Learning Disability - Play Therapy is the best solution
SIMPLE TECHNIQUES AND COPING STRATEGIES
FOR LEARNING DIFFICULTIES
What are Learning Difficulties
Learning difficulties (LD) are neurological disorders that interfere with a person’s ability to store, process or produce information, and create a ‘gap’ between one’s ability and performance. Individuals with LDs generally have average or high intelligence. LDs can affect one’s ability to read, write, speak or compute math, and can impede social skills. Individuals with LDs can have marked difficulties on certain tasks while they may excel in other areas. Students with LD may have difficulty in all three areas or more than one, that is reading – dyslexia, writing – dysgraphia and arithmetic – dyscalculia.
Who could be experiencing this?
This difficulty is seen in students and if goes unrecognized or in mild form may also get carried to adulthood. We realized that many parents are still unaware that, there are many children who are otherwise normal however could be slow in their development or have some learning disabilities. Due to this unawareness, these disabilities go unrecognized till the difficulty grows in intensity. There is immense damage done to the self-esteem of the child who is suffering as he or she is labeled as lazy and careless and more often than not comparisons are made with the other children or immediate siblings and kin.
How to recognize the difficulties?
Students with LD can answer questions orally with full confidence, however when it comes to writing they lose all interest as well as feel threatened. The visual motor coordination is weak and though they are trying hard they do not even realize when the spelling mistakes happen while writing. After trying a number of times, they give up completely and avoid situations where writing, reading or arithmetic is involved. If the parent or teachers ask them to write the full page, they will barely manage two lines or leave a blank page. This is because they are highly threatened with words like complete, full page, finish all, do it in a limited time, etc.
What approach the parent needs to take?
Students with LD have parents who use corporal punishment in the early years till a counsellor helps them understand that the difficulty increases with beating or any kind of pressure.
The Parents use two common terms that is “My child is Intelligent in all other areas except for reading and writing”. “When it comes to writing my child is very lazy and careless”. Parents are not aware what LD is and what could be the possible causes and what are the symptoms and that there is remedy for this.
Parents need to understand that students with LD are very creative and have a good imagination. They are also good with computers. They are at times good at sports too. These tasks do not involve writing and reading. The best method with the LD children is Play therapy and using games which enhance the visual motor coordination. Games like Ludo, Scrabble, Snakes and Ladders, Puzzles and crosswords and mazes, coloring crosswords, project work, etc. bring about the best results. Parents need to identify the strengths of their children and use those strengths to build motivation and confidence.
What approach the school authorities need to take?
The school authorities need to identify good and committed counselors and remedial teachers and carry out the steps mentioned in the techniques adopted at Sarawati School.
What approach the teachers need to take?
In many cases that I have done therapy, I have found that even the teachers are unaware of LD and what it means. Teachers have two common complaints “The student is a day dreamer, does not complete his work, all the books are incomplete and the student disturbs others around him.” The teachers could follow as per below:
Understand the difficulties in detail (This could be done by the counselor in the form of a workshop)
Ask or do a small research if in doubt.
Empathize with the student, rather than sympathizing.
Avoid using any strong terminology or words like lazy, day dreamer, careless etc.
Take some extra effort to explain if the topic or word is not understood by the student
Avoid complaining or demoralizing the student in front of others or parents.
Use encouraging words for the strengths noticed. Children with difficulty are good with paints, ideas, dramatics, singing, etc.
What are the simple techniques adopted by Academy for Counselling for Schools?
At Saraswati Vidyalaya, Thane Rabodi, we took the following steps:
1. We identified the students in Primary Section last year and the parameters were: students who have difficulty while writing, mild pain while writing, have shabby handwriting, they lose marks due to spelling mistakes, books are incomplete, some behavioural problems like disturbing the class, parents calling them lazy and careless, working very hard however no application.
2. Parents were invited for a brief explanation and I spend time to make them understand the difficulties their children were facing and sending them to tuitions where the teacher asked them to practice writing was not the solution.
Conducted a workshop for parents, wherein they were asked to take a positive approach and work on the confidence of the child, rather than focusing only on the writing performance.
Teachers along with the help of very able supervisor were asked to prepare special objective question papers and more emphasis was given to oral evaluation, thus proving that the knowledge was present, but the writing skills were to be developed.
This resulted in better performance, thus boosting the morale of the children.
This did involve a lot of counseling and a team of three remedial teacher and a counselor has been working with them.
This year the facility has been extended to 5th 6th and 7th std too.
Students with mild difficulty have already been taken off the special paper system and integrated into the normal paper pattern.
This year the paper pattern is same for all as it involves objectives, however the students do not have to appear for long answers and those marks are evaluated through orals.
Regular Workshops are carried out at the school for Teachers, Parents and Students.
What is the success rate?
The success rate is very high if the parents do not pressurize and concentrate on development of a strong and confident personality rather than only concentrate on academic achievements.
The success rate also depends on the support from the School Management and Teachers.
The School Principal Mrs.Korde had this vision for a long time and together along with the support of the teachers, the librarian, the office staff and the helping staff, this vision is taking shape.
Who needs to opt for the above programme?
All the schools have children who need to be identified at an early age and the programme should be replicated in every school. Parents have no clue where to go and if the facilities are made available in the school itself, it would be a great service to the students who have to go through many torments due to lack of understanding and unawareness.
FOR LEARNING DIFFICULTIES
What are Learning Difficulties
Learning difficulties (LD) are neurological disorders that interfere with a person’s ability to store, process or produce information, and create a ‘gap’ between one’s ability and performance. Individuals with LDs generally have average or high intelligence. LDs can affect one’s ability to read, write, speak or compute math, and can impede social skills. Individuals with LDs can have marked difficulties on certain tasks while they may excel in other areas. Students with LD may have difficulty in all three areas or more than one, that is reading – dyslexia, writing – dysgraphia and arithmetic – dyscalculia.
Who could be experiencing this?
This difficulty is seen in students and if goes unrecognized or in mild form may also get carried to adulthood. We realized that many parents are still unaware that, there are many children who are otherwise normal however could be slow in their development or have some learning disabilities. Due to this unawareness, these disabilities go unrecognized till the difficulty grows in intensity. There is immense damage done to the self-esteem of the child who is suffering as he or she is labeled as lazy and careless and more often than not comparisons are made with the other children or immediate siblings and kin.
How to recognize the difficulties?
Students with LD can answer questions orally with full confidence, however when it comes to writing they lose all interest as well as feel threatened. The visual motor coordination is weak and though they are trying hard they do not even realize when the spelling mistakes happen while writing. After trying a number of times, they give up completely and avoid situations where writing, reading or arithmetic is involved. If the parent or teachers ask them to write the full page, they will barely manage two lines or leave a blank page. This is because they are highly threatened with words like complete, full page, finish all, do it in a limited time, etc.
What approach the parent needs to take?
Students with LD have parents who use corporal punishment in the early years till a counsellor helps them understand that the difficulty increases with beating or any kind of pressure.
The Parents use two common terms that is “My child is Intelligent in all other areas except for reading and writing”. “When it comes to writing my child is very lazy and careless”. Parents are not aware what LD is and what could be the possible causes and what are the symptoms and that there is remedy for this.
Parents need to understand that students with LD are very creative and have a good imagination. They are also good with computers. They are at times good at sports too. These tasks do not involve writing and reading. The best method with the LD children is Play therapy and using games which enhance the visual motor coordination. Games like Ludo, Scrabble, Snakes and Ladders, Puzzles and crosswords and mazes, coloring crosswords, project work, etc. bring about the best results. Parents need to identify the strengths of their children and use those strengths to build motivation and confidence.
What approach the school authorities need to take?
The school authorities need to identify good and committed counselors and remedial teachers and carry out the steps mentioned in the techniques adopted at Sarawati School.
What approach the teachers need to take?
In many cases that I have done therapy, I have found that even the teachers are unaware of LD and what it means. Teachers have two common complaints “The student is a day dreamer, does not complete his work, all the books are incomplete and the student disturbs others around him.” The teachers could follow as per below:
Understand the difficulties in detail (This could be done by the counselor in the form of a workshop)
Ask or do a small research if in doubt.
Empathize with the student, rather than sympathizing.
Avoid using any strong terminology or words like lazy, day dreamer, careless etc.
Take some extra effort to explain if the topic or word is not understood by the student
Avoid complaining or demoralizing the student in front of others or parents.
Use encouraging words for the strengths noticed. Children with difficulty are good with paints, ideas, dramatics, singing, etc.
What are the simple techniques adopted by Academy for Counselling for Schools?
At Saraswati Vidyalaya, Thane Rabodi, we took the following steps:
1. We identified the students in Primary Section last year and the parameters were: students who have difficulty while writing, mild pain while writing, have shabby handwriting, they lose marks due to spelling mistakes, books are incomplete, some behavioural problems like disturbing the class, parents calling them lazy and careless, working very hard however no application.
2. Parents were invited for a brief explanation and I spend time to make them understand the difficulties their children were facing and sending them to tuitions where the teacher asked them to practice writing was not the solution.
Conducted a workshop for parents, wherein they were asked to take a positive approach and work on the confidence of the child, rather than focusing only on the writing performance.
Teachers along with the help of very able supervisor were asked to prepare special objective question papers and more emphasis was given to oral evaluation, thus proving that the knowledge was present, but the writing skills were to be developed.
This resulted in better performance, thus boosting the morale of the children.
This did involve a lot of counseling and a team of three remedial teacher and a counselor has been working with them.
This year the facility has been extended to 5th 6th and 7th std too.
Students with mild difficulty have already been taken off the special paper system and integrated into the normal paper pattern.
This year the paper pattern is same for all as it involves objectives, however the students do not have to appear for long answers and those marks are evaluated through orals.
Regular Workshops are carried out at the school for Teachers, Parents and Students.
What is the success rate?
The success rate is very high if the parents do not pressurize and concentrate on development of a strong and confident personality rather than only concentrate on academic achievements.
The success rate also depends on the support from the School Management and Teachers.
The School Principal Mrs.Korde had this vision for a long time and together along with the support of the teachers, the librarian, the office staff and the helping staff, this vision is taking shape.
Who needs to opt for the above programme?
All the schools have children who need to be identified at an early age and the programme should be replicated in every school. Parents have no clue where to go and if the facilities are made available in the school itself, it would be a great service to the students who have to go through many torments due to lack of understanding and unawareness.
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