Yeoh Hui Ping Joey Group A

Case Study 1

Area of intervention for child

The area of intervention for child will be language skills.

The intervention

The intervention was to teach productive sign modification to children with intellectual disabilities. In this way, child will be able to convey more difficult meaning which in turns develop their language skills. The participants were eight children ranged with various intellectual disabilities from a special need school in East London. Standardized measures were used such as checklist and assessment on the participants’ acquired vocabularies.

Its effectiveness

Pre-activities

Four nouns and four verbs which describe size, location and direction were selected and used to conduct signing. Such examples were BIG, SMALL, UP and DOWN. There were a total of sixty-four pictures and objects to accompany the nouns and verbs. The participants were paired up. Teacher will make use of the pictures then the objects to test the participant. In the process, participants were able to modify signs through modelling and imitation. At the same time, participants receive praises, encouragement and stickers as rewards. This reward system allowed reinforcement of well paid attention and behaviour. Sessions practice flexibility and will discontinued when participants were observed to be restless.

Post-activities

The results showed that the teaching productive sign modification allow all the eight children to show improvement after the interventions. The evidences collated showed children able to use the verb contrastively and with generalisation.

Personal evaluation on how the child will benefit from this intervention

I feel that with the adaptation of using gestures to teach language skills with pictures and concrete objects may help the child to benefit from the intervention.

The intervention required the use of a few words each time and it allowed child to combine the words like WALK UP and WALK DOWN. Thus, referring back to child’s prior assessment and knowledge on functional words; it leads me to an idea that I can expand the functional words that she learnt earlier like POLICE CAR, EXIT LEFT and GO RIGHT. I can expand the functional words with directional nouns. Using gestures is a novel and engaging way for the child which I feel that it will help capture the child’s attention. Thus, at the end, improve the child’s language in long term.

Suggestions on the adjustments to cater to the needs of the child and to facilitate integration of child/ the intervention activity into the classroom

This gestures teaching method can be integrated into normal classroom setting. For instance, when teacher is teaching new vocabulary words; teacher may integrate gestures to the words. Teacher may even allow individual child to come out with own gesture and adapted by the whole class.

Collaboration with parents such as by sharing of the method with parents will allow continuous learning and reinforcement of the language development.

Adapting to the pair work will be a new experience for child. At the same time, child can work on her social skill with the partner. Child’s learning can be imitated and scaffold by the partner.

Reference

Rudd, H., Grove, N., & Pring, T. (2007). Teaching productive sign modifications to children with intellectual disabilities. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 23 (2), 154 – 163. Retrieved September 2, 2009, from Academic OneFile database.