Robert, a first-grade student in Ms. Gonzalez’s class was an attention seeker and lay down on the floor with his legs in the air. In his second-grade year, Robert was under Ms. Lopez and Ms. Gonzalez and would walk around the class aimlessly while chatting with friends. His behavior was variable because there were days he behaved well. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a behavioral disorder where children are exhibiting sufficient persistence and severity of hyperactivity, inattention, and impulsivity, which results in impairment in several settings (Nel, 2014). It is the most commonly diagnosed mental disorder among children and they may be unable to control their impulses or have trouble paying attention in class. Such behaviors interfere with the normal running of classroom activities and symptoms include easily distracted, do not stay seated in class, when sitting they often fidget, squirm or bounce, interrupts others and so on.
Emotional or behavioral disorder (EBD) is an emotional disability that is characterized by a child’s inability to build satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers, teachers and other care givers (Stewart & Dikel, 2010). EBD students display pervasive mood of depression or unhappiness and under normal conditions, the student displays a type of behavior that is consistently inappropriate. EBD students also have the inability to learn and this cannot be explained by sensory, intellectual or health factors. Lastly, EBD students display tendency to develop physical symptoms, unreasonable fears or pains that are associated with school or even personal problems.
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In Robert’s case, he displays many of the stated characteristics and thus, he has these disabilities. For instance, when it comes to class, he has trouble paying attention thus; his behavior interferes with the normal running of the classroom activities. Moreover, he has emotional disability considering his inability of building lasting relations with his peers and also develops physical symptoms where he hits and fights his classmates. “Opportunity to learn” in Robert’s case is where he is given the essential support to learn. The education structures need to be enabled and teaching methods changed so as to meet Robert’s needs by incorporating all his learning barriers (Colberg, 2010).
The type of label a child receives should not dictate services rendered to them because when it comes to labeling African-American children like Robert become over-labeled or are disproportionately represented in selected categories like in their learning disabilities. Labeling becomes counter-productive for African-American students and since they are termed as disabled, then it means that they have a deficit when it comes to their thinking. Thus, they lack an ability to learn and by labeling Robert, the education system is discriminating the student and it brings a plethora of differential treatment. As such, adding another label to this group of students is harmful to them as the label will provide information to the society regardless of its accuracy. Such events will lead the student to engage in more harmful and ill-mannered behavior because the society is against them. Therefore, labeling in the classroom fails to employ culturally responsive instructional strategies that facilitate on the achievement of students coming from the African-American societies. Consequently, the type of label given to Robert should not change the service being given to him because it will fail to meet IDEA’s mission when it comes to meeting the needs of disabled students in the community. It is imperative that the education system maintains the type of service accorded to disabled students, even after changing their label, because it they are different facets of their learning environments. In fact, in Robert’s case, additional services need to be rendered to him in order to curb his new behavior. By so doing, they will be meeting their responsibility as teachers of fostering positive cognitive development in learners.
A school that has a disabled child engaging in ill-mannered behavior or breaks the school’s code of conduct at times results in the school proposing the removal of the child. In such instances, it is paramount that the school holds a hearing to determine whether or not the child’s behavior that led to the disciplinary infraction is in any way linked to his or her disability. This hearing is what is called a Manifestation Determination Review (MDR) and is a process that reviews all the relevant information plus the relationship between the child’s behavior and his or her disability. Therefore, a manifestation determination is a formal process applied by schools for students receiving special education services in determining their behavioral issues. IDEA recognizes that a child with disability may display disruptive behavior characteristics resulting from their disability. Hence, they should not be punished for those behaviors that are a result of the child’s disability. The reason is because IDEA designed procedural safeguards that assure such students are not arbitrarily removed from their parent-approved program without consent. Thus, were guaranteed to have free and appropriate public education (FAPE) within least restrictive environments (LRE). In Robert’s case, I would order him to see a psychiatrist who would help him tame his behavior and manage his anger. Moreover, I would advise him to approach his guidance and counseling instructor who would create a plan that would help lower his levels of reacting by thinking positively. At some point, he will also be introduced to other offenders in the juvenile system to show him the consequences of behaving irrationally.
At second-grade Germaine was in Ms. Taylor’s classroom, who displayed him as having a deficit in language. When Germaine was distracted his IQ score and levels of achievement showed some discrepancy, especially in math. Such weaknesses made him eligible for services in special education under the learning disabled category. In his third-grade year, Ms. Perez, his primary special education teacher, noted that he needed to attend the intermediate special education class for reading despite his fluency in reading and was “on grade level.” In math, Ms. Perez noted that Germaine took long to work on his work because he was unsure of himself. Ms. Perez resigned late in the fall and was replaced by Ms. Merriweather who noted that Germaine tended to ‘zone out’ during class. His self-esteem was also low and became very upset when his peers bothered him. Nonetheless, his concentrations during distractive circumstances were remarkable due to his sensitivity to classroom context. Staff change also brought about irrational behaviors in Germaine who at some point was ‘whiny and complained’ during Ms. Perez’s class. In Ms. Church’s classroom the atmosphere, at some point, was chaotic and other times Germaine would cooperate with the teacher while others he would join his friends in laughing and talking. At no point did Germaine engage in any fights even when others were fighting. However, during a music class Germaine behaved badly and jumped on top of chairs, ran on top of the row of chairs while laughing loudly. Such are the things that prompted the school to qualify Germaine as a student requiring special education services.
Specific learning disabilities (SLDs) are defined as the heterogeneous group of disorders that are characterized by an individual’s unexpected failure to acquire, retrieve, and use information competently (Burger, 2010). SLDs are normally caused by acquired or inborn abnormalities in the structure and functioning of the brain. They also have multifactorial etiology and pose difficulty in terms of separating them from learning failure due to the lack of opportunities in the learning environment. For children with above-average intellectual abilities, SLDs are most severe, chronic, and pervasive forms of learning difficulty. SLDs have a crucial element in their definition, which is an intrinsic cognitive difficulty resulting in learners having a less academic achievement than their expected individual intellectual potential. The most registered disability among SLD students is reading, but writing and math disabilities are also common. Germaine’s difficulties may be caused by subtle disturbances in the way brain structures were formed meaning that the neurological central nervous system of his brain that processes information tends to stop working, at some point. The link to his central nervous system seems to be having faults especially when it comes to processing information. At no point should Germaine be considered as a student with disability because he performs well in his academic scores and there are instances where he shows remarkable vocabulary formation and remembrance. His teachers need to continue encouraging him and in the long run, his learning disabilities will be managed. He is not a student with disability, but ability because he reads even more than fifth graders yet he is just a third-grade student.
By placing Germaine with a strong nurturing teacher, he managed to benefit. For instance, by doing smaller number of sums, Germaine emphasized more on correctness and not quantity and this managed to progress his skills. In the end, he managed to do addition sums of three digits with regrouping elements in mind. When it came to subtraction, the teacher introduced to Germaine the aspect of borrowing and this he grasp well and thus, his learning opportunities need to be adjusted to suit his needs. The teacher with strong nurturing skills also benefited Germaine because the learning instructor managed to tap into her weak areas. As such, focus was placed on improving the weak areas using different techniques. Literacy and numeracy plus other higher order cognitive skills and emotional skills are better developed through the use if interactions. Germaine’s instructors need to emphasize more on consistency by considering the teacher-directed instruction approach since it relies more on the teacher’s ability to deliver good classes to the learner. Germaine’s cognitive activation was challenged and this resulted in a process that developed his higher order thinking skills, especially problem solving cases. The teacher realized that they need to be part of the team and thus, they collaborated and monitored Germaine’s work together, as a team. Germaine’s behaviors were difficult to understand because they were primarily social and thus, he behaved well when he was away from other children. Indeed, the end justified the means in Germaine’s case because improvement was noted by Ms. Perez who saw him as the most improved in class.
References
Burger, K. (2010). How does early childhood care and education affect cognitive development? An international review of the effects of early interventions for children from different social backgrounds. Early Childhood Research Quarterly , 25(2), 140.
Colberg, L. (2010). Classroom Management and the ADHD Student. New York, NY: Pearson Publishers
Nel, R. (2014). Classroom management of attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in learners in the Lejweleputswa district (Doctoral dissertation, Welkom: Central University of Technology, Free State).
Stewart, D., & Dikel, W. (2010). Recommendations for system redesign of a failed category. Emotional/Behavioral Disorders and Special Education , 22, 67-98
