Month: November 2011

behavioral and cognitive intervention

Behavior and Cognitive Interventions

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Behavior and cognitive interventions can be used to help all children succeed. The following are activities, strategies, and methods for teaching appropriate behavior and cognitive skills to students with Emotional Behavior Disorders. Although these tools are primarily for those with Emotional Behavior Disorders, they can be applied to all children learning these skills.

behavioral and cognitive intervention

Behavior Interventions

Behavior interventions can be necessary for children who act out in class and have difficulty following along. These children may need extra guidelines and assistance to stay attentive in class with appropriate behaviors. They also may assistance in forming a positive self-value and learn new coping skill(Watson, 2003) .

  • Set up minimal, concise, and clear rules
  • Get on the same page as parents, therapists, and other professionals
  • Reinforce positive behaviors
  • Stay patient and remain objective
  • Establish routines so that children know what to expect
  • Allow times for children to practice their responsibility
  • Concisely identify the behavior that needs to be changed

Cognitive Interventions

Students with Emotional Behavior Disorders are often challenged throughout school in a variety of academic skills and as a result may need some cognitive interventions. These interventions can help to challenge them and encourage them to become successful in the classroom. Cognitive interventions can also apply to helping children’s mental health. The following ideas are strategies that can be used to encourage cognitive development:(Watson, 2003), (Heward, 2003)

  • Direct families to seek professional psychological help if necessary.
  • Keep children challenged and push them without being scared of their outburst and/or other reactions .
  • Set up appropriate academic goals, which challenge the child’s academic skills and cognitive development.
  • Assess the child to see where they currently are psychological and developmentally.
  • Set up a plan to help children cope independently as well as facilitated.
  • Have children as part of the IEP team to set up goals, which can focus on academic and psychological health.

Functional Behavioral Assessments

Functional assessments are a tool used to help the IEP team understand the triggers, factors, and purpose around a student’s Behavioral Disorder. There are two key reasons a child uses their behavior to manipulate a situation. One is to avoid something and the other reason is to get something they desire. Part of the Functional Behavior Assessment is to get a hypothesis about the child’s behavior, which can be used to set up a plan to address and overcome the behavior. By knowing the triggers of a child’s behavior and the purpose behind the behavior, it is easier to know appropriate interventions (Heward, 2003).

References

Heward, William L. (2003). Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education (7th ed.).Ohio: Merrill Prentice Hall.

Watson, Sue. (2003). Best Practices for Behavior Disorders. Retrieved September 21, 2006 from http://specialed.about.com/cs/behaviordisorders/a/Behavior.htm

Turnbull, Rud, Ann Turnbull, Marilyn Shank, Sean Smith, & Dorthy Leal (2002). Exceptional Lives: Special Education in Today’s Schools(3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall.

Learning Disability and Communication Disorder

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Learning
Disability

Communication Disorder
Definition The inability to learn to one’s full potential with difficulties in listening, speaking, reading, written expression, and/or mathematics An “impairment in the ability to receive, send, process, and comprehend concepts of verbal and non-verbal graphic symbols” (ASHA, 1993)
Causes Many times the causes are unknown. Four suspected causes are: brain damage, heredity, biochemical imbalance, and environmental causes Communication disorders may be organic or functional. Functional causes are not necessarily known but are often attributed to environmental influences.  Organic causes are physical, like the “damage, dysfunction, or malformation of a specific organ” (Heward, 2003).
Identified Characteristics A child with a learning disability is “specific and significant achievement deficits in the presence of adequate overall intelligence” (Heward, 2003). Communication disorders encompass four different speech errors: distortions, substitutions, omissions, and additions
Effective Teaching Strategies There are many ways to address LD. Some of them are remediation, judicious review, primed background knowledge, strategic integration, mediated scaffolding, conspicuous strategies, and big ideas (Heward, 2003). In order for them to better succeed in their education, tools like guided notes, graphic organizers, visual displays, and mnemonics are helpful to those with LD. Children may be given exercises to practice their speech, reading, ect. Students also may be encouraged through natural setting to learn from modeling and verbal encouragement. Often SPT’s use prompting and other reinforcements. Students can also listen to recordings of themselves and/or use a microphone system where they can clearly hear themselves while or after they speak.
Placement Options Children with LD are often educated in regular classrooms with available peer modeling. They can also spend time with resource teachers and in special education classes. Speech-Language Pathologists often treat those with language disorders.

Meaningful Teaching

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Meaningful teaching requires a multifaceted, technique-challenging strategy to maximize the impact for the students it effects. The teacher needs to use the resources available to them in order expand their own knowledge and satisfy the requirements that they are obligated by their profession to fulfill.

In any given classroom, there are a variety of individuals that have various cognitive levels, preferred teaching styles, and background/cultural history. It is important for the teacher to use the appropriate means to reach the large spectrum of students. For the teacher to be best prepared, it is important for them to set up educational goals, find appropriate curriculum, and develop a multifaceted approach to teaching the curriculum. This may involve reading the material, doing worksheets about the material, and incorporating a hands-on approach to learning the material. Since the teacher has so many expectations on them, it is essential that they continue their learning process daily, so that they can be more thoughtful in appropriately addressing their students.

Children in classroom

By taking on the responsibility of teaching, you can help others to learn, as well as, learning yourself. This will require thinking on both the students and teachers behalf.

My own interests in becoming a special educator came from my belief in education, love of children, and desire to make a difference. While completing my undergraduate degree, I became involved in working directly with children that had developmental delays. These children were so lovable, and I found a reciprocating benefit from working with them. In the same way, my continued work with this specific group of children allowed me to continue to enjoy the benefits and challenges. There is such a need for positive, fresh faces in their classrooms.

Teachers are influenced by an array of outside inputs. It is important for them to balance their own inspirations, their goals for the students, and the cultural impacts to create an environment to meet the specific need of the individuals that they are teaching. It is necessary for teachers to stay active in revising their strategies and resources, so that they can remain fresh in the learning process and make the greatest impression possible on all of the individuals in their classroom.

Understanding Mental Retardation

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Mental Retardation poses many research issues relating to identification, terminology, and laws of mental retardation. Through better understanding mental retardation and the concept related to it, one can greater appreciate those affected by them and perhaps find ways to resolve them.

Children Playing with Lamb

Identification

IQ scores, for the population, are found on a normal curve (Heward, 2003). Those individuals with Mental Retardation fall two standard deviations from the mean of the population and consist of approximately 2.3% of the population (Heward, 2003). For a child to be considered mentally retarded, they had to score approximately 70 or less on a standardized IQ test. A child that scores above 75 or more on these tests may still be considered mentally retarded, if the clinician indicates that the individuals adaptive skills are greatly impaired due to intellectual functioning (Heward, 2003).

These IQ tests that children take are often criticized, as they cannot necessarily define a child’s level of functioning. The tests are based highly on verbal skills and academic functioning, which is correlated with the child’s success at school. These skills however may not be strictly limited because of cognitive functioning, but rather a result of physical impairments, different cultural background, a bad day, the time, the location, and a number of other variables. Children’s scores on these tests may also change over time when they undergo intervention.

It is important for all individuals to remember that intelligence is a hypothetical construct. People assume that it takes a certain level of intelligence to perform the specific tasks on the IQ tests (Heward, 2003). It is also for people to remember that just because they or their child scored low on the IQ test does not mean that they are limited in their ability to learn. Through intervention, the score can be raised. They may need to work harder than some others, but they too can be very successful.

Terminology

In 1955, AAMR published its first manual on the definitions and classifications of mental retardation. It gave a standard deviation of only one below the mean or approximately a score of 85 on an IQ test (Heward, 2003). This new definition presented many boarder line cases, which were now being educated in special classes (Heward, 2003).

There are other changes that have also occurred throughout the history of mental retardation. In the past, these individuals have been labeled feeble-minded, morons, educatably retarded, trainably retarded, mentally deficient, idiots, cretin, high level, and/or low level (Turnbull, Turnbull, Shank, Smith, & Leal, 2002). Today they are more often referred to as having mild, moderate, or severe retardation with needing intermittent, pervasive, extensive, or limited supports (Turnbull et Al, 2002).

These labels are often created out of political propaganda and still may not soothe all the individuals affected by the label. Labels also can construct how an individual is perceived. This can limit others expectations on the individual and prohibit others from seeing the person as an equal. Labels can also lead to name calling and psychological scaring.

It is important for teachers and others working with those diagnosed as Mentally Retarded not to overlook the individual. The child’s goals and curriculum should not be geared toward this diagnosis, but rather to the individual’s next steps and needs. It is also important to break social barriers early by helping educate other about what it truly means to have mentally retardation.

Laws

There are laws that help to protect the rights of the individual with MR. One of them is the home of your own initiative (AAMR, n.d). It is an initiative to help people with mental retardation, and other disabilities, own or control their own housing. According to AAMR’s website, “The initiative’s goal is to create an infrastructure of exemplary practices and public and private sector partnerships which link the home mortgage and social services industries to better serve people with disabilities.” By being in control of their own housing, those with Mental Retardation and other disabilities can control where they live, whom the live with, and their daily routines.

By having a law like this set up, it can often help provide funding for the individuals with mental retardation to gaining the supports necessary. Laws can also help to protect the individual’s rights. All laws made, however, are not necessarily appropriate for all individuals. For example, the law on No Child Left Behind may mean inclusion for children that may do better in special classes and not main streamed classes. When Lawmakers make these laws and then others vote on them, the population needs to look at every aspect, the bad and the good, and see if it is truly worth the bad to get the good or if there is another way to go about the law to include more positive and less negative.

Conclusion

People do make the choices to come up with laws, definitions, and terminology. There is undoubtedly no way to make everyone happy, but it is important to try our hardest to ease the problems associated with each of these subjects.

References

American Association on Mental Retardation. (2004). Legislation. Retrieved January 8, 2006, from http://www.aamr.org/Policies/faq_mental_retardation.shtml (Available today at http://www.aamr.org/)

Drew, C. J., & Hardman, M. L. (2003). Mental retardation: A life cycle approach (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.

Heward, William L. (2003). Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education (7th ed.). Ohio: Merrill Prentice Hall.

Thomas, G. E. (1996). Teaching students with mental retardation: A life goal curriculum planning approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice.

Turnbull, Rud, Ann Turnbull, Marilyn Shank, Sean Smith, & Dorthy Leal (2002).Exceptional Lives: Special Education in Today’s Schools(3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall

Children trying to catch fish with buckets

Aspects of Behavioral Disorders

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IDEA (federal law), defines serious emotional disabilities as:

a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree, which adversely affects educational performance: An inability to learn which cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors. An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers. Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances. A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression. A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems

Children trying to catch fish with buckets

Considering this definition, there are many aspects of behavioral disorders and a multitude of areas that they can effect.

Within the classroom, behavioral disorders (also can be referred to as emotional disability) become apparent when a student displays a repetitive and impact persistent pattern of behavior that results in the significant disruption in other students. Such disturbances may cause significant impairments in academic, social, and or occupational functioning. Such a behavior pattern is consistent throughout the individual’s life. There can be difficulty with these children and sometimes the classroom can only provide services to a limited area where the child can get help. Often more support is needed, but it can be difficult finding a balance between getting the child help and the teacher properly communicating with the parent.

Some characteristics of emotional disturbances include: bullying, exhibiting lots of physical aggression, showing little remorse and compassion, destruction of others property, blame others for wrong doings, and physical abuse of others. Disruptive behavioural disorders are complicated and may include many different factors working in combination. For example, a child who exhibits the delinquent behaviours of CD may also have ADHD, anxiety, depression, a drug abuse problem and a difficult home life. This can make working with it difficult as it takes patience and understanding. These students can also be disruptive to other children in the classroom making it even more difficult.

Emotional disabilities can also affect a child inwardly, so that although they might not appear behavioral they can greatly impact the child’s education. The emotional disability may provide limited distractions to others, but the child cannot find it within themselves to focus and learn.

In all the above cases, it is important to get the child help both within the classroom and outside counseling. It is also important to follow through with doctor instructions to allow the child the best opportunities available to succeed. It can also be rewarding watching the children succeed and get beyond the disability.