Parental View Helping Our Special Needs Children

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Parental ViewHelping Our Special Needs Children

• Norman Kee Kiak Nam

http//www.keefamily.org
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Approach

• Brief Background
• Profile of my son in mainstream, what we did to
  help our son, insight on how best to help
• Overview

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Brief Background

• While in childcare centre, the principal has
  detected that my son may have autism and have
  advised us to delay him for a year.
• With the letter from the principal of the centre,
  we got our son professionally diagnosed.
• As parents who are also educators, we assessed
  that our son would be able to go mainstream
  according to age, but with exemption from second
  language. We felt that the challenge without
  second language is already formidable.
• We surveyed the primary schools and obtained
  special needs friendly neighbourhood schools from
  Autism Association of Singapore. We shifted to be
  nearer the school, that we have both considered
  to be friendly and accepting towards children
  with special needs.
• We followed up with a complete report and profile
  of our son and how best to help him, which we
  personally passed on to the form teacher every
  year, with clear means of two-way communication
  opened. This was to establish mutually beneficial
  partnership with school for mutual help and
  effectiveness in intervention for desired
  outcome.
• Primary One form teacher was motherly and very
  experienced, which helped to build up his
  confidence and acceptance in the school. Played a
  very important role as foundation for subsequent
  levels

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Profile of my son in mainstream

• Easily distracted
• What we did
• Arrange for him to sit in front so that he has
  better focus (report entry)
• Tears easily/Sensitive to remarks/May not want to
  speak up or participate at times
• What we did
• Inform teacher in advance not to confront him in
  class but to do it in a one-to-one basis (report
  entry)

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Profile of my son in mainstream

• Single Track of Thinking
• Stubbornly holds on to his own point of view even
  though it has been pointed out to be wrong
• Unable to see things at times from another angle
• Firm but gentle insistence on preferred way of
  doing things with need to explain the rationale
• Need to repeat these over a number of times to
  enforce it

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Profile of my son in mainstream

• Visual versus Verbal Communication
• Follows well with visual, things have to be
  written on the board, page number to be written
  on the board or in the communication book.
• Lengthy verbal instructions is often truncated
• Best to provide handout or ensure that
  instructions are copied with sufficient time and
  verification

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Profile of my son in mainstream

• Easily dishearten when the rules are not followed
  feeling theres no justice
• Importance to be consistent with discipline and
  rules keeping
• Need to break up task into smaller chunks for
  comprehension
• Example Word problem solving approach should be
  tackled sentence by sentence and transformed
  pictorially to maintain and build understanding.

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Profile of my son in mainstream

• Lacks imagination
• Needs template, structure and requires a lot of
  modelling to build up ideas for composition
  writing
• Fine motor skills - Handwriting
• Appeal to teachers to give him time to finish up
  work as well as to understand the untidiness
• Appeal to focus on content rather than on
  penalising bad handwriting

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Profile of my son in mainstream

• Comprehension Skills
• Have to teach him to imagine familiar images from
  reading the passage so that he can follow through
  the story with understanding and meaning.
• Can be manipulated and bullied
• Taught to approach teacher for any help (report)

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Profile of my son in mainstream

• Social Skills
• Do not have many friends as he is introverted
• Needs adult intervention to put into groups
• Rapport needed to understand what is going on in
  the child
• Trust building for openness

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Overview

• Importance of passing accumulated experience and
  understanding of how best to understand and
  provide effective help to child with special
  needs, especially during transition between
  levels.
• If unsure of situation, please give benefit of
  doubt and investigate on one-to-one basis if
  possible.
• Structure and consistency in rules and regulation
  would facilitate a predictable and secure
  environment.
• Lowering of expectation on handwriting and reduce
  length of verbal instruction if possible.
• Buddy system preferably girls (generally more
  patient and caring) to facilitate following of
  class lessons (e.g. pages to turn to).
• Please do not have any preconceived ideas or
  notions of children with special needs, as it is
  a spectrum and each individual is unique.
• When faced with very challenging situations,
  delay action and wait for suitable times, to be
  in control and to constructively manage it.

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On Behalf of ParentsThank You