Different Approaches in Handling Children with

Special Needs

Clinical Approach

• It involves an alternating teach-test-teach with the teachers. Alternating roles between teacher and test administrator. Refers to the objective of designing learning experiences appropriate to the individual needs of students by paying attention to both what the child cannot do, but especially what the child does do.

• This approach to teaching has been called remediation, educational therapy, intervention or simply good teaching.

• The procedures in clinical teaching use are:1. Diagnoses2. Planning of teaching task3. Implementation of teaching task4. Evaluation of student5. Modification of the diagnoses

• Clinical teaching is planned for a unique student rather than for an entire class, and it can be accomplished in a variety of placements, such as regular school or in special education.

Task Analysis

• It is often identified with a functional or life skills curriculum. A functional curriculum is a highly individualized, individually referenced model in which the teacher crafts each pupil’s curriculum based on the skills and abilities that are part of the student’s repertoire. It is the foundation for teaching complex functional and vocational skills to individual with disabilities.

• In task analysis, which is part of a behavioural approach to instruction, a complex behaviour or task is broken down and sequenced into its component parts.

Behaviour Modification

• It is an approach to modify behaviour by using operant conditioning particularly shaping and fading.

The following steps necessary in behaviour modification:

a) Specify the behaviour to be modified

b) Instruct child verbally as to desired behaviour

c) Have a model with whom the children identify performance desired manner

d) Reinforce systematically approximate or desired behaviour

PECS• It stands for Picture Exchange

Communication System which use concrete objects (pictures), the child can communicate without having skills such as eye contact and shared attention (paying attention to the same thing as the person they are communicating with, and taking turns in conversation.)

• Pictures can be used instead of speech, but are usually used to supplement speech. PECS has been shown to be effective in helping children develop increased vocabulary and functional communication.

Simulation

• Simulations are a useful teaching strategy for illustrating a complex and changing situation. Simulations are (necessarily) less complex than the situations they represent.

• In a simulation, the learner acts, the simulation reacts, the learner learns from this feedback.

Unit Teaching Approach

• Based on the early work of Ingram (1935), this method emphasizes a basic theme or topic decided on by the teacher and the class to be the core in teaching and learning. It includes short and long term projects that will stimulate interests.

• It is a traditional teaching methodology, which provides instruction in several different daily living skills content areas, such as health and safety, responsible citizenship, money management, and vocational preparation.

• Goals and activities are frequently grouped according to the chronological age or developmental level of pupils which allows students to see the connection between the instruction and its application to situations in their daily lives.

Direct Instruction• A comprehensive, teacher-led approach based on

decades of research that emphasizes maximizing not only the quantity of instruction students receive but also the quality.

• It is a general term for the explicit teaching of a skill-set using lectures or demonstrations of the materials, rather than exploratory models and primarily designed to help students develop particular skills.

• Direct instruction is usually deductive. That is, the rule or generalization is presented and then illustrated with examples. It includes clear demonstrations of new information in small segments, practice that is teacher guided, and immediate feedback to students on their work.

Peer Mediated Instruction

• It is used to teach children who are socially withdrawn and have limited social skills to engage in social interaction.

• It is peers teaching peers or known as PEER TUTORING. Peer tutoring is an approach to instruction in which students are partnered, provided with instructional material that they are to learn. Each student is expected to help each other in accomplishing the learning goal.

• It should be reciprocal, that all the participating students have opportunities to be both the teacher and the learner.

Cooperative Learning

• It is an approach to classroom instruction that employs small group as well as large group. It is collaboration among students to achieve goals for academic achievement and social skill development. Instructional practices characterized by the use of teams to support academic learning.

• 4 Basic Elements of Cooperative Learning1. Positive interdependence- each

student in the group agree on:a. The answer to the taskb. The process for solving each

problem2. Individual accountability- is

determined if each member in the group have mastered the process of solving problem or demonstrate the skills necessary for accomplishing the task.

3. Collaborative skills- emphasize student support for one another, enthusiasm for group work, and contributions to the group’s effort.

4. Processing- requires that the group evaluate how well they worked together and what they could do in the future to be an even more effective group member or group.

Cognitive Strategies

• A cognitive strategy in its simplest form is the use of the mind (cognition) to solve a problem or complete a task. It is an instructional approach which emphasizes the development of thinking skills and processes as a means to enhance learning.

• It assist a student in learning how to learn, including; self instruction, self-questioning, self-monitoring, self evaluation and self-reinforcement.

• A related term is metacognition, the self-reflection or “thinking about thinking” necessary for students to learn effectively (Baker, Gersten, & Scanlon, 2002). Or related to scaffolding which is a temporary supportive structure that the teacher creates to assist students and accomplish a task that they could not complete alone.

Applied Behaviour Analysis

• Structured systematic approach to teaching and behaviour management that employs direct observation and charting of student behaviour.

• Role of teacher:1. Analyze tasks2. Break these tasks down into small units of instruction3. Sequence their teaching4. Use systematic reinforcement procedure5. Continuously monitor student performance6. Record tasks7. Instruction then follows the sequence selected by the

teacher, with emphasis to reward correct responses8. Progress is recorded to evaluate the effectiveness of

instruction

THANK YOU!

Vanessa G. Cabag