Solutions to Help Students With Disability

JAMES\' CASE STUDY

Case Study on James in IDEA

Case Study on James in IDEA

James is a six years old boy living with his parents in first grade. With his intellectual disability, he has been placed under special education classroom having 15 other students. James has some challenges related to learning due to the poor memory and delays in language development. One of the strengths that James has is that he is confident in school and is not easily frustrated. He can communicate effectively with adults but socializing with his peers is a challenge. One of the major challenges that he faces is the fact that he has low achievement in most of the academic areas. These include reading comprehension, mathematics, and written expressions. His interests are in sports, games although he is challenged by isolation from his peers. He has faced delays in cognitive, social and adaptive behavior skills in the classroom (Miller, Krockover, & Doughty, 2013). He lags behind the rest of the students regarding academic achievement because he may remember something today and forget it the next day.

The family is supportive because the members have taken steps towards addressing the issues facing their son. One of the things that they have done is to seek guidance on how they can help the child. However, the mother does not believe that the child has a disability. From her opinion, the child is normal and can learn just like the other children. After conducting a background check, I realized that the mother had objected the idea of putting James in a special education classroom. James is a child who can achieve great levels of academic achievement with the right assistance and help from his teachers and parents. Concerns revolve around the environment that the child stays in at home. In most cases, James isolates himself from the rest of the children in the family, which makes it hard for him to learn with the rest of the family. The concerns of the father are that despite the help he gets from school, the environment he lives in may not provide him with the best opportunity to learn well.

Case Study Methods

The case study was done by interviewing the parents and the teachers who handle him in school. The interviews were conducted on a weekly basis to track the progress of the child and the help that he is getting from the teachers and the parents as well. The process involved the observations of James behavior for a cumulative time of 15 hours spread over six days. The focus of the observation was to track the levels of concentration that James has and to ensure that he is analyzed based on his strengths.

Summary

Academic Performance

James has issues to do with academic achievement due to his memory problem. On observation, I was able to find out that he forgets 70% of what he knew or had learned the previous day. His language development is also poor, which means that he has a challenge in reading. He cannot read well even without the guidance of the teacher. Besides, James is easily distracted from what is happening in class, which affects his understanding and concentration. Apart from reading, he has a challenge in mathematics and written expressions. His oral reading difficulties were evident as he kept on omitting some words or groups of words, substitution through replacing one or more words in the passage and mispronunciation of various words (Dell, Newton, & Petroff, 2016).

Hesitation before pronunciation was also evident, which made him lag behind the rest of the students in the classroom. He did not like the idea of being selected to read something in class or to answer a question. In some occasions, he gave the wrong answer when asked a question, which is an indication that he has a poor memory. His interests in the class included a drawing or any other activity that he could do alone without any interaction with the rest of the students. His test results were poor and could not be compared with those of the rest of the class. For example, his work in various areas revealed that he had a problem with the writing ability. He cannot transfer an idea from the board to his book with ease. Coupled with the lack of concentration, this made him lag behind the class in most aspects (Dell, Newton, & Petroff, 2016).

Social performance

Socially, James has various challenges that are not experienced by other students. This was according to the parents and the teachers who argued that he has difficulties getting along with the peers and the teachers as well. For example, James has problems with helping others and accepting to obey or follow the authority. Consequently, he has a problem with expressing feelings. The father pointed out that his son was unable to read social cues and interact successfully in conversations (Foreman, 2009). The teachers too pointed out that social isolation and alienation was one of the major issues that led to James having issues with social skills. He has been observed to avoid any form of involvement in school because of feeling unimportant to peers (Salend, 2015). The mother stated that James sought to do things on his own, as he did not like the focus placed on him by the rest of the family. The same was echoed by the teachers who said that James sought to do things his way and will be seen seating in isolation especially when they are asked to complete a task by the teacher.

Behavioral Performance

James behavior has some behavioral challenges as well. For instance, he struggles when following rules and keeps quiet sometimes without answering any questions that he is asked. For example, the mother explained that when he is angry or when he feels that he has been treated unfairly. Moreover, he is not good at sharing things and would attack his siblings and snatch some of their toys if he felt that they had better ones that what he has (Foreman, 2009). This mainly happened when he has destroyed his toy. His behavior of doing things contrary to what he has been told or what the others are doing is also a challenge. However, with the right interventions, James has the potential of achieving a lot both socially and academically.

Issues and Concerns

Having intellectual disability makes James a unique case in the class. One of the issues that arise from the case is that the delay in the development of various aspects of cognitive, social and behavioral skills. As a result, the teacher and the parents have to define teaching strategies that will allow the student to learn the social, academic and behavioral skills in succession (Miller, Krockover, & Doughty, 2013).

UDL Table

Lesson teaching methods and materials

Challenges to students

UDL Solutions

Engagement

Presentation

Expression and Active Learning

The teacher will read a book on a leader

The next thing will be to discuss the leader and their characteristics and contributions to the country

The teacher will provide the student with pennies to examine and note the leader on it.

James may not examine the penny and determine the leader

James and other students can speak in front of the class and express themselves

James and other students with writing and spelling issues may not be able to create symbols as instructed in class