Being special
needs doesn’t mean that they can’t do anything else…
As I read
chapter 4, I talked about the learning differences that most children have form
having a learning disability to being disabled. It also talked about the
appropriate way to label certain disabilities and conditions. When I was a one
to one teacher at a Therapeutic school I worked and seen many children with different
types of learning disabilities, social-emotional needs, and ADHD/Autisms students.
Working with them open many doors in my educational career, I was able to understand
them and find different ways to teach them. I was in a classroom of ten
students 7th and 8th graders with two other teachers. I came
along a student that had some type of autism, meaning he was smart on the computer
we call him Ty the tech guy, because he always fixed our computers and every assignment
including math worksheets would be completed on his computer using creativity. That’s
when I began to read the chapter it got my attention fast eager to learn more
about them. It is our responsibility to help them succeed in life, by taking
all these standardize test and IQs won’t help the students that really need help.
Basically, since my I began my career, I have been working with students with IEP’s,
in which we seek the help and support after we make referrals to the school. Gardener’s
theory can be right, and yes, each one of them have something in common or
their strongly related, but I agree that many students and adults may have
certain parts of intelligence within us. I Also believe that as the decades pass by we
as humans are getting smarter, because there are so many ways we can learn and
we are not limited, like back in the day our parents where exposed to so much. Now
intelligence? Anyone special needs or not have some intelligence in ourselves,
whether it comes from heredity or its from our surroundings.
During my reading
on chapter 5…
Diversity in
language development, where it depends on the child’s development in what
language he or she is going to learn first. It talked about language emergence
and dual language. To say that I have worked in Dual Language classrooms mostly
1st graders, it does make a difference. I worked in a school district
where the majority if the students are all white population and so, parents
will enroll them in 1st grade to learn Spanish, for example. Being able
to experience the first 5 months of the program, the students learn many words
and meanings they learned how to adapt. So little story about my son, I am from
a Hispanic origin, where as my child was taken care of my mom probably 85% of
the time due to school and work. On the 3 years that he has been raised by my mother
my son learns zero words in Spanish. By the time he was referred to early
intervention he had a speech pathologist that taught him words, but in English.
So, as he grew up, now 8 years old, he doesn’t understand Spanish at all, and
all my family are confused of how that even happen if he was with my mom most
of his childhood; and she doesn’t speak any English. So that is when I read the
section of how their brain chooses what to learn. As my son is 8 years old, I always thought it
was critical time for him to learn some Spanish, but is never to late of too
early, because I want him to be responding to a second language.
I can understand where you are coming from. I myself working in a therapeutic school also see (I don’t work with) so many children with some form of autism and getting to interact with so many different students is amazing. It is crazy how one of the students who is severely autistic can tell you about all the water-parks in the world. It is amazing how teachers have to work so hard with him to learn certain things but if you ask him the tallest or smallest water-slide he knows. I agree that technology has had such a positive outcome for communication and learning through Ipads and other devices. I couldn’t agree more with when you stated it’s never too late to learn. Yes, I know it was proven that the earlier you learn the easiest but doesn’t mean you can never learn. Again, it goes back to technology too. There is so much out there to help you learn a new language regardless of your age.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you about what you said about the students with special needs. All of my students are capable. Some of my students do not know how to write. We give them chooses instead. Some of my students do not know how to read. We give them a program that helps them read, or we read to them. They are still able to answer all of the questions. The list goes on and on. They are capable. They can do anything. All of the case managers that I work with keep saying how if they are able to do a task, have the student do it. Do not help them if they do not need it. We are teaching them how to be independent. I also agree with you about the standardized tests. These tests only really test if the student is able to take a test. I was that student who would always do badly on them. As I got older, I learned who these tests do not show how smart I am. The same thing goes for the IQ test. This does not show you how smart you are. It does not also really show you the students who are struggling. In the classroom, this is really the only place where you can see the student learning. This is also the place where you help the student. I also do agree with you on the fact of everyone has some kind of intelligence. Everybody is different which does mean our intelligence is also different.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with the fact that the younger you are the more easier it is to learn a second language. Even though I did not come from a family with a different language, I did come from a family that did have a different way of speaking. Being English, meant my mom had to not talk the way she grow up. She had to talk like she was an American for me and my brothers. She was worried we will fall behind if we did not. This does also mean some words I see automatically are English words than American words because that was the way I grew up. For the most part I do say and call things the American way. I also would say my speech pathologist also was the big reason why I talk in the way I do. I also do believe anybody really can speak a language no matter how old you are. It might take someone a little longer the older they are, but they are able to speak another language.
I can relate with you because when my son started pre-school, he did not know how to speak English but at the end of the year his English language skills were the same as all the other children. I didn’t teach my boys Polish because between their regular curriculum, and Spanish classes I felt it might be to much for them. After reading this week’s text I feel better because they can learn at any age.
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