Файл: Учебник по английскому языку.doc

Most people tend to do better work, or at least enjoy it more, when they work with someone who likes them Providing work-inhibited students with friendly hellos, greeting them each day with a smile, finding a way to extend unconditional positive regard nurtures a stu­dent's sense of well-being.

A teacher's friendliness may be positively disarming to these students. They usually have long histories of nega­tive self-perceptions and do not expect their teachers to be truly interested in them. In response to their teach­ers' friendly 'hello"—away from the classroom, where teachers are not obligated to take notice of them—the students feel a bit better about their teachers and about themselves. Such friendly, inviting greetings in them selves can improve attitudes toward school and pave the way for further positive dialogue.

There is probably no better way to convey interest and nurturance than through listening. Most teacher-student social exchanges are momentary—just a few words and a smile. But sometimes the opportunity presents itself to be with a student in a situation that has nothing to do with schoolwork. Exploit such opportunities to be attentive to remarks about the student's interests. The act of really listening is a tremendous compliment and a powerful tool in building a relationship.

Help Students Develop Stick-to-it-tiveness

Work-inhibited students need help in learning persistence—to stay on task, to withstand failure, and to forge ahead. They need to learn the skills of stick-to-it-tiveness more than academic skills.

Teachers may choose among a variety of strategies to assist the work-inhibited student to move slowly, incre­mentally, toward competence. Sometimes an entire class may have the same assignment—which a work-inhibited student may well be able to complete if it is broken down into small incremental steps. As the student completes each part, the teacher gives a pat on the back, a bit of encouragement—an emotional "pick-me-up"—to pro­ceed on to the next step. The teacher tries to extend the student just a little bit.

This method is much like training to run faster. Run­ners set intervals during which they run hard and fast for a brief period, and then recover. Then they repeat the pattern. The goal is to run faster for short distances and then gradually extend the distance.

Varying the approach helps. Students like novelty. Sur­prise the child by insisting that only three questions be completed. Set up a challenge to work quickly. Use a timer and ask the student to beat the clock. Highlight or underline certain items and ask the student to finish only those that are so marked.

Maintain a careful record of assignments completed and graph the results. Student and teacher alike may be surprised and positively reinforced by viewing a graph that shows progress.

Do not let the work pile up. At the end of each peri­od, go on to the next activity. If possible, collect any work, both complete and incomplete, and go on. Work-inhibited students easily feel overwhelmed and are unlikely to tackle a tableful of incomplete assignments. They do need to learn to tackle longer and longer assign­ments, but it is foolish to encourage work-inhibited stu­dents to climb a mountain when they are still unable to scale a hill.

Working incrementally means always taking it one day at a time. It means the teacher is pleased to see a work-inhibited student increase effort 100 percent when going from two minutes to four minutes, while most of the other students are able to work independently for half an hour. Bit by bit, focusing on successes, breaking assignments into smaller units, giving assignments that may be completed—this is the direction in which suc­cess lies. Offer Helping Hands

Through positive regard and problem-solving confer­ences, a work-inhibited student's readiness for accepting help may improve. But a teacher with twenty-five stu­dents in a classroom can spend only a fraction of the day being next to and assisting any one individual. Therefore, it may be useful to recruit helpers to assist work-inhibit­ed students. The classmates of work-inhibited students may be a rich resource. Pair classmates and encourage them to assist each other. Older work-inhibited students often welcome the opportunity to tutor younger chil­dren with similar weaknesses. It not only adds variety to their day but tutoring also helps them feel important. In high school, members of the National Honor Society, Key Club, or other service organizations may be ready and willing to give tutorial assistance. Each school is filled with helping hands.

Providing positive, effective feedback to students is a powerful tool but not necessarily easy to use. For praise to be effective, certain rules should be remembered.

Reward the action or product, not the person, with pos­itive attention. Comment specifically about what it is the student has accomplished. Comments should not be exaggerated or insincere, but rather true and to the point. "Nineteen out of twenty correct! You really understand!" "Your use of shading in this painting gives the scene per­spective and a sense of distance." "Your paragraph includ­ed three funny examples of what can happen on the first day of school." "Joe, your speech kept everyone's atten­tion."

Sometimes positive reinforcement does not require words. Just a smile or a pat on the back may keep a stu­dent working. What is important is to notice what the student is doing or has accomplished.

Teachers are not the only ones who may give positive reinforcement. Everyone in the class might do it! Encour­age classmates to support each other by modeling posi­tive communication. The goal is to create a climate of encouragement.

Empower the Child

Work-inhibited students need all the help they can get in order to bolster their weak egos. These students ben­efit from opportunities to develop their individual strengths—to feel empowered. Encourage work-inhibit­ed students to participate in extracurricular activities and provide them with opportunities for leadership (safety patrols, office helper).

Another important facet of feeling empowered relates to decision making. In high school, students have oppor­tunities to make important decisions as to what courses they will take and what career paths they may embark on. At all levels, it is important to empower students to make decisions regarding daily activities, including how to accomplish tasks and what is to be studied. Being asked "What do you think?" or "What do you want to do first?" imparts a sense of importance to students and fuels feelings of control and independence. The goal is to pro­mote autonomy so that students may stand on their own and feel a sense of adequacy. Practices To Avoid

Our schools should not be reluctant to change those practices that are not in the best interests of students. If students are able to demonstrate their acquisition of knowledge and skills without certain homework assign­ments—give up those assignments. Requiring a child to repeat a grade for failure to complete assignments, pun­ishing children by keeping them in for recess or by deny­ing them access to extracurricular activities are not like­ly to promote the growth of their interests or their sense of well-being in their school.

In communicating to parents, provide clear descrip­tions of the student's strengths and weaknesses. Parents need to know that their children have allies in the school. Don't blame. Rather, be objective about the instruction­al setting and the requirements for success. Parents need to know that school work is not their responsibility. Par­ents can set the stage by providing a place and estab­lishing a schedule for homework; but they should tell their children that the contract for doing school work is between students and teachers; and then nurture, love, and encourage.

CHILDREN WITH COMMUNICATION DISORDERS

Communication that calls attention to itself, and/or inter­feres with relaying a message, and/or distresses either the speaker or the listener is considered disordered. Commu­nication is defined as the transmission of information. Language is the set of symbols used to represent the message being transmitted. Speech, a subsystem of lan­guage, is the physical process involved in producing the sound symbols of the language. Both communication and language can be nonverbal. Speech is oral.

Communication disorders can take two forms: delays and disorders. Delays are quite common and are usually resolved easily with proper treatment. Delays in language have the highest cure rate and the shortest time in need of special services of any of the conditions of exceptionality. Delays are often due to lack of language stimulation, bilingual or multilingual stimulation, or hearing impair­ments.

A disordered form of language is less common than a language delay and usually requires more treatment. Many language disorders are complicated by other areas of exceptionality (e.g., disorders of behavior, mentation, learning, audition, physical coordination). Language disor­ders may involve aphasia (no language) or dysphasia (difficulty with language). Language disorders may be due to disordered mentation or to anatomical defects such as cleft lip and/or palate, damaged vocal cords, defects of the lips, teeth, or tongue, or may be acquired after inju­ries—including brain injuries. Language disorders may involve receptive disorders (difficulty in understanding language) and/or expressive disorders (difficulty in ex­pressing oneself through language). The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASLHA) has identified three underlying problems in language disor­ders: the form the language takes (involving rules and structural principles); the content of the language (involv­ing semantic meanings); and the function of the language in communication (involving practical, pragmatic usage).

Speech, the subsystem of language involving oral pro­duction of sound, may be disordered in one or more of three forms: articulation, voice, or fluency.

Articulation involves the functioning of muscles and nerves, of the tongue, lips, teeth, and mouth to produce recognizable speech sounds. Four possible ways in which articulation can be disordered are substitution of sounds, distortion of sounds, omission of sounds, or the addition of extra sounds.

Voice involves respiration by the lungs, phonation by the larynx and vocal cords, and resonance through the air passages of the nose to control sound quality. Two possible ways in which voice can be disordered are phonation (breathy, strained, husky, hoarse, no sounds) and reso­nance (hypernasality, hyponasality).

Fluency involves appropriate pauses and hesitations to keep speech natural, smooth, and understandable. Two possible ways in which fluency can be disordered are by cluttering (very rapid speech with extra sounds) and by stuttering (verbal blocks, and/or repetitions of sounds, especially at the beginning of words).

Each child can be expected to have his or her own unique differences in language reception and production and speech coordination. In addition, each child will com­municate differently, depending on personality factors, information-processing factors, and motivational factors. Assessment of when language and/or speech is delayed or disordered is, therefore, very difficult.

Speech-language pathologists are therapists who are prepared to help alleviate all the problems of language and speech. When a child is assessed as having a communication disorder, PL 94-142, and its amendment PL 99-457, entitle that child to free and appropriate speech-language therapy in the least restrictive environ­ment. Public Law 99-457 ensures services for infants, toddlers, and their families if a speech-language disorder is diagnosed early (e.g., cleft palate speech). Whenever a child receives special services for a communication disor­der, the therapy is more successful and shorter when there is parental involvement and transdisciplinary coop­eration. Individualized family service plans (IFSPs) and individualized education programs (lEPs) need to be an­nually updated to reflect the effectiveness of prior therapy, the new short-term and long-term goals, the changing nature of the communication disorder, and the special services required. Children with communication problems make up the second largest group of children in the United States receiving special educational services, after children with learning disabilities. The earlier each child begins therapy, the better the prognosis.

Therapy and transdisciplinary approaches to remedia­tion of communication disorders are the most common forms of intervention. However, for some children, speech-language therapy and family-school cooperation cannot cure or substantially alleviate the problem. For some children, intervention takes the form of augmented com­munication or facilitated communication. There are many new forms of augmentative and facilitated communica­tions. These include sign language, keyboards for typing words, computers with synthetic voices, talking picture boards, and talking beams. Which forms of augmented or facilitated communication are used with each child are ideally determined by a transdisciplinary team including parent, child (if old enough), teacher, and speech-language pathologist.

Dialects should not be assessed as communication disorders in and of themselves. It is possible, however, for a child with a communication disorder to have it compli­cated by a speech dialect. Special care must be made when assessing linguistically different students for inclu­sion in special educational services. To be communication disordered, the child should have difficulty in his or her mother tongue, not merely in English. Bilingual special education may provide remediation in both the mother tongue and English. Transitional programs help non-English-speaking children learn the English language sufficiently for instruction to take place in English.

The first article selected for this unit addresses techniques that work to promote language in early childhood. The second article defines programs and services for culturally and linguistically diverse learners in special education. The next article discusses nonverbal symbols that are used as a means of communicating thoughts and emotions. Nonverbal language is often used by school children in place of speech. The final article focuses on one of many forms of augmentative communication: a picture task analysis.

Looking Ahead: Challenge Questions

How can early childhood educators promote appropri­ate speech and language?

How can the learning environment be enhanced for culturally and linguistically diverse learners?

Can teachers understand the language of nonverbal behavior?

How can picture tasks be used to augment speech?

CHILDREN WITH PHYSICAL AND HEALTH IMPAIRMENTS

A physical impairment is a condition that interferes with a person's ability to move, use, feel, or control one or more parts of the body. A health impairment is a condition that requires some form of medical treatment. Children may be physically impaired, health impaired, have both physi­cal and health impairments simultaneously, or may be multiple handicapped (e.g., the addition of a learning disability, mental retardation, behavioral disorder, commu­nication disorder, or other disorder). Physical impairments are classified as mild, moderate, or severe, depending on the extent to which children can use their bodies. If a child can walk alone, he or she is usually considered only mildly impaired. If a child needs crutches or other aids to walk, the impairment is usually moderate. Children in wheel­chairs are usually considered severely physically im­paired.

Physically impaired children may have a body part disabled by either a neurological cause or an orthopedic cause. A neurological impairment involves an injury or dysfunction in a part of the brain or spinal cord resulting in a loss of some bodily movements. An orthopedic impair­ment involves an injury or dysfunction in a part of the skeletal system resulting in a loss of some bodily move­ments. The difficulties in body movement, sensation, perception, or control may be identical with either neuro­logical or orthopedic causations. Prefixes such as mono (one), di (two), tri (three), or quadri (four) are often placed before plegia (paralysis) to designate the number of limbs (arms and legs) that are affected. Hemiplegia is used to designate the loss of movement of one side of the body. Paraplegia is often used to designate the loss of move­ment of both legs.

Children with health impairments must have some form of medicine or medical attention in order to attend school. Health impairments are classified as mild, moderate, or severe, depending on duration (temporary or chronic) and limitations to activity (normal stamina or debilitated and weak). Most of the health impairments that qualify for special educational services under PL 94-142 are chronic and/or debilitating illnesses. Some examples are cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, sickle cell anemia, asthma, AIDS, heart defects, eating disorders, and pregnancy.

Intervention for children with physical or health prob­lems should begin as soon as the impairment is diag­nosed. Special educational services, as well as medical services, may be initiated at birth. Preschools now provide multidisciplinary services to children with physical or health impairments. Public schools must supply equal opportunities for children with disabilities to participate in school activities, transitional services, and free and appro­priate education. The reforms and restructuring of special education, mandated by the courts, have opened public school doors to many physically and/or health-impaired children who were formerly taught at home, in hospitals, in residential institutions, or in special schools.

The age at which a child acquires a physical or health impairment is an important area to consider when devel­oping the individualized education program (IEP). A child who is born with a disability usually has permanent, severe limitations but has grown up adjusting to the restrictions imposed by immobility or medical attentions. A child who acquires the impairment later in childhood may have a greater chance of partial or complete recov­ery. However, this child has had no time to learn to cope with the disability. Children who have just developed physical or health impairments may go through periods of denial, mourning, and depression before they accept the limitations imposed by their conditions. Their lEPs should include short-term goals for helping them adjust. They usually need to be motivated to comply with physical or occupational therapy, or medicines and medical pro­cedures. Medical social workers often participate in the development of individualized family service plans (IFSPs) or lEPs with suggestions for special services aimed at helping the students and their families adjust to the impairments.

The visibility of the physical or health impairment is another important consideration when developing short-and long-term goals for children who are debilitated. Children with very obvious disabilities not only look differ­ent but also feel different because of all the attention their handicap receives. They may have to struggle to develop positive self-images and self-esteem. Children with less obvious impairments (e.g., diabetes, sickle cell anemia, asthma, epilepsy) may be asked to participate in more activities than they can handle, or in forbidden activities. They have to constantly explain that they are different, even if they do not look different. They may be accused of being lazy or hypochondriacal.

Teachers have a responsibility to help establish positive interactions between children with disabilities and their abled peers. It is important that teachers and other school personnel become acquainted with the special situations of each physically or health-impaired child. They should understand limitations, needs, treatments, and/or medica­tions. In addition, they should discuss each child's condi­tion openly with his or her classmates. Peers are more willing to accept special arrangements or time given to children with physical or health impairments if the need for them has been made clear from the beginning.

Teachers of children with physical or health impair­ments may be called on to do some extraordinary pro cedures. Judicial rulings have established life support services as legitimate duties of schools with regular edu­cation classes. For example, if a child needs urinary catheterization during the school day, the school staff must provide this service. If a school nurse is not avail­able, a teacher may be asked. Teachers may be asked to supervise ambulatory kidney dialysis, oxygen administra­tion, intravenous feedings, or ventilators. They may need to learn how to handle diabetic shock, asthmatic attacks, and epileptic seizures. In addition to medical special services, the teacher must also educate the children appropriately and challenge them to work up to their highest levels of ability. Sympathy assignments, or sym­pathy grades, are detrimental to all children.

The first article in this unit discusses three health impairments: cancer, medical fragility, and at-risk birth status. Special services should be initiated as soon as the conditions are diagnosed. The second article presents the danger that some physically and health-impaired children face: child abuse. Teachers need to be aware of the implications of the research in this area. The next selection addresses the question of the appropriateness of enrolling students with physical or health impairments in regular classes. Both the "up"side and the "down"side are presented along with a discussion of supplementary aids and services. The last article provides a summary of educational adaptations for children with physical and health impairments in inclusive classrooms. The tips in the article are designed both to help teachers and to raise their awareness of the positive aspects of inclusion.

Looking Ahead: Challenge Questions

What modifications of school curriculum should be made for children who survive life-threatening illnesses?