Understanding Inclusiveness and Special Needs

Inclusiveness

• Students attend school to amass a variety of learning experiences
• Some students seem to learn faster, while others learn more slowly

Reasons for Slower Learning

• Teaching methodologies lacking accommodation for all learning needs
• Environmental deprivations
• Sensory, physical, or health impairments without proper school support

Children With Special Needs

• Children with special needs deviate from the normal or average child in mental, physical, and social characteristics
• This deviation necessitates modification of school practices

Grouping Children With Similar Characteristics for Instructional Purposes

• Sensory impairments include visual and hearing impairments
• Intellectual differences include superior abilities, talent, or low intellectual capabilities
• Communication disorders include language and speech disorder
• Learning difficulties include developmental or academic learning disorders
• Physical and health-related problems comprise physical/motor-related problems or health-related difficulties
• Emotional and behavior disorders include social maladjustment, emotional disturbances, and childhood psychoses
• Multiple disabilities and children at risk involve those with severe or multiple disabilities, or vulnerable ones due to socially or environmentally intruding barriers

Autism

• A developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age 3 that adversely affects a child's educational performance
• Engaging in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements
• Resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines
• Unusual responses to sensory experiences
• A neurodevelopment disorder defined by impairments in social and communication development, accompanied by stereotyped patterns of behavior and interest (Landa, 2007)

Definition of Terminologies

• Impairment: Refers to any loss or lack of psychological, physiological, or anatomical structure or function: an abnormality of body structure
  • Amputations
  • Mental illness
  • Near-sightedness
  • Arthritis
  • Dementia
• Disability: Any restriction or lack of ability resulting from impairment to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal
  • Reading or seeing difficulty
  • Inability moving
• Handicap: A disadvantage for a given individual, resulting from an impairment or disability that limits or prevents the fulfillment of a role
  • Impairment does not always result in a disability
  • Paralysis of the lower limbs is a vocational disability for a dancer, but not for a bookkeeper

Relationship Between Impairment, Disability, and Handicap

• Impairment (near-sightedness) can lead to disability (difficulty seeing), which can lead to handicap (inability to get spectacles)

Causes of Disabilities

• Genetic causes like Down syndrome, diseases, illnesses, and overexposure to X-rays
• Environmental factors like poverty and malnutrition in pregnant mothers
• These factors can cause poor development of vital organs in the child
• This can lead to disability after birth
• Other factors include exposure to toxic chemicals and illnesses
• Unknown causes: humans have yet to find the answers to all the defects found in the human body
• Inaccessible environments: society sometimes makes it difficult for people with some impairment to function freely, e.g., infrastructure

Types of Impairments/Disabilities

• Visual Impairment: Any kind of vision loss, whether the person cannot see at all or has partial vision loss.
  • Blindness: vision loss not correctable with eyeglasses/lens
  • Low vision: partial sight affecting central or peripheral vision
• Hearing Impairment: A general term indicating a spectrum of hearing loss from mild to profound
  • Hard of Hearing: A hearing impairment, whether permanent or fluctuating, which adversely affects a child's educational performance -Deaf: Difficulty understanding speech, even with hearing aids but capable of successful communication in sign language

Specific Learning Disability

• A disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or using language, spoken or written
• Manifested in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations
• The person appears normal and intelligent, yet may be unable to demonstrate the expected skill level for their age

Types of Specific Learning Disabilities

• Auditory Processing Disorder (APD): Adversely affects how sound that travels unimpeded through the ear is processed or interpreted by the brain
• Dyscalculia: Affects a person's ability to understand numbers and learn math
• Dysgraphia: Affects a person's handwriting ability and fine motor skills
• Dyslexia/Language-Based Learning Disability: Affects reading and related language-based processing skills
• Language Processing Disorder: Difficulty attaching meaning to sound groups that form words, sentences, and stories
• Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities: Characterized by a significant discrepancy between higher verbal skills and weaker motor, visual-spatial, and social skills
• Visual Perceptual/Visual Motor Deficit: Affects the understanding of information that a person sees, or the ability to draw or copy

Speech and Language Impairments

• A communication disorder such as stuttering, impaired articulation, language impairment, or a voice impairment that adversely affects a child's educational performance
  • Articulation disorders: Errors in the production of speech sounds that may be related to anatomical or physiological limitations in the skeletal, muscular, or neuromuscular support for speech production
    • Omissions
    • Substitutions
    • Distortions
  • Fluency disorders: Difficulties with the rhythm and timing of speech characterized by hesitations, repetitions/prolongations of sounds
  • Voice disorders: Problems with the quality of one's voice resulting from disorders in the larynx

Language Impairments

• Includes phonological, morphological, semantic, and syntactic disorders, and pragmatic difficulties
  • Phonological disorders: Abnormal organization of the phonological system, or a significant deficit in speech production or perception
    • The child is hard to understand or does not say sounds correctly, e.g., d, p, b
  • Morphological disorders: Difficulties with morphological inflections: inflections on nouns, verbs, and adjectives signal different kinds of meanings
    • Singular/plural, conjunction, etc
  • Semantic disorders: Characterized by poor vocabulary development, inappropriate use of word meanings, and/or inability to comprehend word meanings
  • Syntactic deficits: Characterized by difficulty in acquiring word order and grammar rules, such as subject-verb agreement
  • Pragmatic difficulties: Problems understanding and using language in differing social contexts
    • Understanding rules for eye contact, respecting personal space, requesting info and introducing topics

Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

• Exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and adversely affects educational performance
  • Inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors
  • Inability to build or maintain interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers
  • Inappropriate behavior or feelings under normal circumstances
  • General pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression
  • Tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems

Classification of Behavioral and Emotional Disorders Classified Differently by Different Scholars

 - Conduct disorder: Seeking attention, disruptive and "acting out", or being covert
 - Socialized aggression: Joining a subculture group of peers who are openly disrespectful to peers, teachers, and parents
 - Attention problems: Having an attention deficit, being easily destructible, and struggling with concentration
 - Anxiety/Withdrawn: Being self-conscious, reserved, unsure, anxious, and frequently depressed
 - Psychotic behavior: Showing bizarre behavior, hallucinating, and dealing in a fantasy world
 - Motor excess: Being hyperactive, unable to sit still or listen, and struggling to focus

Kauffman (1993) Classifications

 - Externalizing behavior: Under-controlled disorders such as disobedience, disruptiveness, fighting, temper tantrums, and irresponsibility
 - Internalizing behavior: Over-controlled disorders such as anxiety, immaturity, shyness, social withdrawal, and feelings of inadequacy

Causes of Behavioral and Emotional Disorders

• Biological- genetic disorders, brain damage, and malnutrition cause allergies, temperament and damage to the central nervous system.
• Family factors- family interactions, family influence, child abuse, neglect, and poor disciplinary practices at home.
• Cultural factors- traditional and cultural negative practices, for example watching violence and sexually oriented movies and TV programs.
• Environmental factors- peer pressure, living in impoverished areas, and schooling practices that are unresponsive to individual needs.

Intellectual Disability

• Significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior
• Covers many everyday social and practical skills (before 18)
• Diagnosis is made based on the following three criteria:
  • Subaverage intellectual functioning: General mental capacity such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, and so on (IQ<70).
  • Significant limitations exist in two or more adaptive skill areas:
    • Conceptual skills: Language with literacy and money with time
    • Social skills: Interpersonal skills and social responsibility

Impact of Intellectual Disability on Learning, Adaptation to Home, School, and Community Environments

 - General cognition vary, and vary physically, emotionally, personality, disposition, and beliefs.
 - Learning and Memory is significantly below average in comparison to peers without disabilities
 - Attention is used with difficulty distinguishing and attending to relevant questions in both learning and social situtations
 - Adaptive Skills exhibit difficulty with learning and applying skills
 - Speech and Language have delayed speech and language comprehension and or formulation difficulties
 - Motivation lack motivation, or outer-directed behavior
 - Academic Achievement to problems in academic acheivment
 - Physical characteristics severe and profound intellectual disabilities that affect nearly everyaspect of intellectual and physical development

Levels and Areas of Support for Intellectual Disabilities

• Intermittent support provides occasional consultation, or monitoring by professionals
• Limited support provides occasional or regular contact with professionals
• Extensive support gives professionals at lease one week of contact
• Pervasive support means constant contact

Physical Disability/Orthopedic Impairment and Health Impairment

• Physical disability: Interferes with ability to use his or her body.
• Orthopedic impairments are many but not all, physical disabilities
• Muscular or skeletal system and nervous system are included in Orthopedic impairments
• Health impairment: requires ongoing medical attention.
  • Asthma
  • Heart defects
  • Cancer
  • Diabetes
  • Hemophilia
  • HIV/AIDS

Classification and Characteristics of Physical Impairment

• Mild physical disability: Walk without aids and make normal developmental progress.
• Moderate physical disability: walk with braces and crutches while potentially having difficulty with fine motor skills
• Severe physical disability: Wheelchair dependent needed to achieve regular development.

Physical Disability Classification

 - Neurological system:Brain, spinal cord and nerve problems
 - Musculo-skeletal system:muscles, and joints are deficient

Neurological System Impairments in detail

• Cerebral palsy or a traumatic brain injury: The brain sends the wrong instructions or interprets feedback incorrectly.
  • Poor movement coordination results in both
  • Path ways between brain and muscules are interrupted for spinal cord injuries
  • Muscle paralysis is beyond that point
• Epilepsy: The brain cells are not working properly, and electrical impulses results, but treatable with medication
• Spinal bifida and spinal cord injury: Spinal column birth defect
  • Only occurs during first 26 days of pregnancy

Musculoskeletal System

• progressive muscle weakness (muscular dystrophy)
• Inflammation of joins
• Loss of body parts

Muscular Dystrophy and related effects:

• genetic condition that weakens and deteoriates
• ages 3-4 of onset and by 11 most cannot walj
• Death occurs between 25-35 due to cardiac failure

Arthritis

• inflammation of joints
• symptoms include Swollen and stiff joints, fever and pain Prolonging inflammation effects the joints

Amputation

• caused by abnormalities or injury such as bone tumors
• Customized proshetics helps limp functions

Other Genetic Disorders

• Marfan Syndrome includes poorly developed muscles, curved spine and vessels
• Achondroplasias is a genetics that results in stunted growth

Other Abnormalities

• Polio results in severe paralysis of parts of body
• Club Foot is a description to describe ankle abnormalities
• Cleft lip and cleft palate results in failure for the to close

Health Impairments

• Heart Disease stems from blood circulatory issues or genetic concerns
• Cystic fibrosis afflicts the lungs
• Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome can occur
• Many more health issues can be linked to this

Hemophilia

• A hereditary disease in which blood fails to clot quick and is sex linked

Asthma is a chronic respiratory condition characterized by repeated breathing difficulties

Developmental / Hereditary

 - Diabetes
 - Cancer

• Sickle-cell anemia* is hereditary and chronic

Rheumatic fever is associated with painful swelling

Vulnerability

Vulnerability is a complex phenomenon that affects some based on the complex dimensions of:

• Economic issues result in low resources and lack of stability
• Exclusion cause low medical services
• Support which limit or constrict
• Stigma due to sterotypes
• Health disabilities
• and violence

Causes of vulnerability Include

Rapid population growth Lack of access to public education and Enviromental concerns

Characteristics for vulnerable people

• less able
• lack resources
• restricted by laws
• helped by restricted others

Further vulnerabilities include

Minorities Poverty Disabilities Sickness: Illiteracy Giftedness