Module 4 – Educating Exceptional Children

• Special education is a system of education that involves the organization of a special

teaching-learning environment for meeting the special needs of a special category of
children. In this special category, children are mentally, physically, emotionally, and
socially handicapped, along with being backward, gifted, and creative.
• Gifted Children: The National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC) defines
giftedness as “Gifted individuals are those who demonstrate outstanding levels of
aptitude or competence (10% or rarer) in one or more domains.
• Students with gifts and talents perform or have the capability to perform at higher
levels compared to others of the same age, experience, and environment in one or
more domains. They require modifications to their educational experiences to learn
and realize their potential.
Characteristics of a Gifted Child:

• Gifted children have the ability to comprehend material several grade levels
above their age peers.
• Emotional depth and sensitivity at a young age
• Strong sense of curiosity
• Enthusiastic about unique interests and topics.

Gifted children are special needs children with an IQ:

Mildly gifted: 115 to 129
Moderately gifted: 130-144
Highly gifted: 145-159
Backward Children:

• According to Barton Hall, the term backwardness is used for

those children who are slow learners or underachievers in the
sense that they attain less than expected on the basis of their
potential or natural abilities.
• Backwardness needs careful diagnosis as well as remedial
treatment. Individual attention, utmost care, and a healthy
environment are needed to do away first with their weaknesses
and then develop according to their needs and basic potential.
• Some demonstrate a poor performance much below their natural
abilities. Others demonstrate poor performance in almost all the
subjects and areas of performance.
Causes of Backwardness:
• The child may have poor health or suffer from physical ailments and
chronic diseases, etc.
• Child may suffer from some body defects like defective vision, faulty
hearing, speech defects
• Improper behavior due to overprotection, negligence, jealousy, rivalry,
etc.
• Tension, conflicts, and quarrels at home between parents and other
members of the family.
• Lack of discipline and poor administration at school.
• Lack of trained and qualified teachers.
• Lack of proper guidance and counseling services.
• Adverse and unfavorable neighborhood
• Evil company of peers and other members of society.
Remedial Education for the Backward Children:

• A physical and medical examination of the child is to be conducted at home.

• A regular physical and medical check-up and necessary treatment at school.
• Counseling of parents and providing a suitable environment for children to
receive love, affection, security, social, and emotional support.
• School environment should be designed to help the child in proper adjustment:
provision of special classes, curriculum, co-curricular activities, methods of
teaching, and proper checking of homework.
• Provision of maintenance of proper progress record and provision of educational
and personal guidance to the children.
Delinquent Children:

These are children who violate social norms and behave in an anti-social
manner. The delinquent behavior includes stealing, truancy (skipping school
without a valid reason), aggressiveness, forgery(falsifying documents to
deceive someone), masturbation, and immature sexual elations (immature
sexual attractions, initiation, and behavior).
• It also includes maladjustment arising out of the superego defenses.
• Aggressive behavior in breaking the law, having conflict with the law.
• Reaction with the social conditions, violating the social norms.
Characteristics of Delinquent Children:

• Physical: they are metamorphic in their build-up, bold and muscular.

• Temperamental: restless, more energetic, impulsive, aggressive,
destructive, cruel, bullying.
• Attitudinal: hostile, defiant, resentful, suspicious, non-submissive
attitude.
• Educational: resentment toward school, routine, restrictions on
truancy, and destruction of school property.
• Social: lack affection, stability, and moral standards.
• Intellectually: average or below average.
Causes of Delinquency:

• Home Environment: The delinquent child has a poor background

or no discipline, a lack of affection due to a broken home,
maladjustment with parents and siblings, and a lack of moral
codes.
• School Environment: The environment of the school is not
motivating for the child. Other factors are a lack of guidance, a
lack of emotional support, and care from teachers. Lack of
facilities.
• Ecological Environment: It includes the physical environment
and the habitat of the persons. If a person resides in a densely
populated area or a slum area with few recreational
opportunities.
Remedial Measures/Treatment:

• Re-education: Anti-social behavior of delinquents can be corrected by

re-educating them. Behavior therapy can be used.
• Abstraction: The process of providing opportunities to the individual to
express their suppressed emotions, where they are free to speak.
• Persuasion: It is convincing the delinquent not to indulge in anti-social
activities in the future. Persuasion may be made by directive
counseling of the delinquent.
• Environmental treatment: Improving the environment of the D, both in
homes and schools. Done through counseling of parents and creating
awareness among parents about how to deal with delinquency.
Learning Disabilities:

• Meaning and Definition: Learning relates to the acquisition of skills of

reading, writing, mathematical abilities, speaking, listening, etc. Those
who can’t acquire these skills are called learning disabled.
• According to Hamil (1981), learning disability is a generic term that
refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant
difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading,
writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities. These disorders are
intrinsic to the individual and presumed to be due to central nervous
system.
Causes of Learning Disabilities:

• Hereditary: Researchers have shown that some of the specific learning

disabilities, like reading and writing, run in families. Thus, a child’s disability
may be due to inheritance from parents.
• Brain dysfunction: The Brain may be damaged during the prenatal or
perinatal stage due to injury or infections, which affects motor abilities and
retards learning.
• Biochemical factors: If the biochemical balance of the body loses
equilibrium, then the individual may face various disorders. Phenylketonuria
and Galactosemia may cause learning disabilities.
• Nutritional factors: Severe malnutrition of the pregnant mother or infant can
affect the functioning of the CNS and thereby the learning and development
of the child
Observed Characteristics of Learning-Disabled
Children:

• Equivocal neurological signs

• General orientation deficits
• Emotional liability
• Perceptual motor impairment
• Hyperactivity
• Disorders of speech and hearing
• Specific learning disability
• Disorders of memory and thinking
• Impulsivity
• Disorder of attention
Educational Remedies:
Support system for the learning disabled includes ability training and skills
training. The following approaches are used for education:
• Perceptual motor approach: This includes training in gross-motor, fine-
motor, body-image perception, and eye-hand coordination, such as the
dot-to-dot game and others.
• Psycholinguistic approach: It is based on improving the perception and
association that leads to improvement in learning, such as matching
vowels, etc.
• Multisensory approach: It includes training in visual, auditory, kinesthetic,
and tactual perception. Activities framed in this approach involve the use of
all these senses.
• Learner development approach: Stress on cognitive growth that occurs in
stages of the learner. A hierarchy of skills suitable to a particular state is
framed, and activities to exercise the particular skill are provided.
• Behavior analysis approach: Selection of target behavior, observation of
behavior, collection of data daily, re-observation, analysis of data, re-
teaching, behavior improvement.
• Self-instructional approach: Individuals are given an instructional sheet to
improve in a specific area of their learning disability. The child evaluates
his/her activity.
• Interview: It is the technique used to find out any psychological reason for
learning disability, and a child develops self-confidence to carry out all
activities with interest.
• Modeling: Refers to the use of adults or peers to demonstrate to the child
the appropriate solution strategies. In self-instructional training, the child is
encouraged to learn and develop verbal control of behavior.