Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, Essay Example

Introduction

Students with unique requirements or wants are not out of the ordinary phenomenon in a particular society and their education requirements must be met in order to enhance them  attain the most they are able to in their childhood stage and also the adulthood stage. Their special needs require dedicated and committed tutors who beliefs that the mentally challenged children are able to be successful in life and more so offer something in their society. These tutors, therefore, needs to be well equipped to meet the personal needs of these children. It’s within this scope that they require to have prescriptive or diagnostic skills that can only permit them to develop each student’s possibility as they ascend from life’s stages. The tutors need to be educated on how to build up a curriculum that will help a mentally challenged student to attain an excellent adult life (Hughes, 1998).

Teaching the students with unique needs calls for unique training whereby the teachers are educated on building up individualized curricula because of the diverse requirements that are revealed by these students. However the lengthy established systems of giving instructions to their classes as a full can never be practiced to the special students due to their dissimilar and limited capacities to comprehend the lessons taught or matters of life (Hughes, 1998). The teachers take the responsibility to learn and accommodate the dissimilar students and their special needs.

The two major characteristics shared in anecdotal degrees by all the individuals with mental challenges are limitations in adaptive behavior and intellectual functioning. The intellectual functioning limitation often comprises of skill and task generalization, conceptual skills difficulties, practical skills as well as social skills. These individuals with mental retardation display, now and then, insufficiency in self determination skills such as goal setting, problem solving and so on (Hughes, 1998). The students viewed as mild mentally challenged exhibit delay in social, adaptive and cognitive behavior skills in particular classroom set up. It has been noted that, these same students function very well vocationally and socially while in different settings and in their adult stages, can be well adjusted and independent in the scope outside of school setting. Thus, it’s only in the framework of intensive intellectual challenges and academic demands that their potential appear impaired. The allegation that mental challenge is a school based diagnosis emphasizes the regular subjective nature of eligibility needs in this disability group for future adult services.

The students with mental challenges are able to attain a high quality life in several distinct aspects, with an appropriate assistance in place (Davies, 2002). While these students experiences limitations in several adaptive behaviors, such limitations co-exist together with strengths in other parts within the student. Self reliance and independence ought to be the primary goals of every instructional methods employed to students with mental challenges. Nonetheless a child with a considerable intellectual insufficiency will not be in a position to cognitively cope up with his peers in the context of academic performance and intelligence. In reality, the opposite is very true and the child will possibly fall further behind as he grows older, certainly if no suitable academic assistance are implemented. The academic and cognitive gap amid these students and their chiefly peers regularly widens with age, even in a set up of a better program. A child with growth and developmental delays will often learn and comprehend far lesser things at a more minimal pace than an average child, while the intellectual growth will be considerably impaired. However a child with an intellectual insufficiency will progress to learn and comprehend some features of the universe, but this cognitive development is less full and there will be left noteworthy gaps in the student’s knowledge foundation. As the new learning is often filtered through a younger mental perspective in children with growth delays, the quality of the learning and it’s application will be unusual than the context of a significantly growing peer (Davies, 2002).

In order to wholly address the limitations in adaptive behavior and intellectual performance regularly experienced by students with mental retardation, the teachers are required to offer direct instructions in a variety of skill parts outside the general curriculum.  Some of these skills are highly functional in nature but are completely indispensable for the future independence of an individual. The additional skill parts comprise of vocational training, independent living skills, leisure activities, personal hygiene, time and money concept. These students are well able to learn the skills more efficiently in the activities or settings in which they will be required to make use of the skills. Immediately these skills are mastered then an extra environment can be added to function towards generalization.

General curriculum, therefore, ought not to be abandoned, as there are a number of promising practices which can assist in supporting these students in various academic parts. One major efficient literacy method with these students is the prelinguistic scene teaching, a method that ties instruction to the defined abilities and interests of an individual child. This language achievement instructional method also assists in supporting efficient self determination, as a major component of the training is recurrent requesting behavior from a student.

Breaking down chief tasks into their particular component areas can be an efficient technique for teaching any given number of skills to these students with mental retardation (Davies, 2002). Highly complicated activities or concepts can therefore be taught overtime, and as an individual student master’s excellently one component of the task, an extra one is added to the routine. This kind of a task analysis can be well taught by use of a range of instructional supports, that is, from verbal and physical prompting to observational learning. The detailed materials and instructional strategies used with the students ought to be aligned to the student’s personal strengths and interests.

In addition making use of actual tools or real materials in natural environments is an important component in the efficient instruction of students with a mental challenge. These materials serve to make possible generalization to various environments and to motivate the students.

Society involvement in transition and individualized education program (IEP) has been highly encouraged and promoted by individuals with disabilities, teachers and many others. Researchers have noted that the majority who participate in individualized education program development or associated educational goal setting and planning end up, improving in their academic skills, developing vital communication skills and self advocacy, graduate from one grade of academic to the other, achieve a better employment and quality of life as grown-ups, gain self confidence to name but a few (Kiresuk, 1994). In spite of the individuals with disabilities education Act requirements, research showed that, teachers perception, majority of the youths have been denied individualized education program and self determination activities. For example, around thirty percent teachers stated that they did not write self determination goals and forty percent indicated that they never had satisfying information or training on teaching self determination (Wehmeyer & Schwartz, 1998). However the leaders in the sector of special education have campaigned for involving students in the individualized education program process. Active involvement may comprise of assisting with goal setting, self monitoring and self advocacy. According to Sharpe’s survey, the administrators discovered strategies for involving the students in the individualized education program process, which are interviewing or discussing with the students about their personal goals, offering unwritten welcome to the program, engaging the students in discussion during the individualized education program meeting and finally promoting and encouraging self determination goals in instructional programs. In the strategy of interviewing or discussing with the students about their personal goal, the administrator perceived that, the goal must identify or recognize a certain event or action that should take place, the goal and its merits must be quantifiable, should not fail but be achievable provided available resources, must be applicable and realistic and finally the goal should have a specified time period to be accomplished (Kiresuk, 1994).

Conclusion

As a result of their thought inability, the students with mental retardation, if well trained and equipped can be of great value in the society. By working together with other professionals and making use of the best resources available, the tutors can streamline their tasks, pool resources, and develop positive outcomes from individual students. Self determined character is goal directed, thus, these students with mental challenges can and must be involved in goal setting (Kiresuk, 1994).

References

Davies, D., (2002). Mental  Retardation. New York. New York Publishers.

Hughes, C., (1998). Education and Training in Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. London. Macmillan publishers.

Kiresuk, T. J., (1994). Goal Attainment Scaling. Hillsdale, NJ; Erlbaum.

Wehmeyer, M., & Schwartz, M., (1997). A Follow-up Study of Adults with Mental Retardation. Chicago. Chicago publishers.