007). In those with severe symptoms, behavioral problems may ensue because of inability to cope with the physical deficits. Decreased physical competency when compared to peers can make dyspraxic children feel depressed and withdrawn, become disruptive and attention seeking and underestimate themselves (Lacey, 1997). Children with dyspraxia have difficulty in adapting skills to different settings. These children also have difficulty in taking care of themselves and performing routine day-to-day activities. They have difficulty in performing motor activities which require coordination like writing, cutting, building bricks, threading beads, ball skills, using cutlery at mealtimes and dressing. In physical education, they lack balance and stability and have difficulty in coordination of movement. The have difficulty in following instructions, remaining on task, articulation, paying attention, organization and time management (Barrettt et al, 1997). Posture is poor in dyspraxics and hand dominance appears very late. These children have defects with visual perception too. Hence they have difficulty in judging distances. Dyslexia affects students in many ways. Children with this disability forget the learned aspects quickly and take longer time to inculcate information into their long term memory. Despite good intelligence levels, when faced with the task of requiring new learning, these children may have more difficulty than others. The children may need instructions repeated several times in order to learn the different tasks and thus can have a negative emotional impact on them (Shaywitz, 1999). Management and special education needs Dyspraxia Children with dyspraxia need special attention and individual coaching in physical education. Teachers must help the dyspraxic child adopt better and comfortable sitting posture. They must break down the physical activities into simple movement components so that the child is able to grasp the sequence of action. Dyspraxic children must be encouraged to play games that have control emphasis or are stopped on command. The environment must be an unpressurised one before allowing the children to participate in group activities. Physical educators must point out improvements and praise and encourage the children. They must encourage reflection and help the children develop a problem solving attitude. Many parents have poor understanding of the condition due to meagre information provided by health professionals. They also go through a great deal of stress while handling the child. The parents feel isolated, helpless, angry and depressed. Chesson et al (1990) reported that parents treat dyspraxic children different from normal ones causing feelings of low self-esteeem and frustration. Dyspraxic children vent their feelings of frustration on parents for failures in school (Gibson, 1996). Since dyspraxia has devastating psychosocial effects on the children and families (Chia, 1997), those suffering from the condition need social and emotional support interventions in addition to physical therapy. Schools need to have a sympathetic approach to these children (Daly, 1992). It is important to remember the fact that children with dyspraxia cannot learn by just watching others, they need to be taught the skills. These children will need hand-over-guidance to feel the movements. The instructions must be very clear and must be delivered one at a time, giving the child ample time to organize the body and place it in the right position. Since these children find it hard to throw, catch and hit balls, some modified equipment may be of use to help them participate in physical education. Large-sized bats, balls with ribbon tails and bean bags may be useful. Reinforcement of movement patterns can be made easier by using counting, music, rhyming or repetitive phrases. Using a gym mat, a hoop or a marked spot will help the child come back to that place when instructed. Cones and lines on floor can indicate the activity area and prevent the children from over shooting while moving around. Children must be encouraged to verbalize the plans of movement and beat their own records. Physical educators must concentrate on initial learning because this is the most impressionable part of learning and it is most often difficult to repattern an incorrectly learned skill. Grouping technique helps an athlete to learn and perform better. In this technique movements are chunked into larger movements. Since children with dyspraxia cannot apply their skills in a team effort or in a changing setting, they prefer not to participate sports. Even when they do take part, the constantly are smitten by the feeling that they are the ones who are letting down the team. It may be appropriate for physical educator to allow dyspraxic children to concentrate on skill development rather than team games. Rewards and appreciation come a long way for these children. Non-competitive sports like climbing, rowing, martial arts, cycling, swimming and yoga are more appropriate for dyspraxics. As far as running is concerned, dyspraxic children are able to do well on tracks meant for running, but cross country running is not possible for them because of uneven ground. These children have increased risk of tripping and bombarding at other objects while cycling and hence must wear helmets (Dyspraxia Foundation, 2009). Dyslexia The diagnosis of dyslexia in students in primary school, secondary school and college and even graduate school represents the first step in its management (Shaywitz, 1999). Since dyslexia is a disability due to brain malfunction, it is difficult to cure the condition. Medications and counseling are not used to treat dyslexia. Hence the main form of treatment would be remedial education. This type of education is individualized and is based upon the results of psychological testing by the treatment providers. The most common method of treatment administered to children with dyslexia is known as the multisensory approach wherein techniques involving hearing, vision and touch are used to improve reading skills. This can be achieved by using educational tools. These children will need to be sent to either special education setting or special tutoring setting or both (Tynan 2006). It is important to detect and diagnose dyslexia as soon as possible so that the child can be properly trained. This is because reading skills progress in a stage-like manner and unlike language, reading cannot develop without direct instruction. Hence failing to develop preceding skills has a dramatic impact on development of more sophisticated cognitive skills (Grizzle, 2007). Recognition of risk factors can help the physician direct children early to badly needed resources, which, at the least, decrease the risk for and minimize the impact of one additional challenge for these children (Grizzle, 2007). The fundamental aim is to make children aware of correspondences between graphemes and phonemes and to relate these to reading and spelling. A meta-analysis by Ehri and colleagues (2001) evaluated the effects of phonological awareness instruction and reported that reading skills of all children, those with a risk for reading problems as well as those developing typically, improved their reading in systematic phonics instruction, a method that encourages a word to be recognized through the building of its constituent sounds. This study also reported that basic phonemic awareness instruction does improve spelling in disabled readers. Effective training is given by teachers at school or kindergarten. In older students with dyslexia, who may be similar to their unimpaired peers on measures of word recognition, yet continue to suffer from the phonologic deficit that makes reading less automatic, more effortful, and slow; management is most often based on accommodation. This allows them the time to decode each word and to apply their unimpaired higher-order cognitive and linguistic skills to the surrounding context to get at the meaning of words that they cannot entirely or rapidly decode. Along with this, various other accommodations may be useful, especially to adolescents with reading difficulties including note-takers, taping classroom lectures, using recordings for the blind to access texts and other books they have difficulty reading, and the opportunity to take tests in alternate formats, such as short essays or even orally (Shaywitz 1998). According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (cited in Bradford, 2001), the most effective treatment or approach to dyslexia is multisensory teaching method. This method employs teaching strategies through more than one sense. For normal children, schools use vision and hearing for teaching. But for dyslexic children, even touch and movement are used for learning. This is because, many dyslexic children have various visual and auditory memory, processing and tracking problems (Bradford, 2001). Using kinetic sensations will give the brain of the child kinetic and tactile memories to hang on to, along with visual and auditory memories. these activities give scope for visual memory by means of seeing the letter; auditory memory, by hearing the sound made in performing the act; tactile memory, by writing in a cursive manner in air and by touching the sand paper letter and kinetic memory, by drawing a large letter on carpet. Thus the learning is multisensory type. Repeated failures make dyslexic children lose confidence. Securing self-confidence needs to be addressed much before other aspects of learning. Otherwise, the child will not improve and will drown is loss of self-esteem. Some cognitive therapy from the teacher and the parents will help the child regain confidence. The child needs to know that like anyone else, he has both strengths and weaknesses. Most dyslexic children have great strengths in creativity, physical coordination and empathy for other people and these aspects need to be high lightened. The parent and the teacher, together with the child can make a table with 2 columns, one for strengths of the child and the other for weaknesses. Since children with dyslexia have difficulties in balancing, certain techniques need to be used to help them gain control over body posture and balance. There is lot of debate the usefulness of 'Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and Attention Deficit Treatment' or DDAT. However, majority of the studies support the usefulness of this program in helping dyslexic children gain balance (Bradford, 2001). Conclusion Children with dyspraxia find it difficult to take part in physical education and sports because of their debilitating fine motor and gross motor skills and also because they lack the capacity to apply skills learnt in one setting to another. Along with their physical impairment, feelings of inability to help their team make them feel frustrated and not take part in competitive team sports. While many dyspraxics, especially those with mild symptoms improve with training and do well even in sports, those who have higher grades of disability cannot make it. Dyspraxics do well in non-competitive sports and it is easier to train them in these. Physical educators must train these children on one-on-one basis and concentrate on improving skills one by one in an organized manner without creating a pressurized environment. Dyslexia is a very common condition in children manifesting in school going age as “reading and writing difficulties in an otherwise intelligent child.” An understanding of the disability by the teacher is essential to help recognize, identify, evaluate and provide proper intervention to the disabled child at the right time. Early recognition and intervention is important because, appropriate teaching strategies can help the child learn and fall into the normal peer category soon. Also, proper interventions both by teachers and parents helps these children perform well in academics and other aspects in future life. Currently, the most popular and recommended intervention for a child with dyslexia is multisensory approach of teaching. References American Psychiatric Association (2000) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR). Washington DC: APA. Barrett, J. Ripley, K. and Daines, B. (1997). Dyspraxia : A Guide For Teachers and Parents (Resource Materials for Teachers). London: David Fulton Publishers, Ltd. Bowens, A. and Smith, I. (1999). Childhood Dyspraxia: Some Issues for the NHS. Nuffield Portfolio Programme Report No.2. 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Retrieved on March 15th, 2011 from http://www.dorsetforyou.com/media/pdf/Dyspraxia.pdf Dyspraxia Foundation (2009). Dyspraxia in Children. Retrieved on March 15th, 2011 http://www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/services/gu_introduction.php Earl, D. (2006). Cognitive deficits. Emedicine from WebMD. Retrieved on March 15th, 2011 http://www.emedicine.com/ped/topic2762.htm Ehri, N., Willows, S., Yaghoub-Zadeh, S. (2001). Phonemic Awareness Instruction Helps Children Learn to Read: Evidence From the National Reading Panel's Meta-Analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 36 (3), 250-287 Fisher, S.E., Francks, C., Marlow, A.J, et al. (2001). Independent genome-wide scans identify a chromosome 18 quantitative-trait locus influencing dyslexia. Nature Genetics, 30, 86–91. Gibbs, J., Appleton, J., and Appleton, R. (2007). Dyspraxia or developmental coordination disorder? Unravelling the enigma. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 92, 534-539. Gibson R.C. (1996). The effects of dyspraxia on family relationships. British Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation, 3, 101-105. Habib, M. (2000). The neurological basis of developmental dyslexia. An overview and working hypothesis. Brain, 123, 2373-2399. Lacey, C. (1997). A First Guide to Dyspraxia. Cambian Education Services. Retrieved on March 15th, 2011 http://72.14.235.132/search?q=cache:1exoY6g4HJAJ:www.oaasis.co.uk/documents/Guides/Dyspraxia_Guide+dyspraxia+physical+education+find+articles&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke or NINDS. (2009). NINDS Dyslexia Information Page. Retrieved on March 15th, 2011 http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/dyslexia/dyslexia.htm Shaywitz, S.E., Gruen, J.R., Shaywitz, B.A. (2007). Management of dyslexia, its rationale, and underlying neurobiology. Pediatr Clin North Am., 54(3), 609-23. Tynan, W.D. 2006. Learning disorder : Reading. Emedicine from WebMD. 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