Tan Yun Ping, Group A

Case study 1

Intervention: Better play times training

According to Woolf (2008), better play times training is an effective play based intervention that was practice in an EBD primary school. It is a weekly half an hour play sessions to a child for a period of at least 12 sessions. This intervention was based on the belief of a handful of theorist including Erikson. The goal of this training is to help the child understand and manage one’s emotions and feelings.

Woolf (2008) mentions, “The child is in charge of the play” (p. 2).Two children will have a special playtime in a room once a week. They will get to choose what they want to play and teacher will facilitate but not intervening the play.

Effectiveness

According to Woolf (2008), all the 5 pairs of children showed improvement with accordance to the assessments criteria (checklist and questionnaires). The three most significant changes were; improvement in the children self-esteem and ability to work through conflicts and communicate their struggles, participating staffs got to understand their children better, and the children were “more able to accept and be accepted as they are… positive about their own strengths… positive about their attributes, e.g., be happy, be clever” (p. 11).

How to apply to the child?

In the case study, it was mentioned that the child displays emotional and behavioural problem with her peers. I interpret that she displays inappropriate behavior mainly because she was not able to express herself verbally as she face difficulties in her speech and communication skills. Hence, I feel that Better Play Times will provide opportunities to learn to interact with another child as they play together, and also allowing teacher to observe and facilitate her needs. One way is to help the child focus on their strengths and positive attributes.

Kostelnik, Soderman and Whiren (2007) state that children learn best through play. This is because they are very familiar with it. It also promotes fun and encourages the child to explore problems and solutions as she is doing things that she enjoys. During the process of play, child might encounter discomfort, taking risk, anxiety and uncertainty. But, they will have control over these problems. Hence, the child will get to enjoy the process. Also, when partnered with just one child, his or her focus will be on the child and negative behavioral problem may be minimized as there are less distractions. With the play materials, they can use both verbal and non verbal to express their feelings. This will help the child realized how to use non verbal to communicates and to practice her speech. Therefore, it helps the child to form positive relationships with her classmates as they played and interacts.

Into an inclusive classroom

Personally, I like the idea of using play to help children cope with their difficulties and overcome it. I think Better Play Times will help Annie as well as her friend. To include Better Play Times into the curriculum, teacher can group the children in pairs and they will take turn to play in the special play room. They may have a chart to take note of the turn taking. At the end of the week or month, teacher can gather the children in small group of 4 to 5 children. They are to talk about their experiences. In this way, it provides Annie opportunities to share and listen to her peers.

The materials and instructions used must be creative so that children will enjoy and not get bored overtime. As the class teacher, he or she must make the effort to know each child well. With that knowledge, play materials and instructions design can incorporate each child’s interest, learning styles and their needs.

References
Woolf, A. (March 2008). Better play times training – theory and practice in an EBD primary school. Emotional and behavioural difficulties. 13 (1), 1-15. Retrieved on 4 September 2009, from Academic Search Premier

Kostelnik, M. J., Soderman, A. K. & Whiren, A. P. (2007). Developing appropriate
curriculum: Best practices in early childhood education. (4th ed.). Pearson: Merrill/Prentice hall