Introduction
Special need students represent a peculiar group in the educational system of any nation. They face specific learning issues in their daily lives, contrary to the non-special group pupils. Addressing the knowledge needs of this group of students is critical in providing an inclusive education for the good of the entire humanity. As such, identifying the special group students’ needs is crucial in recommending an appropriate and inclusive learning environment throughout their developmental stages.
The Role of the Knowledge of Child Development in Assisting Professionals in Providing Effective Learning Interventions
The human mind controls the learning processes of a child. The brains of preschool children are known to develop rapidly, and many neural connections reinforce their intelligence (Dos Santos, 2020). During this period, a child is more vulnerable to distractions and more motivated by positive cognitive influences. Teachers need to support these students and eliminate any unnecessary obstructions that may hinder their attention during learning. They should also embrace positive reinforcement factors to engage the attention of the preschool pupils in their education.
As a preschool supervisor, one must be aware of how to address the negative implications of the environment on the performance of students. For instance, adopting supportive learning would reinforce motivation to a student’s education (Chiva-Bartoll et al., 2020). Encouraging emotional support and an understanding atmosphere to learn the background information of children would also be vital in enhancing their learning abilities. In the developmental process of a child, genetic evolution influences how they respond to an environment. As a result, teachers should consider the biological response of learners as a key influencing factor to their intellectual abilities.
An understanding of the influence of stress in child development is vital in improving their learning. As a child, various social problems, including the death of a parent, lack of food, social abuse as well as sicknesses, could be major stress factors hindering the performance of a child (Wang et al., 2019). Therefore, an instructor should support preschool learners in managing stress to increase their motivation and attention for high learning abilities.
The individual differences in a child’s response to their environment are also attributable to their varying intelligence. These pupils manifest different learning abilities associated with a positive or adverse environmental influence. When positively reinforced, the negative ecological factors disrupting a child’s intellectual capacity can create a friendly atmosphere for students’ success. Teachers have to be informed of these differences to manage pupilr’s reactions to their environment. Therefore, an instructor needs to engage the learners on a personal level in improving the potential of their knowledge acquisition.
A Case for a Disability
While reading on children with learning difficulties, I interacted with Castro, a parentless child living with an old grandmother as his guardian. Castro’s parents perished in a road accident, leaving him as the only survivor. His grandmother appeared to provide for his basic needs partially. The two also showed an irregular pattern of taking meals while Castro is more prone to missing out on school.
How the Disability Influences Child Development
The development of a child is believed to start from the womb throughout their growth. The genetic make-up, as well as the setting of the environment of a child, influences their interpersonal development. As a parentless child living with a guardian, Castro lacks parental support and love in his life. He is also more withdrawn from the rest of his fellow students affecting his interaction with others.
As an orphan, Castro may not receive all the necessary social needs as would be provided by his parents, and he is more exposed to stress factors, including the loss of his parents and his lack of basic needs. Castro may also acquire the wrong perception of parenting since his grandmother does not provide all the requirements that a parent would offer to their children. He will, therefore, develop a cognitive awareness of his environment, forming his experiences.
Castro’s background environment creates multiple repressed traumatic cases throughout his development. His unusual life would affect his intelligence as his learning relies much on comprehending the positive and negative environmental influences. These social pressures may hinder his ability to study, prompting his withdrawn and restless mind during normal class activities. Therefore, Castro is a typical child with a special need, and his studies may not reflect his potential performance if the special needs are not well provided. Adopting key strategies to an inclusive learning environment is therefore critical to help such special group students like in the case of Castro in overcoming their learning difficulty.
Strategies for Creating an Inclusive Learning
As a preschool teacher, I would adopt several strategies to ensure an inclusive learning environment. For instance, identifying all my students’ background information would be necessary for assessing the home-based challenges associated with learning. This will allow me to identify the social and psychological experiences of my pupils that hinder their knowledge acquisition (Dos Santos, 2020. To reinforce the learning abilities of such children, I will identify vital reinforcing factors to suppress the stressors manifested in the life of my preschool learners (Wang et al., 2019). As such, supporting them through stressful moments will increase their motivation and desire for high learning abilities.
Should such a need arise, I would engage my friends and neighbors in tracking the family background and consider any family related learning issues that my students could be facing. This would facilitate my awareness of the diverse needs of these pupils attributable to their home environments. Supporting their background needs would eliminate the barriers of learning associated with family issues. As such, their minds would be less preoccupied with social life challenges and instead engage actively in-class activities.
I would also take a keen note of the behaviors of my students in their interaction. The patterns of their attitudes would also be necessary for examining the learning difficulty they experience. The withdrawn behaviors such as those observed in the case of Castro would suggest a learning disability. I would then identify the common cause of the divergent response to the education and adopt motivating factors to overcome unnecessary destructions (Chiva-Bartoll et al., 2020).
Implementing a small group learning would also help me segregate learners based on their learning needs. As such, it would be easy to handle and address a group challenge with only those affected by it. Finally, I would adopt regular assessment checks in obtaining appropriate feedback in the learning process. The test results would measure the learning ability of each student towards establishing corrective learning.
Legal Implications of Inclusive Learning
Including a special needs student in an early childhood learning environment would attract specific legal requirements. For instance, one would have to conform to the special needs act that advocates for an inclusive learning opportunity for all learners (Mason-Williams et al., 2020). An individual would also have to comply with the resource guidelines that require inclusive learning to provide all the necessary equipment to support special students’ needs. The legal framework further advocates for one to avail all the essential equipment supporting special need educational requirement. For instance, the guideline recommends the provision of individualized learning to help the specific needs of pupils (DeMathews et al., 2020).
The education program authorities would also require such learning settings to collaborate with other education-based funding organizations to provide grants and scholarships to help address students’ financial needs with exceptional abilities. The law as well requires that an institution is registered with the higher learning institutions in furtherance of special education. These legal frameworks enhance the abilities of students with special needs to access learning institutions with minimal challenges. Finally, these policies ensure an inclusive learning environment in providing benefiting education to special group students.
Conclusion
Throughout the formulation of this project, I have acquired new knowledge of the need to identify students with learning needs to realize an inclusive education. I have gained an insight into the role of child development knowledge in enhancing a teacher’s engagement in providing inclusive learning. For instance, genetics and the environment contribute to a student’s motivation for education. The development stage exposes them to develop both positive and negative experiences determining their educational success. As a teacher, one has to introduce essential learning strategies in creating an inclusive education effectively.
Such activities would involve identifying every student’s background knowledge, determining the behaviors of students, and conducting a small group learning process. These techniques are vital in identifying the students’ learning difficulties and providing positive reinforcements to their learning needs. To create an inclusive learning environment, one should also consider complying with all the necessary rules and guidelines regulating the special needs concerns of students.
References
Chiva-Bartoll, O., Capella-Peris, C., & Salvador-GarcĂa, C. (2020). Service-learning in physical education teacher education: Towards a critical and inclusive perspective. Journal of Education for Teaching, 1-13. Web.
DeMathews, D. E., Serafini, A., & Watson, T. N. (2020). Leading inclusive schools: Principal perceptions, practices, and challenges to meaningful change. Educational Administration Quarterly, 4. Web.
Dos Santos, L. M. (2020). Becoming a pre-school and elementary school educator: How do male teachers describe their career decision and career development from the perspective of the social cognitive career approach and human resource management? Journal of Education and e-Learning Research, 7(2), 159-166. Web.
Mason-Williams, L., Bettini, E., Peyton, D., Harvey, A., Rosenberg, M., & Sindelar, P. T. (2020). Rethinking Shortages on special Education: Making Good on the Promise of an equal Opportunity for Students with Disabilities. Teacher Education and Special Education, 43(1), 45-62. Web.
Wang, M. T., Degol, J. L., & Henry, D. A. (2019). An integrative development-in-sociocultural-context model for children’s engagement in learning. American Psychologist, 74(9), 1086. Web.