Helping children with learning disabilities
Richard D. Lavoie has worked as the head of residential programs for children with special needs since 1972. Based on his rich experience, Lavoie developed some critical strategies to assist in teaching social skills and friendship skills in the community, schools and the family. The techniques begin by analyzing the causes and consequences of what he calls social incompetence. The program offers tested advice on how to assist the children with social problems to deal with the daily social struggles. Implementing such an application to the children suffering social skill problems will get the child from being bullied, rejected, picked upon to be friendly with all people and being accepted by the peers. Richard has used his videos to bring about some concepts and ideas that can be applied in a classroom setup to improve the skills of children with learning disabilities.
Lack of excellent social skills or the social competence is one of the most significant challenges both in our childhood and adulthood. The children with social problems are more likely to have the same difficulties even when they are grownups. According to different studies, the kids with social issues are at a high risk suffering the learning disabilities. Their self-esteem is usually low. They feel unwanted and think everybody is against them because of one or the other reason. They will not want to socialize much, and they prefer to remain indoors or at home because that is the only castles that they feel comfortable.
Richard has successively brought out his ideas and concepts to use in a classroom setting in different categories. The first one is timing and staging. Many kids do not realize almost everything in the society must undergo a specific process for it to be successful. For instance, many kids will think you have to be their friend just because you set them in class. In this case, they do not understand that any strong friendship must develop and undergo every process of growth. Many kids view association has a process instead of process. Some of them may even think you must become their friend because they want it. In case it doesn’t work they hate you and think you are an enemy and their attitude towards you may last for so long.
I recall when I was ten my parents moved to another town and therefore I had to change the school. In my first few days, I seated next to this young boy mark who wanted me to be his friend. He was very proud to have a new friend in the school, but he never wanted me to associate with others. It didn’t work for long, and from then on he hated me with passion. He made sure everybody in the school was aware that we no longer friends.
The timing and staging are critical in the life of the youth. Studies indicate that there is a significant problem with the girls especially the teenagers with learning disabilities. They have difficulty in determining and differentiating those who genuinely love them and those that don’t. They don’t realize that any romantic relationship must develop and grow in a process. If you tell “I girl, I love you, and I would like to marry you.” They quickly are carried away by this kind of words because they don’t understand everything is a process.
Some years back I encountered one of my classmates who were very much stressed. She spent most of her time alone and cried for more than three days. She was very reluctant to share with anyone what she was going through. I was a close friend to her for some time, and after a lot of persistence, she decided to open up. She had found her boyfriend with another girl who made her crazy. They had known each other for one week, and she ended up believing the young man would marry her. She needed someone to be there talk to her about the issue which was helpful in her healing. If presented with such a situation in my practice of teaching the children with learning disabilities, I will move very first to help the student come to terms with what he /she is going through. I will have to conduct some one on one counseling session with the student to help her in the shortest time possible. To avoid such incidences in the future, I will assess how the rest of the student perceive the relationships and guide them in making informed decisions.
Affective matching
Affective matching is the ability of an individual to get up to the occasion in every manner. It is one of the social requirements for a person who is social to match hisher effect with the environment and the people present for the occasion. For example, if you go to a place where people are mourning you should mourn with them, if people around you are sad you should be sad and if the people are happy you should also be happy and enjoy with them.
When I was in high school, one of our friends lost his dad. An arrangement was made for the whole class to attend the funeral as a way of offering moral support to our friend. There was a group of student who was not right in quality. They could do anything to avoid being in public. At the funeral, they went into their corner and started enjoying music without caring what was going on. It was very strange, and everybody was wondering why they did that. They failed to match the effect of the day which was not good at all.
It has been found that the children who cannot match the effect have a problem with their social memory. Further, they experience difficulties with social prediction. They don’t know how people are likely to perceive their general behavior in public. In case I am faced with such a situation I will psychologically prepare the student of how they are expected to behave to avoid some embarrassing situations
Social relevance
According to Richard everything we do is determined by the location and the environment we find ourselves. There are three things to consider whenever faced with a situation. They include the place, the purpose and the people around. Typically, a person can art depending on the understanding of the people involved the situation as well as the goal.
We live in a society that is much diversity regarding different cultures and religions. We are faced with some situations that we don’t know want is supposed to us but as we observe we can realize all that is required to do. For instance, weddings are conducted differently depending on the culture or religion of the people. If it happens that you attend a wedding and you don’t know the procedures you will have to observe the people and do what the does. When they stand you stand and when they sit you sit.
Children with the learning disabilities may not be able to do that. They may end up in a very compromising and embarrassing situation especially if they get to interfere with the critical moment that is set for a specific group of people like the family members.
Social contrast
Children have social skill problems that are associated with an inability to allow social contracts. The problem turns out to affect the individual’s reputation more than anything else. One of the most significant challenges to the current generation children is managing their standing in public. Majority of the children who don’t have friends have found themselves in such a situation because their reputation among the peers is not good.
There is a significant disparity between how the children and the adults perceive reputation. The adults take into consideration the situation in trying to protect their reputation. On other words the take the situation point of view. The children make the disposition point of view. Their position on something is almost permanent. While the adults change their stand based on the situation, the kids don’t. If they hate something, they hate it, and nothing much can be done to improve that. Adults can name so many people that they didn’t like when the first met them but they are their best friends today. In adulthood, the reputation is never permanent. The case is very different especially for the children with poor social skills since they do not follow social contrast. The kids with social skill problems develop a reputation, and they end up becoming the outcast of the entire society.
During my early days in school max, a boy who lived in our neigh hood accidentally messed with my toy trunk. The trunk was so meant a lot to me that nobody would touch it. Just like any child, I felt max was against me, and he hated me. I developed a very negative attitude towards him. Though we were in the same school and class, we never talked to each other for more than twelve years.
Faced with such a situation, I have learned to judge the motives of the people, and it will not be a big deal forgiving Max. I now differentiate between what is done interestingly and an accident. As an adult, I don’t keep so many grudges, but I try to live peacefully with everybody in the society.
Paralinguistic
Paralinguistic can be defined as the nonverbal language. Different studies have revealed that when we communicate it is only seven percent of the entire communication that is contained words. Ninety-three percent of the conversation is held in the facial expressions, postures gestures and the tone of the voice. (Spector,& Kitsuse, 2017).
Most of the children do not understand the nonverbal communication. They cannot decode the tone of the voice, gestures and the facial expressions. How close they stand determines the amount of information they get from a communication. Many children miss about ninety-three percent of discussion when it is done socially. There are four parts of nonverbal communication. They include the vocalic, kinesics, proxemics and the artificial systems. Kinesics is the use of body and gesture in connection. There is always a great message that is communicated by how we hold our bodies. Kids who have kinesics face a lot of challenges in understanding the emotions of the people. They live in their kind of world because they don’t recognize the gestures that accompany the language. They can’t get the meaning of language, and they, therefore, end up making so many common mistakes. Boys have more challenges with kinesics compared to the girls, and the men have the same difficulties compared to women. Proxemics is another area that mostly affects communication. Space is used to communicate a lot of information in any information. The space between individuals during the discussion is significant. Human beings are naturally territorial, and the can do anything to protect their territory. They build walls, fences, and hedges to separate them from others. There are four types of spaces that are used in communication .i.e. social space, public space, intimate space and the personal space. If the wrong area is used at the wrong time the behavior is likely to be misinterpreted. Social space is where you feel the desire or the need to interact with somebody.
The idea of vocalic should be well understood. Vocalic is associated with the tone of the voice. It is how the change in tone changes the message communicated through the same words are used. The final aspect that is very important in paralinguistic is the artificial systems. Artificial system is the way a person communicates through his her clothing and accessories. From the social point of view, how we are dressed communicate a lot about us or the occasion of the day. People should know I dress depending on the circumstances. It is not appropriate to walk into the stadium to play football in a suit. When we were in high school, so many students were punished for not having the games attires when it was time for games. The teachers who had their games attires had little difficulties in convincing the student to dress appropriately. The idea proves the theory that kids learn best when they are presented in the actual situation with someone to guide them.
The class is a family.
Among the essential concepts that a teacher should have is that the children have been together for a very long to became a family. In so many instances they received punishment because one of them did something wrong. If the teacher wants to improve the entire class including those with poor social skills, a teacher try giving collective rewards after one of them has done the right thing.
Social competence is essential for the natural learning, and the teacher should do everything to ensure students are socially competent. Social power is the combination of social skills and the social information. Children are socially incompetent because they lack the needed knowledge. Teach should use every moment they have to teach the kids something. The teacher should also encourage the student to have hobbies and participate in sport to get a proper exposure. For the kids with social problems, team sports are not recommended because it will only discourage them and lower their self-esteem. (Loseke, 2017).
In most cases, the children with social problems growing up have the same challenges. It is good for a kid to be taught how to play sports like golf and swimming. When they grow up, they can join different clubs and teams which will keep them exposed and physically fit. A good teacher should talk to children about their social problems. It is a little bit difficult to get children speaking about their social challenges because they are embarrassed. At which should develop some ways to get the kids open up about what may be a problem to them.
The children with poor language skills are likely to give a general answer to a specific question and a particular solution to a widespread problem. A teacher should use the moment which they are avoiding to do something, to make sure they open up for assistance. They should not be scolded because the situation is already caused enough embarrassment. The teacher should be supportive through the social stories. Teachers can also decide to focus on correcting each behavior or mistake at a time. The whole idea is to help the kid focus and take caution not to make a specific error. Eventually, the kid will end up improving in every sector even those that were not on the subject.
A teacher working with the kids should aim at teaching them how to behave in a social environment. A teacher can organize some social events and help the student learn the best way to act in different situations and occasions.
What I have learned
1The childhood behaviors determine how n individual behaves at adulthood. Children with the social problems have the same issues if the matters are not addressed and corrected at an early stage.
2Children with social skill problems find it difficult to talk about their problem. The teachers and parent should have a way of helping them.
3 The self-esteem of kids with learning disabilities is ordinarily low. They think everybody hates them and will prefer to stay alone. The parent should be there to give them the needed moral support.
4 Children tend to have the permanent attitude towards things or people that they do not like contrary to adults who judge depending on the situations
5 Children do not understand the body communication which carriers around 93%of the entire disclosure.
6 The parent should focus on correcting each behaves at a time for them to be effective
7 Kids learn best when they are exposed to the natural or the actual situation.
8.Teachers have the responsibility to create the best learning environment for the children with the learning disabilities.
9 Women and girls have little paralinguistic challenges compared to men and boys.
10 In case your child is facing a lot of rejection in a school. It is good to change the school and help him improve his social skills.
References:
Loseke, D. (2017). Thinking about social problems: An introduction to constructionist perspectives. Routledge.
Spector, M., & Kitsuse, J. I. (2017). Constructing social problems. Routledge.
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