Kerry Stark
ECED 3053
Research Awareness Project
Dwight Elementary
Self-Contained Classroom
Student: John Doe
Exceptionality: Mental Retardation
Form: Down Syndrome
Age: 8 years
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I. |
Introduction of Mental Retardation and Down Syndrome 1. Introduction 2.
Overview |
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II. |
Classification Criteria for Mental Retardation 1.
Referral 2.
Tests |
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III. |
Observation Summaries |
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IV. |
Differences
Between Development of a Mentally Retarded Child and a Normal Child and How
this Experience has affected my Professional Development 1.
Developmental differences of a Mentally Retarded child and a normal
child 2.
How this experience has affected my professional development |
|
V. |
Research on Mental Retardation and Down Syndrome Summary
1.
Down Syndrome Research and Practice 7(2) 2.
Down Syndrome Research and Practice 7(1) 3.
Exceptional Children 68(1) 4.
Mental Retardation 25(6) 5.
American Journal of Mental Deficiency 87(3) Applications |
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VI. |
References |
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VII. |
Special Provisions for a
Mentally Retarded Child
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|
VIII. |
Learning Center and Floor
Plan
1.
Learning Center 2.
Floor Plan |
I. Introduction and Overview to Mental Retardation and Down Syndrome
Introduction
I did my observations at Dwight
Elementary School in a self-contained classroom. Almost every student in the classroom had some form of mental
retardation. The boy that I observed is
eight years old and has Down Syndrome.
He went to My Child before coming to Dwight Elementary. He can write his first name but that is
about the only writing he can do. His
language is also hard to understand and his social skills are not appropriate
for his age. I have noticed during my
observations that he likes to play alone.
I had a hard time convincing him to let me play with him.
Overview
Mental Retardation is a disorder in
which someone has an overall intellectual functioning well below average and an
IQ around 70 or less. People with
mental retardation also have considerably impaired ability to cope with common
life situations and lack of some daily living skills expected of people in
their age group. Mental retardation may
interfere with learning, communication, self-care, independent living, social
interaction, play, work, and safety.
Mental retardation appears before the age of 18 and approximately one
percent of the general population has mental retardation. It is slightly more common in males than
females and it occurs in all racial, education, economic, and ethnic backgrounds
(Turnbull, R., Turnbull, A., Shank, M., Smith, S., and Leal, D., 2002, p.
265-266).
There are
four degrees of severity of mental retardation based on IQ score. The first level of mentally retarded is the
mildly retarded individuals. Mildly
retarded individuals make up about 85 percent of people with retardation. These people usually cannot be distinguished
from normal children until they enter school and they have few if any physical
signs. They learn more slowly, however
they can usually develop academic skills equal to the sixth grade level. About 10 percent of the people with mental
retardation are trainably mentally retarded.
They usually excel to the second grade level and about half will have
some physically different characteristics.
Parents would usually be aware of this developmental delay by the age of
three. Severe retardation affects about
3 percent of people who are mentally retarded.
These people may learn to talk during childhood and as adults they can
perform simple tasks with supervision.
These individuals usually live in group homes or remain with their
family and almost all have some physical damage. Profoundly retarded make up about 1-2 percent of the mentally
retarded population. They usually
require constant care and they often have a neurological condition that
accounts for their retardation. They
can usually understand some language but they have little ability to talk. Virtually all have physical damage
(Turnbull, R., Turnbull, A., Shank, M., Smith, S., and Leal, D., 2002, p.
262-263) (Arkansas Tech University, 1999, slides 4-6).
People
with Down Syndrome have their own distinct personalities and they experience a
full range of emotions just like everyone else. People with Down Syndrome have almond-shaped eyes and straight
hair. They don’t look like their
parents and they have a nose like the back of a sway-back horse. Their skull is small and flattened in the
back and they have a “Simian” cease across the palm of the hand. They have a smaller oral cavity, which is
surgically treatable. They have a lower
than usual resistance to nasal and respiratory infections and a higher than
usual incidence of hearing loss and
vision loss (Arkansas Tech University, 1999, slides
20-21). Most people with Down Syndrome
are functioning in the mild or trainably retarded range, however some function
in the nearly normal range while others are severely developmentally
delayed. A good education has helped to
improve levels of achievement in children with Down Syndrome. The average mental age achieved is 8 years
old (Down Syndrome Association of Bradford and District, 2001).
- Performs poorly on verbal and nonverbal intelligence tests
- Difficulty applying abstract processes
- Limited intellectual functioning in memory, imagination, and creativity
- Below average learning performance in basic academic skills
- Difficulty in activities requiring reading and listening
- Oral communication skills exceed written communication skills
- Little incidental learning gained through experience
- Lacks social skills appropriate for age
- Trouble comprehending social situations
- Frustration tolerance very low
- Poor self-concept
- Looks for approval/easily influenced
- Language skills below average for age
- Limited vocabulary
- Deferred speech and language
- Articulation disorders
- Restricted written communication skills
- Delayed responses due to slow processing of questions
Children with Mental Retardation are required to have a vision and hearing test and are recommended to have formal group administered tests of mental ability and/or achievement. They are also recommended to have informal checklists, rating scales, anecdotal records, basic skills inventories, and observation. They are required to have a social history, individual intelligence test, individual achievement test, adaptive behavior test, and a communicative abilities test (IDEA: Mental Retardation p. 2-3, 2000). To be classified as mentally retarded a child has to make around 70 or below on the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test and 67 or below on the Stanford-Binet Individual Intelligence Test (Turnbull, R., Turnbull, A., Shank, M., Smith, S., and Leal, D., 2002, p. 262-263). The communicative abilities test must be a comprehensive language screening measure and instruments must be used that assess areas of receptive and expressive language. If the student fails the screening a diagnostic measure is required. Programming is also required and may be specific subject areas given to the functioning level of the student. There also may be a functional skills assessment that evaluates the ability of an individual to perform the activities required on a daily basis. This type of assessment is based on observations and interviews with family members, teachers, and the student (IDEA: Mental Retardation p. 2-3, 2000).
The first few times that I observed at Dwight Elementary I worked with all the students in a self-contained classroom. Almost all of the students had some form of mental retardation. I got to play games with all of the students in groups and individually. This interaction with all the students helped me see the wide range of abilities of the students. I could tell which ones were more developmentally delayed. The teacher wanted me to work with all the children for my first couple of visits so I could decide which student I wanted to work with. I took turns playing with the students. We would play games such as Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders. On my third visit I decided that I wanted to do my paper on John Doe.
John Doe is an eight-year old boy who has Down Syndrome. He can write he first name but that is the only writing he is capable of. The teacher said it took them all of last year to teach him how to write his first name. This year they are working on his last name. His language is not very plain at all. I have trouble trying to understand him. On my third visit I spent my time getting to know John Doe. We played Candy Land for the first few minutes and they he got tired of it. Next we got out the toy cars because he wanted to play with the car ramp. That also only lasted a few minutes before he go tired of it. I could see pretty quickly that his attention span was very short. Then we got out the memory game. As I watched him play I noticed that he would think that he found a match when in reality they were very much different. After a few minutes he got tired of the memory game also. By this time it was time for the students to go back to their desks. I watched John Doe during story time and noticed that the books did not hold his attention either.
My forth and fifth visit with John Doe went very much the same as the third. We played many different games and each time it only lasted a few minutes before he go tired of it. On the fifth visit he wanted to play house with the Barbie Dolls and he wanted to be the mother. A few minutes later he wanted to run over the Ninja Turtles with the toy big truck. His attention shifted so quickly and it was like this on every visit. I went to his classroom during the same time everyday and by the third day I became familiar with a habit that John Doe seemed to exhibit everyday. Somewhere during the middle of my visit the bell rang for the older students in the class to come in from recess. Everyday when the bell rang, John Doe would run and hide so that the big kids couldn’t find him. He never forgot a day and the teacher said he had been doing this for almost two years. Obviously his memory was better on some things than others.
On my sixth visit I came in and the teacher told me that they had a new game. It was a game where you had to use small fishing poles with magnets to catch ducks as they were swimming around. John Doe wanted to play this game so I watched as he played the game with a classmate. The classmate always caught more ducks than John Doe, however he always thought that he won. I could tell that he did not have very good coordination. The amazing thing about this game was the fact that John Doe didn’t get tired of it. He played for the rest of my visit. The next two visits John Doe wanted to play the duck game also. But by the fourth day he was tired of the duck game and it was just like the other games. He got tired of it after a few minutes. The new had worn off.
On my last visit John Doe wanted to build something with the blocks. He had the Ninja turtles and he wanted me to build them a house out of the blocks. I built a house and the first thing he did was knock it down. That was the funniest part for him. He didn’t like building the house he just wanted to knock it down just like most other little boys. After we got finished with the blocks we played Candy Land. He wanted me to go first and it seemed like he always wanted me to go first when we played any game. I also noticed that he said that he won no matter what was happening with the game. After he got tired of the game he wanted to show me some of his drawings. They all looked the same: A big circle with scribbles inside. When I asked what they were he said one was his dad, one was his mom, and one was his sister. He told me to be still because he wanted to draw a picture of me. He told me that I couldn’t move. He would look at me for a few seconds and then start drawing. Then he would look at me again and start drawing. He was looking at my foot and I accidentally moved it and he reminded me that I had to be still. When he got finished with the picture it was a circle with scribbles just like the rest of his drawings.
IV. Differences Between Development of a Mentally Retarded Child and a Normal Child and how this Experience has affected my Professional Development
Differences Between Development of a Mentally Retarded Child and a Normal Child
People with mental retardation have impairments in the learning process that normal children do not. They have a shorter attention span than normal children, which causes problems because it prevents them from focusing on relevant information while ignoring the irrelevant information and it prevents them from shifting strategies to meet new task demands. They have great difficulty keeping attention over a period of time. They also have more problems with their short-term memory than normal children. They often have a lack of motivation, which is due to experiencing frequent failure. Children with mental retardation also lack some of the adaptive skills that normal children have. These skills are self-care, home living, social skills, community use, self-direction, health and safety, functional academics, leisure, and work. Mentally retarded means that a person has weaknesses in two or more of these skills (Turnbull, R., Turnbull, A., Shank, M., Smith, S., and Leal, D., 2002, p. 265-268).
How this Experience Effected my Professional Development
My
younger sister has an enzyme deficiency of the brain and PKU. She has a pretty severe and rare
disability. The doctors said that she
would never be able to read and write but today she does both. She is 18 years old but her academic
capabilities are about the sixth grade level in some areas and the second grade
level in other areas. Until this
experience I hadn’t been around very many mentally disabled individuals besides
my sister. This experience showed me
how many different levels of disabilities there are. Each child in the self-contained classroom had different
capabilities and different qualities and they were all classified as mentally
retarded. There was such a wide gap in
the abilities that they had. I learned
that just because you know that someone is mentally retarded you are not going
to know what educational experiences they are going to need. Each one is different and has different
abilities and needs.
V.
Research on Mental Retardation and Down Syndrome
Summary
Down Syndrome Research and Practice 7(2)
Motivation and Learning Styles in Young Children with Down Syndrome 47-51
There
are psychological and biological reasons to expect that some areas of learning
will cause children with Down Syndrome problems. Some teaching strategies based on neurological aspects of these
problems have proved highly effective.
There is not a very good understanding of the impact of the
psychological environment on the progress of development in children with Down
Syndrome. When mastering a new skill
children with Down Syndrome are likely to be influenced by experience of how
others respond to their attempts at understanding the physical and social world
and the balance of successes and failures they experience early in
learning. Findings show how a learning
style can sometimes evolve over time in which less than efficient use is made
of current levels of cognitive ability. Social ploys are sometimes used to avoid
participation in learning (Wishart, J., 2001).
Down Syndrome Research and Practice, 7(1)
Short-term memory in Down Syndrome: Applying the
Working Memory Model 17-23
Short-term
memory for verbal information is usually impaired in individuals with Down
Syndrome. This is not the case with
short-term memory for visual and spatial material. Problems with hearing and speech do not appear to be a major
cause of problems on tests of verbal short-term memory. This implies that Down Syndrome is
associated with a specific memory problem that is linked to a potential deficit
in the functioning of the ‘phonological loop’ of Baddeley’s (1986) model of
working memory. We can make firm
predictions as to the likely nature of the short-term memory problem in Down
Syndrome because a reasonable amount of information is known about the normal
functioning of the phonological loop and its role in language acquisition in
typical development (Jarrold, C., and Baddeley, A. D., 2001).
Exceptional Children 68(1)
After Preschool Inclusion: Children’s Educational Pathways Over the Early School Years 65-83
A
large array of factors influences the implementation of inclusion within the
school systems. The condition of
educational services in least restrictive or inclusive environments has been a
central goal in the last ten years. The
decision to place a child
in an inclusive or self-contained special education program is not an easy decision. Inclusion during the early years has been the topic of many research studies and despite this attention, support for inclusive educational placements for children with disabilities has not been without disagreement. Inclusion is a long process that is influenced by families, classrooms, communities, and society. A child’s experience affects and is affected by his/her background. Educational planning must be a decision that is made by professionals and parents and these factors may change over a period of time so the educational planning must change also (Hanson, M. J., Horn, E., Sandall, S., Beckman, P., Morgan, M., Marquart, J., Barnwell, D., and Chou, H. Y., 2001).
Mental Retardation 23(6)
Early Intervention Services for Young Children: National Implications From a Key Informant
Look at Ohio
The
most effective educational services are those that recognize and treat young
children as early in their lives as possible.
Research has suggested that early intervention with young disabled
students has a positive impact on their development. Data from a study done on 32 toddlers and infants showed that
these projects were successful in improving children’s development, especially
in personal-social behavior. Studies
show that participants required special education less frequently and were held
back less often. They also scored much
higher on intelligence tests. The
earliest recognition possible is the most successful service in preventing
developmental disabilities (Swift, C. F., Fine, M. A., and Beck, S., 1985).
American Journal of Mental Deficiency 87(3)
The ability of moderately mentally retarded children to set self-performance standards was studied and it was found that children who received training based on the relational concept of “between” would be able to gain and preserve superior standard- setting operation compared to non-trained control subjects. Also those receiving this training would be able to generalize their exceptional standard-setting performance to a task involving more uneven feedback as well as to a theoretically more abstract task. The results showed that the students learned and retained concepts that allowed them to set appropriate self-performance standards. Also, retarded students were able to set appropriate standards when they were given less restrictive feedback than was given during the first training (Snow, J. S., Mercatoris, M., Beal, D., and Weber, D., 1982).
Arkansas. General Education Division. Office of Accountablility. (2000). IDEA: Mental Retardation. 1-4. Department of Education. General Education Division, Office of Accountability: Little Rock, AR.
Arkansas Tech University. (1999). Mental Retardation: Developmental Delays. Powerpoint Presentation, slides 4-6, 17, 21, and 21.
Down Syndrome Association of Bradford and District. (2001). Facts about Down Syndrome. http://www.bfree.on.ca/comdir/medical/dsa/facts
Hanson, M. J., Horn, E., Sandall, S., Beckman, P., Morgan, M., Marquart, J., Barnwell, D., and Chou, H. Y. (2001). After preschool inclusion: Children’s educational pathways over the early school years. Exceptional Children, 68(1) 65-83.
Jarrold, C., and Baddeley, A. D. (2001). Short-term memory in Down syndrome: Applying the Working Memory Model. Down Syndrome Research and Practice, 7(1) 17-23.
Snow, J. S., Mercatoris, M., Beal, D., and Weber, D. (1982). Development of standards of performance by mentally retarded children. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 87(3) 282-288.
Swift, C. F., Fine, M. A., and Beck, S. (1985).
Early intervention services for young children: National implications from a key informant
look at Ohio. Mental
Retardation, 23(6) 308-311.
Turnbull, R., Turnbull, A., Shank, M., Smith, S., and Leal, D. (2002). Exceptional Lives: Special Education in Today’s Schools (3rd edition). 262-271 Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Wishart, J. (2001). Motivation and learning styles in young children with Down syndrome. Down Syndrome Research and Practice, 7(2) 47-51.
John Doe is seated in a position that will help him stay focused on what is going on in the classroom. He is facing the inside of the classroom instead of the door. He is in a position where he can’t see out the windows while he is sitting at his desk. He is also positioned so that he is not near any of the students that would cause him to act up. Two times a week an occupational therapist comes in a works with John Doe for thirty minutes. He gets to go to the library once a week and pick out a book for the teacher to read out loud to the entire class. He doesn’t do much work on paper because he can’t write and he can’t read either. He gets some practice with real life materials because the room contains phones, play money, keys, and a play cash register to play with. The discipline plan that the teacher is using for John Doe consists of different colored tickets. Every morning when the students arrive they have a red ticket with a smiley face on it by their name. If they misbehave they get a yellow ticket, which is a warning. If they misbehave again that day they get an orange ticket, which means that their parents get called. At the end of the month anyone who has had three or less yellow tickets gets a surprise such as a short field trip. When someone gets a ticket turned in the self-contained classroom they get very upset. It is a big deal to them.
I feel that John Doe needs more help when it comes to working on his social skills and his real life skills so the he will be able to function as an adult. He gets to play with play money and phones but only during his free time. I have never seen any teacher work with him on any of these skills. Most of the time they read stories out loud and the stories don’t usually keep his attention. I also feel that he needs to be motivated. Maybe if someone brags on him it will motivate him to do more things and make him feel like he can accomplish something. He needs to get support now so that his life functioning skills will gradually improve.
Individuals with mental retardation need a lot of practice at real life skills so that they will be able to function as adults. A good learning center for mentally retarded children would be one that focused on adaptive skills.
Example: A table set up that has a telephone and a container with money. The students could practice counting the money or it could be set up like a store. When the students exhibit good behavior they could be rewarded by play money that they could use in the store. The store could be furnished by having the students bring things from home that are no longer being used. Once the student had earned enough money they could go to the store and pick something out to buy. They would have to learn how to determine if they have enough money for a certain item. The students could take turns being the cashier. Each student would get practice at working with money. The teller would have to count back the change and the buyer would have to know how much money to give. It would also give the students good practice at shopping and using money. Both of these are everyday living skills that would be good experience for the students. This would also be good because it would give the students good incentive to show good behavior.
Floor Plan
A classroom floor plan for mentally retarded students should have signs on every piece of furniture that the students will be using. They should have their names on their desks in a spot where they can easily see them. Their desks need to be arranged in a way that will not cause too much distraction. The classroom rules need to be posted somewhere so that they can easily see them because many mentally retarded individuals don’t have a good short-term memory. The materials that the students use need to be kept in the same place and be labeled so that the students will remember where they are. Also there needs to be plenty of room to get around all of the desks and furniture in the event that there is a student in a wheel chair. Also the learning centers should have tables that are wide and tall enough so that a wheel chair could easily fit under them. All of the materials used by the students should be in a place that would be easily accessible to a person in a wheelchair. That includes bookshelves and lockers. The room should not be cluttered because that would make it hard for someone in a wheelchair to get around.