Education – Teaching or Learning?
Two quite important events have taken place recently, both of which have created debate; both will have a significant impact on teaching, learning and education.
The first is the reintroduction of teaching children to learn to read by the use of phonetics, and the other is the announcement of a new assessment, of the way of educating special needs children, announced by the author of the original report, into the setting up special needs education, Baroness Warnock.
Ironically, whilst the use of phonetics is not a new technique, the use of which, is, totally inappropriate to those children with neurological dysfunction’s, incapable of being taught without first addressing the dysfunction.
In fact, any form of learning technique will not teach children to read who are incapable of learning to read.
The ability to read, and communicate with the written word has never depended on the ability to speak.
The ability to read and write efficiently, only is available to the individual whom has successfully achieved complete neurological organisation.
The ability to speak comes when children have successfully achieved the following conditions;
The ability to listen 80% of the time to ambient, not direct speech.
The ability to respond to “no” 80% of the time.
The ability to respond to commands 80% of the time.
The ability to repeat vowels.
The ability to repeat consonants.
Throughout The Autism Centre website www.theautismcentre.co.uk reference is made to rehabilitation programmes to help overcome the neurological dysfunctions, impairing output, which are a result of brain injury. As soon as the child can successfully receive inputs, then learning and confirmation of that learning by output, has been achieved.
Since the mid 70’s, a number of rehabilitation approaches based on the premise of sensory integration therapy using physical exercises, originally proposed in the early 50's by Temple Fay’s team in Philadelphia, were devised, and currently practised in some schools in the UK.
One particular approach is currently practised in Australia, set up by parents, after a visit by Dr Carl Delacato, in the 1970’s.and forms the basis of remedial practise in the schools in that state. The organisation has done trials with local schools and has devised procedures for trials.
A number of similar projects were conducted in the 1960,s in the United States and one such reported project is reproduced for comparison in website www.theautismcentre.co.uk
The debate, which should be considered, is, whether the strategy for rehabilitation should be in the remit of Health, Education, at home with help by the parents or a balanced mixture of all three options.
The announcement by Baroness Warnock of a review of special needs education will come as no surprise to the great majority of parents with children requiring special education. Those parent’s who have struggled against beurocracy, with LEA’s, committed to inclusion with no back up plan, will applaud this decision.
The ethos of giving every child irrespective of its background, an opportunity for a well meaning education is laudable, but to achieve this end, means that enough suitable resources must be in place. Sadly from the beginning of implementation of this inclusion policy, this has never been totally achieved to promote best practise universally.
The rising numbers of children on “inclusion policy “ programmes being excluded from school, and parents opting to educate “otherwise”, simply because the school resources are inadequate, or not utilised to full advantage, is witness to the failure of the programme.
My concern has been that the conditions, in terms of suitable resources, has never been universally available from the onset, there is goodwill in place, trained knowledgeable teachers, suitable education establishments having the right teaching environments, calm, quiet, not too bright, resourced with suitable learning aids.
PLD children, all being, hyper sensitive, hyper active, hyper visual, and hyper auditory can be successfully educated given the right conditions and resources.
Inclusion policy of integration in mainstream therefor, whilst laudable is not practical. Perhaps now is the time to put the education of such children into small units with their allotted “one-to-ones”, with input from parents, alternatively allow children to be educated “out of school”, fully funded by the appropriate authorities.
The first is the reintroduction of teaching children to learn to read by the use of phonetics, and the other is the announcement of a new assessment, of the way of educating special needs children, announced by the author of the original report, into the setting up special needs education, Baroness Warnock.
Ironically, whilst the use of phonetics is not a new technique, the use of which, is, totally inappropriate to those children with neurological dysfunction’s, incapable of being taught without first addressing the dysfunction.
In fact, any form of learning technique will not teach children to read who are incapable of learning to read.
The ability to read, and communicate with the written word has never depended on the ability to speak.
The ability to read and write efficiently, only is available to the individual whom has successfully achieved complete neurological organisation.
The ability to speak comes when children have successfully achieved the following conditions;
The ability to listen 80% of the time to ambient, not direct speech.
The ability to respond to “no” 80% of the time.
The ability to respond to commands 80% of the time.
The ability to repeat vowels.
The ability to repeat consonants.
Throughout The Autism Centre website www.theautismcentre.co.uk reference is made to rehabilitation programmes to help overcome the neurological dysfunctions, impairing output, which are a result of brain injury. As soon as the child can successfully receive inputs, then learning and confirmation of that learning by output, has been achieved.
Since the mid 70’s, a number of rehabilitation approaches based on the premise of sensory integration therapy using physical exercises, originally proposed in the early 50's by Temple Fay’s team in Philadelphia, were devised, and currently practised in some schools in the UK.
One particular approach is currently practised in Australia, set up by parents, after a visit by Dr Carl Delacato, in the 1970’s.and forms the basis of remedial practise in the schools in that state. The organisation has done trials with local schools and has devised procedures for trials.
A number of similar projects were conducted in the 1960,s in the United States and one such reported project is reproduced for comparison in website www.theautismcentre.co.uk
The debate, which should be considered, is, whether the strategy for rehabilitation should be in the remit of Health, Education, at home with help by the parents or a balanced mixture of all three options.
The announcement by Baroness Warnock of a review of special needs education will come as no surprise to the great majority of parents with children requiring special education. Those parent’s who have struggled against beurocracy, with LEA’s, committed to inclusion with no back up plan, will applaud this decision.
The ethos of giving every child irrespective of its background, an opportunity for a well meaning education is laudable, but to achieve this end, means that enough suitable resources must be in place. Sadly from the beginning of implementation of this inclusion policy, this has never been totally achieved to promote best practise universally.
The rising numbers of children on “inclusion policy “ programmes being excluded from school, and parents opting to educate “otherwise”, simply because the school resources are inadequate, or not utilised to full advantage, is witness to the failure of the programme.
My concern has been that the conditions, in terms of suitable resources, has never been universally available from the onset, there is goodwill in place, trained knowledgeable teachers, suitable education establishments having the right teaching environments, calm, quiet, not too bright, resourced with suitable learning aids.
PLD children, all being, hyper sensitive, hyper active, hyper visual, and hyper auditory can be successfully educated given the right conditions and resources.
Inclusion policy of integration in mainstream therefor, whilst laudable is not practical. Perhaps now is the time to put the education of such children into small units with their allotted “one-to-ones”, with input from parents, alternatively allow children to be educated “out of school”, fully funded by the appropriate authorities.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home