Other Obstacles to Learning
Although the information processing disorders that are classified as learning disabilities have perhaps captured more public attention than any other kind of learning problem in recent years, parents should be aware of the many other types of physical and emotional conditions that can hinder learning in a young child. These include vision and hearing impairments, certain medical conditions, mental retardation and emo
tional difficulties As with learning disabilities, physical and emotional handicaps are best identified through a professional evaluation. And the sooner affect ed children begin receiving special teaching assistance - through local or federally sponsored programs -- the more satisfactory their progress in learning is likely to be.
Children grow up surrounded by a flow of continuous, repeated lan guage that automatically stimulates their own language development. Yet some children, because of limited hearing, experience only silence or muffled, distorted noises. They cannot enjoy the sounds that they themselves are making and they do not get the feedback from their own and other voices around them that is needed to correct these sounds when they come out out wrong
These hearing impaired children often have no other obstacles to learning, but they need special help from paroms and professionals in overcome the difficulties they have in mastering language order to skills. Starting at an an early age, they can learn to compensate for their hearing loss with vision -- through the use of sign language, finger spell- ing, speech heavily cued by gestures and body language. Many children can also benefit from wearing hearing aids, pur
Because early detection is important ni parents, in monitoring their baby's growth and development should keep an eye out for the behav. ior that reflects normal hearing development. For example as early as two months, even when she cannot see you, your baby will turn her eyes and head in the direction of your voice. Later in the first year, she can identify the source of a sound and will turn her head and shoulders in the direction of footsteps, a ringing telephone, a voice or other familiar sounds
If you ask an 1- to 15-month-old child to identify a favorite toy or person, she will point to or look at the object or person. By now she should also enjoy listening to all kinds of sounds and imitating them. By a year and a half, she can use her finger to point to her nose or eyes at your request, At two years old, she should be able to communicate through the use of a variety of everyday words and follow simple verbal commands without your pointing or offering other visual clues, If at any of these s discuss your concerns with her doctor.
Formal screening of children for hearing problems is routinely done the public schools and is often available at the preschool level. In a hearing test, the audiologist, a trained testing specialist, fits the young ster with earphones connected to a machine called an audiometer and tests her response to a series of high and low-pitched tones. The hear ing test should be coupled with a speech and language evaluation by a professional to detect speaking problems related to faulty hearing, For example, a child may have trouble speaking clearly because she cannot monitor her voice. Her voice may be too high or low pitched, too nasal or weak, or too quiet or loud. Or she may speak too slowly or put the stress on the wrong syllables. Some speech sounds may be missing and some may be substituted for others.
Based on the results of the hearing tests, a child's impairment is categorized as mild, moderate, severe or profound. The child can also be described functionally as deaf or hard of hearing: Deaf means that hearing is so impaired that it cannot be used during the course of daily living, hard of hearing means that although the child's hearing is some what impaired, it is still useful. Once the problem is properly assessed, the extent and kind of help a child should receive can be determined.
When a child opens his eyes and looks at the world, he sees shapes spaces and movement. This gives him a vast amount of information to take in quickly about what exists in his environment, how to move through it and manipulate it, and how others are moving through it. He notices behavior and absorbs social data by watching and paying atten tion to the body language and facial gestures of those around him. his eyes closed, a child could find out a great deal of this information through bearing and touching, but it would take him a longer time.
It thesere takes longer for the vision-impaired infant's social and motor skills to develop, but the child usually catches up in the second and third years of life. The baby who has trouble seeing his parents and siblings finds it hard to understand the element of communication expressed in nonverbal cues and to imitate social behavior. He develop his own form of nonverbal communication based on hand gestures: Although his face may be inexpressive, parents can learn to read the expression of his hands as the fingers busily scan objects presented to him or as he makes reaching gestures that announce his need for affection Áru pur
Children learn all sorts of things by exploring, if he is not visually attracted by the objects around him, the youngster's exploration of the environment is also slowed. Parents can help stimulate the interest he takes in exploration by providing a variety of sounds for him to listen to and objects to touch But such eye-hand coordinated activities as swip ing, reaching, grasping and transferring from one hand to the other hand will take more time to learn. Sitting, crawling, standing and walking will also be slowed without accurate visual feedback Formal evaluation of babies' vision is difficult. Parental observation of such delays in social and physical development is usually the earliest
means of assessing visual difficulties The problems clustered under the term "vision impairment" include those of the blind child with little or no vision and the near sighted child, who can see things close to him but not at a distance. Some
children have tunnel vision, which means they can see things directly in front of them but cannot see anything on either side without turning the head. Others may have clear peripheral vision but cannot see what is just in front of them
A child with impaired vision usually benefits from those activities that develop motor coordination and involve interaction with other children Activities that are especially helpful to vision-impaired pre schoolers are balancing and body movement exercises, games that in volve holding hands or following directions, or sharing and singing games with finger play that combine music and words with actions. When they start school children who have less severe vision impair ments and handicaps often do well in a regular classroom that makes use of special equipment, modifications in lighting and print size, and curriculum adaptations that emphasize listening skills
Many behavior and learning problems arise from metabolic disorders or orthopedic handicaps that affect a child's energy level or interfere with his processes of growth and development. These conditions are not contagious and may have no effect at all on the child's general mental abilities, children who have them often are able to participate in a regular classroom with special resources
Malfunctions of the thyroid gland, for example, can have a great influence on a youngster's moods and on his ability to concentrate. Afflicted children may be lethargic because of excessively low levels of hormone production, or they may be restless and irritable because of too much hormone production Similar symptoms occur with hypogly cemia, an abnormally low blood-sugar level that can be corrected through dietary changes.
Learning problems may also be present with cerebral palsy, an ortho pedic handicap that ioteifeie with muscle functioning Some children with cerebral palsy atfer con stiormal reflexes that position their bodies into certain posture they move, making reaching and exploring difficulty THE case children with cerebral palsy are of normal intelligence. but they have muscle related that make it hard to evaluate their cognitive abilities. speech problems
The effects of other serious chronic illnesses, such as asthma, diabe- sis, epilepsy or severe anemia, vary from child to tes, cystic fibrosis, child. Some children with these health problems are not usually handi capped by them in day-to-day functioning, in other cases, such illnesses require special attention on a regular basis. These children may need modified classroom activities or home or hospital based education programs. It is important that parents and teachers broaden the experi ences of the children and help them see that the illness is only a small part of their lives
Mental retardation refers specifically to children whose intelligence and other areas of development are below normal in relation to that of their peers. These children are classified by degrees of retardation as mildly, moderately or severely retarded. Many mentally retarded chil dren can in fact learn a great deal, even though they learn more slowly than other children Mildly retarded children may be good at activities involving move
ment but have trouble speaking, remembering, following directions and coordinating their eyes and hands, With extra help, they can learn most of the activities that take place in a preschool classroom. Moder- ately retarded children are physically clumsy and lag hind in most areas of development. In order to tame stal farther be- for them to learn, activities must be broken down into small parts and practiced one segment at a time. During the carly years, the aim of a training program is to help the youngsters achieve normal developmental skills or, if this is not possi ble, to find ways to compensate for the lack of these skills. As children progress, some of them may move on to conventional classrooms. where the youngsters will still be provided with individual attention. Severely or profoundly retarded children can seldom be taught in a regular preschool classroom. Some never learn to speak, but they can be taught to communicate orally or with signs.
A mild or moderate retardation may not be apparent at an early age, but carcfelchservation of a child's activities may reveal that she is slower than other children to learn new activities, complete a task or acquire social skills, Great care must be taken in evaluation, however, not to mistoic physical or mental immaturity for retardation. And some children have been misdiagnosed as mentally retarded when they were simply ethnically different or economically disadvantaged.
For some retarded children, the negative expectations of parents and others provide the greatest handicap. As infants, these children need the same kind of affection and attention that other babies get: They need to be held and smiled and cooed at just like other children, even though their response to this affection may be more limited. They should have, as all children should, a program of daily activities to stim ulate learning accompanied by a sense of positive expectations from other family members.
For most children, occasional emotional turmoil is part of growing up Difficult behavior may be a more stressful stage of normal development, and parents may simply have to wait for their children to grow out of fears, negativism or excessive clinging. For other children, psychologi cal conditions are clearly blocking development and professional help is required. For example, severe anxiety can interfere with memory and concentration and reduce achievement overly aggressive children may become a threat to other children and fail to develop social skills,
Special services are needed for the more serious types of emotional problems - including behavior that is dangerously aggressive or self destructive, severely withdrawn or excessively hyperactive, anxious, depressed or phobic. Professionals handle most of these situations by counseling the child and by teaching parents effective methods of meet ing his learning needs at home
