Inclusion Plan For A 3-Year Old Girl Facing Learning Difficulties

Source

Information

Implications for planning

Child

Taya is 3 year old preschooler. A detailed observation on Taya showed that she exhibits consistent shy behaviour. For Taya, normal everyday interaction with the peers and the adult family members seem almost impossible. The level of shyness is creating barrier in social development and overall merrymaking in pre-school.  Taya seldom interact voluntarily and refuse to respond to her teachers during the class. However, Taya follow the directions but do not respond to those instructions verbally. At times she was found making gestures on behalf of speaking.

Shyness is a normal problem faced by the toddlers, this shyness may arise out of lack of confidence, fear in interacting with the unknown people and inability to speak properly in right ascent[1]. Difficulties with speaking fluently are a common problem with child between 2 to 4 years of age. In case of Taya, the learning difficult arising out of non-verbal barrier is mostly due to stammering[2]. Here shyness is making the child self-conscious and this self-consciousness is making Taya to stammer. The underlying cause behind Taya’s stammering has not been clearly understood. However, research shows that the majority of the children outgrows this initial phase of stammering with age[3].

Family

Taya’s parents are of the opion that, Taya often looks at the ground while interacting or meeting unfamiliar people. Moreover, she looks extremely tensed, worried and distracted while amidst unfamiliar situations. She also refuses to step inside a completely new setting without her parents. Her parents also said that Taya is stammers significantly less while interacting with them.

The Taya may be less attentive and that is main reason why she hates eye contact while interacting with unfamiliar. However, she shows gestures of eye contact while interacting with familiar people like her mother or father so her lack of attentively can be ruled out. Taya mainly tries to avoid eye contact because she is shy and becomes extremely self-conscious while interacting with strangers. This feeling of being self-conscious makes her uncomfortable in a completely new set-up and wants her parents to be around in order to feel secured or safe. This feeling of self-consciousness or insecurity creates barrier in communication resulting in stammering and this ultimately affects her learning process.

Staff or the Teachers

The teacher or the staffs of the child care centre recorded that Taya always look tensed or rather say worried. She mostly refuses to speak and only provides gestures when asked to indicate certain things or to give consent. Even if she speaks lately, she speaks in an inaudible voice or stammers. However, when she interacts with her parents, her voice becomes audible.

Taya is self-conscious or is ashamed for her non-verbal communication difficulties and that’s why she becomes extremely tensed while interacting with the staffs of the childcare centres. However, she feels safe and secured and lies with her comfort zone while interacting with her parents and hence execute normal gestures.

Professionals working with the child

The professionals working with Taya said that during the initial days of the leaning process Taya was in an absolute non-cooperation mode. She either don’t listen to them, keep silent and do not respond to any single questions. However, as the day passed and they became a bit familiar with each other, Taya though still not verbally communicating but showing physical gestures or showing hand or head movements to respond to their question.

This change in Taya’s behaviour from extreme non-cooperation to partial co-operation showed that Taya is a normal child but fear unknown or unfamiliar people and refuse to respond. However, she have a partial stammering problem and this may be have no connection with her physiological stature and is related with her mental connection towards extreme shyness.

Child’s Name:         Taya                                                                      Date: 4^th September

EYLF Learning Outcomes

Weakness and Relationships

Shy and non verbal 

Her shyness acts as barrier preventing her to contact with others[5]. She also fails to participate in different activities undertaken at the child-centre.

She is not connected to the world and lack sense of identity

She fail to communicate with people and hence lacks the ability to form new relationships[6].

She lacks of strong sense of well-being

Emotional development: She is unable to express her feelings.

She is not confident and deviates from learning

She is unable to connect to others and share her ideas or feelings with others.

She is ineffective in communicating with unknown 

Communication development is not as per her age as she is non-verbal and inexpressive.

In order to improve the condition of Taya, the first thing that should be taken into consideration is—–improvement in her communication ability. In order to improve the communication ability, there must remain Speech Therapy (once a week) and Play Therapy (once a week). This two therapies will not only help Taya to improve on her communication skills, but also will help uproot her fear of interacting with the unknown people. As these therapies will take place in group, Taya will gradually overcome the phobia of unknown or self-consciousness.

In order to carry out the therapy, collaboration is required from the staffs of the child care centres. Proper support will also be required form her parents as it her parents whom Taya relies and trust most.

Child’s name: Taya

Date:  4^th September, 2017

DOB:

Proposed Review Date:

Age: 3 years

Description of the barrier to learning/additional need

The term “Barrier to learning” or “Learning Difficulty” includes difficulties that are creating problem in the pathway of hassle-free learning process in child.  Here the difficulties encompass the environment/situation, physiological/emotional/psychological problems preventing children from indulging into spontaneous learning process[7].

The barriers includes

·         Emotional barriers

·         Health barriers

·         Financial barriers

·         Cultural and Social barriers

·         Barriers within the academic system

·         Problem with language and education 

·         Lack of adequate parental involvement [8]

In case of Taya the barriers is coming in the form of psychological problem that is manifesting as health problem (stammering) and thus creating language barrier.

Summary of  Child’s trait

She lacks communication skills due to shyness and need for the development of social skills. Activities like singing and talking activities, book-based activities, good play experiences like painting, drawing and musical activities, speech therapy would be helpful in enhance her verbal communication and overcome her shyness.

Strategies to support family and opportunities to collaborate with the family

Family members will be encourage and will invited in to participate in the Play and speech therapy with Taya. In that case, she will feel more homely and secured.

Long term goal

It will help Taya to overcome her problem with learning difficulties and shyness

Short term objectives of program

1.      To overcome speech barrier r communication problem

2.      To overcome the fear of interaction with unknown people

Environmental factors/ modifications

Physical environment, routines, limits and guidelines

Identified factors that may be interfering with learning

Modifications/additions

Evaluation

Avoid labelling child as shy

The teacher must consider Taya as a common child and will treat her in that way. She will pretend that she won’t show any added gestures due to her shyness problem

Labelling child shy encourages a child to view her with that defined perspective only which will make Taya to fulfil that defined parameter only like she will cast as excuse of her shyness and will hide her inability to perfrom.

Lack of bonding with the teachers

The teacher or the staff at the child care center must come forward and take the initial steps towards bonding with the child. Her bonding refers to knowing of strength, weakness, thoughts, skills, fears and interests.

Knowing child as a person and not just objectifying child as a shy or timid creature will create better opportunity for the teacher to customize the process of learning opportunities, interventions and conversations

Strategies and  planning

Who will do?

Evaluation:

Speech Therapy

Teachers or staffs of Child care centres

Speech therapy will help Taya with her problem with speech and the associated stammering problem[9]. In the speech therapy, Taya will be asked to sing a song or rhyme. This flow of words in a rhythmic manner will help Taya to fight back against her stammering problem ad at the same time will help Taya to overcome her fear of speech via developing interest[10].

Play therapy

Teachers and other students at the childcare centres

Play therapy will help Taya to overcome her fear of interacting with the unknown persons[11]. While at play therapy, she need to ineract and spend time with her friends and this act of interactions done in a play full manner will break the stigma of self-conscious and shyness in Taya. Since Taya will be within the peers of same age people, she will feel more comfortable and secured. The play therapy will also help Taya to gain concentration and to be more attentive in class[12][13].

Final evaluation: Thus Play therapy and Speech Therapy will be helpful for Taya in overcoming her learning barriers. However, constant support from parents and family members are also crucial as it will encourage Taya to get rid of her shyness[14].