Special Needs Support Group Observation

My Observation of SNF Children Development Center
Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Special Needs Families (SNF) support group started in 2003 and it began as a small support group that aimed to provide emotional and social support for families having children with special needs living in Dubai. A few experienced members got together and started a platform to help the special needs community to cope and to provide constructive direction tot its family members. Later on, the group has grown and expanded through the help of their sponsors and supporters. The SNF Development Center was launched 3 years later to provide an institution for young adults with special needs who are in need of occupational and vocational training. The center
is committed for to those who would like to enhance their lives by contributing to the community in their own special way. The SNF team consists of passionate and qualified staff and staff members who endeavor to help and provide the training needed and specified to each student’s potential and vocational needs. Objectives of the center: * Develop cognitive skills: functional academics – reading signs, use of telephone, counting, using calculators, develop concept of money and time * Teach safety and protective behavior: coping with change, safety at home, road and in the community, understanding prohibited behavior, asking for help, reading survival signs * Teach skills of daily living: personal care, domestic skills and skills required in the community * Develop visual motor, fine Motor and gross motor skills: Visual discrimination, tactile discrimination, eye-hand coordination, balance and dexterity * Offer communication and social skills: communicating needs, initiating conversation, turn taking, cooperative behavior, tolerating interruptions * Impart pre-vocational and vocational training: sorting, collecting, assembling skills, clerical skills, photocopying computer skills, sewing, cooking * Develop recreational skills: listening to music, watching television, reading books, using the computer, playing simple interactive board and other games, using basic gym equipment
According to my interview with the director and founder of the center, Safia Bari, that for the last few years they have achieved remarkable success as some students have really improved drastically, thus highly motivating the staff to perform more effectively.
The center supports its staff and students through the help of sponsorships, donations and volunteer work/ assistance from other people. She mentioned that the center continuously aims to better mould their students by the
following: * Formulating individualized educational programs * Recording the performance in accordance with goals * Focusing on personality development * Applying behavior modification techniques * Developing interpersonal skills for better vocational adjustment among peers
Vocational Department To better prepare the students for a better life and vocational skill development, the programs are designed based on the student’s abilities. For higher functioning students, basic office works such as laminating, photocopying, sometimes they are engaged in carpentry, home economics, etc.; while lower functioning students are trained with some daily skills activities such as cooking, sandwich making, table setting, household cleaning, laundry, sometimes they are also engaged in activities like recycling, etc.
Academics Department Modified curriculum to suit to students’ unique and individual needs is the main priority here. Subjects like Math, English, Reading, Islamic Studies are taught to the students. The Special Education teachers who are assigned in this department play a very critical role in the proper education of these students and their long-term goals and achievements. Careful assessment and planning for IEP’s of each student is discussed with the parents and teachers to come up with strategies, meet the diverse needs and specific academic requirements/goals of each student. Speech and Language Department
To help achieve the child’s potential in terms of their receptive language, expressive language, communication and social skills by providing assessment and intervention based on the present language abilities and cognitive abilities of the child.
Creative Department
The art-making process relies on the natural ability of all children to relate to color and form. Those who have problems communicating verbally often are encouraged to express by freely drawing or painting. Fine motor skills are developed with the use of markers, crayons and brushes. In this department they also use other materials such as plastic, glass, batteries, sponge, leather, aluminum, etc. here they are taught how to make innovative things within their limitations.
Class Observation
Presently, the center has 32 students who are in their pre-teen and young adult years (ages from 12-52 years old) and with the following disabilities: * Down syndrome * Cerebral palsy * Cerebral ataxia * Mental retardation (mild-moderate) * Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder * Visual impairment (total and partial) * Hearing impaired
The students are mainly from Pakistan and India with parents mostly working in Dubai and their socio-economic background are from middle to lower-middle income families. Most of the students have joined the center since the center’s opening in 2007 while others joined 1 or 2 years ago.
The center has a fixed timetable of classes and activities everyday, as well as a schedule of rotations of students in each department/class. The lessons starts at 8:30 in the morning and the students start with yoga exercise wherein they do some basic stretching and breathing exercises followed by a morning walk. After these morning activities, the lesson begins in the 4 departments (Academics, Speech & Language Therapy, Creative, Vocational). The children are divided into 4 groups made up of 9 and 7 students each. Every 30 minutes, they are rotated in these departments/classes to keep their interest and participation unconfined. I noticed though that once a child starts showing signs of severe restlessness and uneasiness, they are pulled-out for a few minutes of break and then brought back to their assigned rooms. The students get their snack break at 10:00 – 10:30 am and the lesson day ends at 12:15 noon.
Since the space of the center is very limited, the vocation and creative department shares a room. On the vocation area you will find photocopying machine, fax machine, laminating machine, sewing machine, etc used by the students. On one corner there are about 4 computers used for computer training. In the middle of the room are 3 tables with 4 seats on each wherein the children create their artworks. The artwork of the students are posted and displayed in this room as well.
In the Academic Department, the space is also very limited but it has one big quadrilateral table and there were about 9 or 10 seats and the children are closely seated side by side around the table. The head teacher Ms. Nazera works and checks with each student one by one. Around the classroom are whiteboards, educational posters posted on the walls, bookshelf with selection of books and some chairs for observation and for volunteers.
When the classes started, I sat and observed in one corner. I stayed in the Art Department that was lead by Ms. Jessly and that day there was a volunteer, Zara, assisting here in the class. Ms. Jessly has several years of experience in teaching in special education field and has background and studies in psychiatry back home in India where she finished her degree. There were 7 students who joined in the class and initially they were given a task of coloring balloon patterns and later on be cut out and paste to a card board to make a birthday card. These 7 children had different disabilities (e.g. Visually impaired, ADHD, down syndrome). When I met the children I was overwhelmed with their different characters, some were friendly and chatty while others were quiet and serious. I was introduced to them and they were very excited and curious to sit with me. I decided to join them on the table to help them with their artwork. Ms. Jessly observed, assisted the students and constantly praised them one by one every time they did a good job. She kept asking them questions like, “Do you think these colors are nice “Which color would you like to put in your balloons?” and she made them choose the colors they liked. She also asked the students to do certain things like, collecting crayons and color pencils from the art boxes and gathering materials like glue, scissors, papers, etc. and organize them on the table. The students often sought for approval from me and Zara, who was a volunteer that day, and then the students continue their work after they get their approval. One boy Bragadesh, a 13-year old boy who has ADHD started talking loud and hit 1 student with a ruler. This happened right in front of me and initially, I only told him not to do it because it’s not nice. The boy that got hit, Brandon, told me about Bragadesh always behaves like this in class and asked me to ignore him. Brandon is a 16-year old student who has a learning disability; he was very calm and quiet. Bragadesh laughed and did it again. This time Brandon punched Bragadesh in the arm and I was completely surprised and asked Bragadesh to stop it. The way I asked was not in a very firm manner, but rather in a more calming way. I explained to him that he should not provoke his classmates. For me, I was used to seeing this in normal school and those children, especially young boys usually behave funny and mischievous like this in class, and Brandon seemed very calm and undisturbed with Bragadesh’s behavior. After Bragadesh got hit on the arm, he was still smiling so I did not really feel that it was such a big deal. Ms. Jessly at that time was attending to another student who was partially blind so she wasn’t aware about what’s going on, until one student with Down syndrome started crying because Bragadesh took her coloring pencil. This girl, Aisha told Ms. Jessly about Bragadesh. Ms. Jessly went to our table and asked Bragadesh and Brandon what happened. She had a more firm approach and called another teacher and took Bragadesh out of the room. I was surprised and I also felt guilty because I thought that I should have reported the situation to Ms. Jessly. In normal school, I am used to teacher telling off a student in class when they misbehave and then move on. At that time, I clearly did not know that there are certain rules and steps to be followed by the teachers especially when a student starts bullying or getting agitated in class. Behavioral concerns need to be intervened and discussed one-on-one with the student and teacher, and it has to be done alone so as not to embarrass the child. There should be a consistent and firm approach on the teacher’s side and this I have learned during this situation. I heard Ms. Jessly asking Bragadesh what are the consequences of his actions and how would he feel if someone started hitting him with a ruler. Bragadesh calmed down a little bit, but later on he was back to his talkative and loud behavior.
Half an hour later, the children moved to the Academic class and a different group entered the Art department. The head teacher of academics is Ms. Nazera, has been with SNF since its establishment. She is responsible for teaching subjects like Math and Reading. There were 2 teaching aids with her and that day the class was learning about addition and subtraction, using materials such as play money as an example, to teach the students about paying and getting the right change when they go to a supermarket to buy something. Before she started the lesson, she explained to the class the objective of the topic and how they can use this in their daily lives. The concept was very basic so that the students are not overwhelmed with too much information. Ms. Nazera was more hands on to the students and made sure that she goes and explains one-on-one after she explained the lesson to the class. The students seemed quite focused and they looked like they were interested with what Ms. Nazera was teaching them. I noticed some quiet students who did not respond so much to conversations, while others were very active and excited to join the discussions. Ms. Nazera, was very direct, focused and firm, I heard her say to a student who was looking focus “Aisha, look at me please and look at the pictures here”, specific directions were given rather than asking the student to simply pay attention to the lesson or to her. She told me that she tries her best to keep the students interested with the lessons and made sure that the topic is integrated to practical, daily situations. A lot of audio and visual materials are used in her subjects to help the students understand and focus better. Distractions are kept to a minimum and constant monitoring of each student is really important. Checklist of her class is imposed to help organize her students. She encourages monitored breaks when the student is starting to get frustrated and having a hard time in keeping up with the lesson. She says time management and transition in class is very important yet allowing the students a lot of time to complete tasks, avoiding pressure. By constant reminders and repetitions every few minutes, it helps her students to remember the lessons more effectively. During the class I heard a lot of positive comments, compliments and praises from the teachers to the students every time they participate and answer, thus the students were very motivated to join in the discussions.
After the class sessions, I asked Ms. Nazera how they come up with the lessons for the students and how they monitor the improvement of each one of them. She told me about their process of planning using individual education program for students. As they assess each student before the school starts, the parents together with the IEP team (Special education teacher, Speech therapist, Psychologist) they try to find out as much information and considerations for each student. They have a guide question to find out these things. They identify the present levels of educational performance and capacity and how their disabilities affects their involvement and progress in general educational curriculum. They try to find out as much strengths and needs that will affect the learning and progress. The group then discuss about annual goals, objectives and benchmarks with target dates to measure if the goals are reached at the end of the school year. In the IEP it is also specifies the modifications in instructions and other related services needed as well as recommendations and behavioral interventions. These IEPs for each student is strictly followed and monitored and they have to communicate and share observations to parents, they have to be neutral and objective as possible. In the last years the center has been getting a lot of positive feedbacks from the parents of the students. It was noted that there have been a lot of tremendous improvement that the parents noticed in their children and some claims that their children can now effectively communicate at home and they have become more expressive. Behaviors of the students have transformed as well. These responses that the teachers get really overwhelm and inspire them to exert more effort to help make change to their students lives. After life in the center, some of the students may continue to study in a mainstreamed class depending on the improvement and capacity of the student. Some will have to stay at the center for several years to improve more. They have a previous student, Hima Raphael, who was able to get a job as an administrative assistant in an office. At work, she does filing, photocopying, attending phone calls, preparing documents to be sent to couriers, etc. which she all learned from attending the center. This is indeed an inspirational story for the parents, students and teachers. There is hope for these students to be a part of the society and put their talents to use.
I have realized based from this class observations that there are so many challenges and differences between a normal school and a special education setting.
A lot of patience and motivation is required in the special education setting and I think that everybody really needs to know how to deal with every disability and situation that they come across in class. It is a very crucial environment in the special education schools. Instructional materials are more modified and simplified compared to normal school. Ample time and patience is given to the special needs students so as not to overwhelm them. The teaching adapts to the pace and capacity of the special needs student and the curriculum is suited to their unique and individual needs, which is different from the normal school, wherein the students adapt to the teaching and lessons as they ascend to each level. In special schools, there should always be a limit with the number of students per class so that individualized instruction is observed and teachers can really focus on each student. The level and speed of learning of the students in regular school is faster while the students in special schools require a lot of time and support. I was meant only to observe the class when I visited the center, but I ended up assisting the teachers as they were clearly understaffed and needed volunteers in the center. I have decided to volunteer from then on during my spare time in SNF. It would be a great way to expose myself to the
environment of special children and educators to learn and experience hands-on what is going on in a special class. I do want to become a special education teacher one day, and it might require a long time and patience for me to get there, but at least getting these experiences will surely help me out a lot once I start my formal /further studies on Special Education.