ADAPTATIONS TO THE CURRICULUM FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED CHILDREN
What is visual impairment ?
-An impairment in vision that, even with corrections adversely affects a child education performance.
Signs of visual impairment-
1. Eye that don’t move together when following an object or a face.
2. Eye that bulge and bounce with rapid movements.
3. Pupil that are unequal in size.
4. Repeated shutting or covering with one eye
5. Frequent squinting, blinking and eye rubbing.
Levels of visual impairment-
1. Mild visual impairment- Can read relatively larger characters,
2. Moderate visual impairment- Can tell shapes and colours of objects and only read characters of larger size
3. Severe visual impairment- May not see anything (completely blind)
Types of visual impairment-
1. Low visual acuity
2. Blindness
3. Legal blankness
4. Visual acuity
Structure of Curriculum
The curriculum designed for ordinary children is generally appropriate for visually impaired children. However, some adaptations to the learning materials and the teaching approaches have to be made so that the learning needs of visually impaired children can be met.
The curriculum should be balanced with due consideration given to the children's intellectual, personal, emotional and social developments. To teach visually impaired children, the teacher should adopt a consistent, realistic and flexible approach in curriculum planning and implementation.
Curriculum to the adaptation for visually impaired children
Mathematics
Mathematics is an important subject in the curriculum.
General objectives for the teaching of Maths-
· Knowing and using the concepts, terminology and calculation procedures that are specific to Mathematics
· Developing the abilities to explore / investigate and solve problems.
· Developing the capacity to communicate using mathematical language.
· Developing the interest and motivation for the study and application of Mathematics in various contexts.
· Forming the habit of resorting to mathematical concepts and methods in addressing everyday situations or solving practical problems.
Following are some suggestions geared to the needs of the children:
1.First-hand Experience-
In learning Mathematics, totally blind and severe low vision children need first-hand experience because they lack visual stimulation related to the development of mathematical concepts such as size, shape, colour, etc. The teacher needs to adapt the learning materials and give examples appropriate to the children's levels of understanding.
Activity 1-
1. To teach different types of shapes and sizes
I will give 3-D models of different types of shapes and sizes to the children and ask them to touch.
The children use their senses to identify the different types of shapes and sizes, they learn how to compare sizes of the objects. In this process their imagination power as well as memorization power will increase.
Touching Sphere
Touching Cylinder
Touching Cube
Fig. 01 (Children learning different type of shapes)
Marble (small size)
Holding ball (big size)
Fig. 02 (children learning different type of sizes)
2. Use of Special Aids-
Mathematics Braille should be introduced for mathematical computation. In teaching Geometry, statistics and graphs, embossed diagrams should be used. To teach counting we can use abacus in senior primary classes. It’s very easy to use and to do calculations. Embossed diagrams should have been simplified without compromising accuracy.
Activity 02-
2. To teach counting to visual impaired children-
1. Split the task into smaller sections
2. Teach the concepts step by step.
3. Use of abacus, number line in Braille or large print, hand on hand. demonstration and verbal prompts are useful support counting activities.
Fig 03. Abacus (to teach counting)
Activity 3-
To teach ‘addition’ and ‘subtraction’ to visually impaired children-
Addition-
· For this activity I use marbles.
· I give a few marbles (e.g. 2) to each child.
· They count them by touching.
· Then I give few more marbles (e.g. 3) and ask them to add with the previous marbles
· After adding they count them all.
Hence, they can understand the concept of addition in mathematical form.
Fig. 04 (Mathematical Addition)
Subtraction: -
Now each of them has total five number of marbles in hand
· I ask them to return me two marbles from their hands
· Then I ask them to count the remaining marbles they have
· They count and find only three marbles in their hand
In this way they understand the concept of mathematical subtraction
Fig.05 (Mathematical Subtraction)
Teaching Strategies for Children with Learning Disabilities
The needs of children with different disabilities vary considerably in accomplishing the tasks prescribed by the curriculum. So there required the adaptation of different types of teaching techniques to help in learning of children with special needs.
There are few teaching strategies for CWSN’s-
Peer Teaching -
This strategy is also known as child-to-child approach. In this strategy, one student who has proficiency in a skill teaches another student who has problem in learning a concept on one-to-one basis. A competent student is paired with one who has difficulty in a given academic area. Tutoring may also be cross-age in which an older student gives instruction to a younger student. Usually the tutor with average or above average ability teaches a student with equal or lower ability.
This method must take into account;
1. Role of the tutor
2. Selection of the tutor
3. Training of the peer tutor
4. Specific needs of the both and the taught
5. Time and effort required for actual tutoring
6. Supervision of peer tutoring arrangement
It’s helpful for the teacher to demonstrate the procedures for the pair. The teacher determines the skills to be taught, the material to be used and the instruction activity.
Multi-Sensory Approach -
This method is based on the premise that some children learnt best when content is presented in more than one modality., All modalities such as kinaesthetic related to movement of the body, touch stimulation along with visual and auditory senses are used to make learning more effective for child. In this approach, the child sees, feels, says, and hears the content. This technique that include tracing, hearing writing and seeing are often referred to as VAKT (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, tactile). In this approach, embossed letters, models, visual aids, blocks, puzzles and other TLM can be used.
Cooperative Learning-
This is a method of effectively using student group in a classroom. The primary elements involved in this technique are; positive interdependence, or the feeling that individual goal attainment relies on the performance of all group members, student’s own responsibility, face-to-face interaction with peers, use of social skills and involvement of a group as a whole in the completion of a given academic task. This learning is an instructional arrangement in which small groups or teams of students works together to achieve team success in a manner that promote student responsibility for their own learning of others.
Example-
Four students can be placed in a group such that one is high achiever, two are average achieve achievers and one is low achiever.
Studies have shown that it is not only the low achievers who benefit from cooperative learning, but the high achievers also show significant gains. Cooperative learning can also be used in cross age and multi-grade setting.
Cooperative learning has been suggested as a technique for aiding in the mainstreaming of mild to severely learning disable students. Cooperative learning provides an opportunity for the observation of peers and the development of good social skills, as well as helping all students in improving academically. However, the teacher has to be skilled enough to form the groups appropriately so that the goal can be achieved.
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