Introduction to the child’s profile
This study pays attention to a six-year-old girl, Tara, located in Sydney under the care of her parents; Tara has an intellectual disability that roots in her diagnosis of Down syndrome when she was three weeks old. Tara has taken various interventions to solve her issues; she underwent physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech pathology to improve her learning and motor skills. Tara faces difficulty in phonetics; the only letters she realizes are those of her first name, but she faces problems sounding the words. She also has difficulty engaging with other people as she does not ask for help or questions; furthermore, she has little friendship relations and has a problem playing with the other children.
With this in mind, Tara’s case relates to Erikson’s model of development in that she has trouble accomplishing her age group’s requirements of determining their responsibilities at the age of six; Erikson proposes that children between the age of six and three must comprehend simple roles such as engaging in playtimes (Snyder, 2013). Thus, understanding this trait in Tara will aid in creating a teaching plan that supports learning in a child with an intellectual disability. The development of this plan is further favored by her parents’ will to apply strength-based approaches that focus on her abilities to develop a suitable plan for improving her intellectual capability. Considering Tara’s traits and intellectual deficit, the implications of the learning plan proposed in this paper are to use techniques that pay attention to sound and phonetics as well as social and interaction skills.
Inclusive Environment and Approach
The learning environment for the proposed inclusive learning for Tara, a Down syndrome learner, is an environment that advocates for active participation of the learner, offers options for creating and learning, presents information in a different manner than usual, and supports processing of sounds as well as planning them into readable words. It is because children with intellectual inabilities, like Tara, require active engagement with others, new models of processing words, and optional learning techniques. However, the environmental context of the learning plan should be inclusive in that Tara is included in a regular class setting with other children; this is because a child with an intellectual disability learns by copying fellow learners in the pronunciation of words and other activities that involve active participation (Hughes, 2006).
The building blocks models used to assess fit inclusive education for Tara attains academic achievement from low order to high order skills in children with intellectual disabilities. The building blocks focus on educating the intellectually disabled child as a whole entity and in all aspects of learning (KK, 2021). In the case study of this paper, the necessary measure of learning ability is measured in terms of social ability, emotional intelligence, motivational skills, and cognitive abilities in an attempt to profoundly transform the education of children with learning disabilities caused by issues such as Down syndrome. Application for a universal learning design (UDL) is a strategy designed to encourage inclusive learning that sees disabled and non-disabled children engage in learning in a similar education environment.
Collaboration
The key stakeholders to collaborate with in implementing the inclusive teaching plan include the parents, school heads, and the national government. The strategy to work with these stakeholders is to have an informed plan that will be understood and supported by the majority. Hayes and Bulat (2017) argue that the Universal Design of Learning needs to support by the parents to allow children to share classrooms with disabled learners and teachers to show efforts to use strategies that favor both groups of the student and the government n approval of such programs in schools.
Learning intentions
The learning intention of this plan is to enhance the participation of the intellectually disabled child in the process of learning by increasing their social skills, choice-making skills, active participation in classroom activities, and capability to discern sounds and thus knowledge to read and write (Link to curriculum: https://childhood-developmental-disorders.imedpub.com/educating-a-child-with-down-syndrome-in-an-inclusive-kindergarten-classroom.pdf)
Learning outcome
The learning outcome for the disabled child is the ability to learn like other children to attain skills relevant to their level of education as per the family’s expectation, which is rewarding to the child learner.
Rationale
The reason for selecting a combined learning method for children with an intellectual disability is that it accomplishes several goals different from educational purposes; it addresses social skills, emotional intelligence, and the intellectual ability to discern sounds to come up with words. Tara had issues in learning phonetics, poor social skills where she avoided playtime with other children, and a lack of connection with the natural world by enjoying little things in life. Her parents ‘desire to educate her like other normal children makes this strategy the best fit, as it allows Tara to engage in a regular classroom with other pupils. As shown by Kabashi & Kaczmarek (2019), combining intellectually incapable learners with normal learners is essential since they learn from normal children and increase their social skills.
ELO or Lesson Plans
| Choose a student from the list of student profiles. | Multiple means of REPRESENTATION
(various ways of acquiring information and knowledge) |
Multiple means of EXPRESSION
(alternative ways of demonstrating what students know) |
Multiple means of ENGAGEMENT
(tap into interests, provide challenges, increase motivation) |
| The student used for this study was Tara, a six-year-old Sydney child struggling with intellectual inability due to Down syndrome. The child can detect the letters of her first word but cannot read the name. She is, however, affected by slow social skills as she does not engage in playtime with other children. She enjoys stories in class and can respond well to visuals and gestures. The parents require her to adapt to spelling and phonetics skills instead of visual memory. | An effective way of acquiring information in the child is using visual supports in learning. Patrick (2021) postulates that Down syndrome patients learn effectively through a vision to gain motor, language, and literacy skills. Also, insight into word reading efficiently improves her ability to construct words using sounds. | The various ways that the child is expected to express their knowledge is by using non-verbal communication skills such as facial expressions, signaling, and gestures (Wishart, 2008). They can also use visual memories of past experiences and may use past activities to express themselves in similar situations. | The various means of engaging the child in class activity is the inclusion of storytelling as a strategy of the teaching plan; this is because Tara is depicted to have an interest in storytelling in class, thus would impact her desire to learn. Engagement in the plan can also be tapped into by engaging the child in social activities that need socialization to increase social skills. Motivation can be enhanced by the active engagement of the educators with the children, as they have shown less motivation to partake in tasks (Glenn et al., 2001). |
Know Do Think – Curriculum Alignment Planning Tool
| Know
What are the key concepts students need to know? |
Do
What tasks/activities do students need to demonstrate that they know these concepts? |
Think
What questions do students have to ask themselves while engaging in the tasks/activities? |
QDTP
What differentiation can occur to support Universal access |
Additional Adjustments as needed
Supplementary, Substantial, Extensive |
| The critical component the child learner is supposed to know includes the use of sounds to pronounce words.
They should also know how to interpret messages in visual representation for memory storage, which is essential for learning. The child should also know the skills to participate in social activities associated with others. |
The child is supposed to participate in activities such as reciting repetitive words to ensure they master the concept of pronunciation.
The child also engages in pictorial challenges that use visuals where they are supposed to name items on the pictures for more memorizing power (Patrick, 2011). The child should also partake in group activities such as accomplishing fun tasks. |
Then questions the child should remember as they engage in these activities include how sounds combine to give conclusive sounds.
They should also ask the question of how images can turn into memories and later turn into information. The child learner also asks how collaboration in activities enhances their ability to socialize easily. |
The differentiation that can occur to support universal access to all children with an intellectual disability is the application of a common curriculum that includes all the activities supporting learning in children with a learning disability. | The recommended additional adjustments for the child include customized instructions to promote certain areas of communication; this may be attained by using specialized technology that would offer extra instruction in a language only understood by the child ( NCCD, 2022).
A substantial adjustment, in this case, is the use of close monitoring in activities related to learning in the child with Down syndrome. In this case, extensive adjustment for the child is the use of specialist staff to address the concerns of the learning child. |
References
Glenn, S., Dayus, B., Cunningham, C., & Horgan, M. (2001). Mastery motivation in children with Down syndrome. Down Syndrome Research and Practice, 7(2), 52-59. https://doi.org/10.3104/reports.114
Hayes, A. M., & Bulat, J. (2017). Disabilities inclusive education systems and policies guide for low- and middle-income countries. RTI Press. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK554622/
Hughes, J. (2006). Inclusive education for individuals with Down syndrome. Semantic Scholar | AI-Powered Research Tool. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Inclusive-education-for-individuals-with-Down-Hughes/1b919b98899551bc782ec68331e968945323aae8
Kabashi, L., & Kaczmarek, L. (2019). Educating a child with Down syndrome in an inclusive kindergarten classroom. Journal of Childhood & Developmental Disorders, 05(02). https://doi.org/10.36648/2472-1786.5.2.81
(2021, September 16). Building block model | Definition | Example. Accountinguide. https://accountinguide.com/building-block-model/
NCCD. (2022). Extensive adjustments. Home – Nationally Consistent Collection of Data. https://www.nccd.edu.au/wider-support-materials/extensive-adjustments
Patrick, E. (2021, August 19). Development and learning for people with Down syndrome. Down Syndrome Education International. https://www.down-syndrome.org/en-us/about-down-syndrome/development/
Snyder, N. (2013, August 7). Child development theories in children’s literature. Owlcation. https://owlcation.com/humanities/Child-Development-Theories-in-Childrens-Literature
Wishart, J. G. (2008). Learning in young children with Down syndrome: Public perceptions, empirical evidence. Down Syndrome Across the Life Span, 18-27. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470777886.ch2
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