Art history and cultural significance

¶ … Art in the Classroom to Enhance Special Needs Student Development

Enhancing student development is always a concern for educators. The end goal of any curriculum is to provide the richest learning experience possible that gives all students the ability to learn. As Dunlap notes, "Art activities can be used to enhance cognitive, speech and language, motor, self-help, and social-emotional development" (260). Of particular concern is development for students with special needs. Following will be an overview of how I would use art in the classroom to enhance student development for children with special needs. Included in this overview will be the processes I would use to incorporate visual, auditory, and physical strategies to enhance learning. Also, a discussion will be had regarding specifically students with Attention Deficit.

Lastly, I will discuss how I would encourage language skills in the students as well.

The Use of Visual, Auditory, and Physical Strategies to Enhance Learning:

The use of visual, auditory and physical strategies in adapting art for children with special needs can be accomplished in a variety of ways. By incorporating a variety of strategies, it will further enrich the student's learning experience. Art is awash in visual richness. To begin with, visual strategies will include verbally describing the materials, to the students, and how to use them, verbally cuing them for what they should be looking for.

Materials and tools will be chosen that will visually encourage the children to manipulate the items. Visually stimulating colors and shapes will be enhanced by other tactile and multi-sensory experiences, such as finger painting, where the children can not only watch as they create broad strokes of color and experiment with the mixing of different colors, but also can feel the paint on their fingertips and explore the sensation of it being spread along the paper. They can watch as their hands manipulate and shape colorful play dough.

Add scents to the play dough, or perhaps sand to the paint, and it becomes an even richer experience involving sight, touch and smell.

In each of these examples, it will be important to allow the children a freedom to explore their materials. This will include allowing for the children to make a mess during their explorations. "Children quickly become inhibited and respond less creatively when they are constantly being warned to 'Be careful!' Or told 'You are making a mess!'" (Dunlap 266).

For this reason, the children will be given appropriate smocks to protect their clothing and situated in a protected, well-defined workspace area, with a wide, clear path to this area, where getting messy will not be a problem and the children will be able to experiment with the materials as freely as possible.

Verbal, visual, and physical cues will be used when giving instruction to the children. As I'm modeling the process I will explain to the children exactly what I'm doing, reinforcing the visual instruction with the physical movement of the actual process, and the auditory description of what I am doing. As an example, I may state, "I'm painting while moving the brush in an up-and-down motion, at this easel."

In addition, I would incorporate rebus charts that illustrate the steps needed for the art project, for the students to refer to.

There will be no restrictions on how the materials or the tools could be used. If a child prefers to place their paper on the floor, instead of an easel, while painting, this would be allowed.

If a child would prefer to hold the paintbrush in their mouths as opposed to with their fingers, this would be allowed as well. Part of the instruction period would include demonstration of some alternative uses of materials and tools and encouragement of the children to try different things. And, lastly, the tools that are used will be adaptive for the children. Glue sticks will be used when possible, as opposed to the frustration of using a bottle of glue. Chunky crayons, fat bingo markers, large markers, and double-handed ambidextrous scissors will be utilized to make the art experience that much easier for the children.

Special Concerns for Children with Attention Deficit:

There are three strategies that will also be implemented to help meet the special concerns for students with Attention Deficit. When possible, making the children wait for a turn will be avoided when necessary. To facilitate this strategy, each child will be provided with his or her own materials.

The materials selected for each project will be materials that can be actively used to release energy. And, the children will be limited to only a few choices, to help assist in the decision-making process.

Language Skills Enhancement Through the Use of Art: