Test: Inclusive Education (Education of Special Children) - Software Development MCQ

Hearing impairment refers to hearing loss that prevents a person from totally receiving sounds through the ear. If the loss is mild, the person has difficulty hearing faint or distant speech. 

• Hearing is one of the five senses. Most normal-hearing persons do not fully appreciate the significance of the sense of hearing, and often, do not understand the difficulties faced by the hearing impaired.
• People who are born with hearing impairment, do not learn to speak by themselves, as others do but they can easily move from one place to another and take care of themselves.

Key Points

Language and Speech Development Barrier in Children with Hearing Impairment

• Hearing impairment is a great barrier to the normal development of language; the child with such impairment is at a severe disadvantage in virtually all aspects of language development.
• A considerable number of educators of deaf individuals believe that many of the problems of people who are hearing-impaired related to social and intellectual development are primarily due to their deficiencies in language.
• When the child meets other hearing-impaired children and realizes other people face similar challenges and manage fine, regardless of language or level of hearing, it supports identity development and increases confidence.

Additional Information

• For a child with visual impairment, then the teacher has to ensure that besides visual strategies, he/she also explains orally and uses models that the child can explore by tactile sense.

Hence, we can conclude that Hearing-impaired children exhibit barriers to communication by language.

Childhood refers to the period of the human lifespan, ranging from birth to puberty. It consists of many developmental stages and 'adolescence' is one of them.

• 'Adolescence' comes from the Latin word 'Adolescere' which means 'to grow to become mature'. It a stage which lies between the age of '12 to 19 years'.
• Emotion is a mental state associated with fear, anger, love, etc. Emotional states of an individual are the combination of physiological arousal, psychological appraisal, and behavioral changes.
• Emotionally disturbed children can be defined in terms of certain observable characteristics such as withdrawn behavior, failure to achieve a level reasonably commensurate with ability or tendency towards fighting, and other aggressive behavior.

​Key Points

Emotional disturbances of adolescents:

• They show the same emotions as they used to show in their childhood  i.e., fear, disgust, but the emotions of adolescence are different in their patterns.
• The emotions at this stage are more uncontrolled, intensive, and irrational.  As they gradually grow, their emotional behavior improves and become mature.
• Children who suffer from emotional disturbances generally do nail-biting, thumb sucking, depression, pulling or stretching of hairs, fear of specific objects or things, etc.
• A child wearing a well-fitted dress is not a symptom of emotional disturbance but wearing proper clothes that fit them well makes them confident.

Hence, it could be concluded that wearing a well-fitted dress is not found in the symptoms of emotional disturbances of adolescents.

Children with special needs are disabled and any restriction or lack (resulting from an impairment) of ability to perform an activity in a manner or within the range considered normal for a human being. 

Key Points

Education of children with special needs should be provided in an inclusive classroom, along with other normal children as:

• Inclusive classroom values the diversity, each child brings to the classroom and facilitates all with equal opportunities to learn and grow.
• They should be taught in the same schools only with the help of special education experts.
• It provides a provision to include disabled children along with normal children in a regular classroom regardless of their differences and disabilities.
• it will integrate children with disabilities in the general community to prepare them for normal development and will keep them as a part of mainstream education

• If we provide them, education in special schools or in special classes or by special teachers, the inferiority complex will develop in them which could lead to anxiety and frustration.

Hence, we can conclude that children with special needs should be taught in the same schools only with the help of special education experts. 

Let us look at each statement one by one and analyze which of the given options is not correct:-

Important Points

• The focus of the teacher has to be on practice in school to respond to the diversity of students:- It is true that the teacher should focus on putting the maximum effort of learning in school so that students can learn the lessons in front of the teacher and also the teacher can take up a maximum number of doubts raised by the students. Hence, this statement is correct
• It is valuing difference, immaterial of the limitations imposed due to external factors :- This statement is also correct as external factors that put limitations are always going to be present in life. despite these limitations, it is important to acknowledge the difference or the diversity of each and every individual.
• Inclusion is about building inner strength and mounting confidence among children:- Inclusion is about building inner strength is a very significant statement as inner strength is not just about physical strength, it also signifies moral strength that boosts the learners to work hard and learn new things in life.
• Inclusion focuses upon change within the child than changes within the system. :- It is not correct to force the change upon the child, the system should be able to adapt in such a way that the children should get the maximum benefit.

Hence, Inclusion focuses upon change within the child than changes within the system is not a correct statement.

Visual Impairment: The term 'visual impairment' is used to refer to not only those who are blind but also those who have their own vision. When the person has residual vision above a certain level, he is said to have low vision or poor vision. However, if the residual vision is below that level, he is considered to be blind.

Important Points

In a classroom situation, the total number of blind students should be 10-12, so that teacher can adopt the strategies which cater individual differences in the class.

Strategies to teach blind students in the classroom:

• Teachers who teach blind children in ordinary classrooms need to provide adequate special materials and equipment. There is almost universal agreement that the special materials and equipment needed by a visually impaired student in a regular school are essential to success.
• In addition, Friendly user materials are good teaching materials for blind children, and creative materials which are provided to blind children enhance dialogue and social interaction to complete an assignment. 
• Students with visual impairments who's knowledge of concepts are strong would have difficulty keeping pace with this rate of instruction unless it is entirely verbal.
• Purposeful sampling was used to select teachers who teach blind children in ordinary classrooms. Legibility for teacher’s participation in the study was based on the following criteria:
  • experience in teaching blind children with their distance vision assessment results indicating that they are blind with (visual acuity of (3/60 or worse).
  • Teaching ordinary classrooms,
  • fully attending school at the time of the study, and
  • gender balance was desirable but not necessary.
• The teacher who is guiding the blind children in ordinary classrooms is supposed to know more than the blind pupils who are being guided, that is why very many blind children have fallen victims to wrong teaching. Guidance is needed for blind children since they can hear, it is easy for them to learn.

Hence, we can conclude that in a classroom situation, the total number of blind students should be 10-12.

Inclusive Education:

• It refers to an education system that accommodates all children regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic, or other conditions.
• It provides a provision to include disabled children along with normal children in a regular classroom environment.

An inclusive classroom refers to an education system that includes children regardless of physical, intellectual, social, linguistic, or other differently-abled conditions.

• In an inclusive classroom with diverse learners, cooperative learning, and peer-tutoring is actively promoted to facilitate peer-acceptance.
  • Cooperative learning: It refers to a heterogeneous group where students work collaboratively to achieve learning outcomes. It develops critical thinking, brainstorming, communication, and life long learning skills.
  • Peer tutoring: It refers to the learning process where fellow students teach each other. In this strategy, a higher-performing student is paired with a lower performing student to teach specific skills.
• An inclusive classroom is not limited to children with a disability but also gifted children, economically disadvantaged children, children from remote populations, children belonging to ethnic, linguistic, or cultural minorities, or children from other marginalized groups.

Therefore, Social skills development can become a positive strength for normal children in inclusive classrooms.

Teachers are the implementers of education who foster the potential of young seedlings to grow and bloom. They carry a huge responsibility to shape and mould students' future.

In the above-mentioned situation, the teacher should arrange an activity for all students but paying attention to the students with special needs as it will help teachers in:

• fostering the potential of every child to grow and bloom.
• addressing the diverse learning needs of every student

• ensuring the active involvement of all learners in the activity.
• assisting students with special needs with proper guidance in the right way.
• devoting extra time to teach learning disabled or students with special needs.
• identifying the problem of the students' with special needs while paying attention to them.

Hence, it could be concluded that in the above-mentioned situation, the teacher should arrange an activity for all students but paying attention to the students with special needs.

Over the years the term ‘Inclusive Education’ has come to replace the term ‘Integrated Education’. Many people working in the field of education consider these two terms to be meaning the same thing. They understand it as only a change in terminology. But the term inclusive education means much more than integrated education. Integration and mainstreaming are the terms used over the years to denote the shift to stop the segregation of children with disabilities for the purpose of education.

Key Points

• Mainstreaming: Initially, an attempt was made to implement the vision of providing education to children with disabilities in the regular stream of education. According to this, special schools prepared the child with a disability to earn the placement option. Those children who were ‘ready’ got shifted to the regular system of education from the special setup. Readiness here refers to the ability of the child to cope up with the academic and social demands of the school. This process was referred to as mainstreaming.
• Integration: The term integration was used to describe the participation of children with disabilities in the educational program existing for children without disabilities. Here, the responsibility of participation was on the child. Classrooms and schools were not prepared to adjust to the needs and requirements of the child with regard to material or method of teaching-learning. The placement was more spatial (being in the same classroom) and temporal (at the same time).
• Inclusion: This refers to restructuring schools as communities where all children can learn in a common environment without any discrimination. The regular classroom environment is adjusted to meet the individual needs. The spatial and temporal placement as per integration is utilized to the benefit of the child through adapting curriculum, providing extra time, adapting specific methods of teaching, and giving additional adult help.

Hence, we can conclude that initially, mainstreaming of children with special needs meant special schools prepared the child with disability to earn the placement option.

Inclusive education refers to the practice of educating students with special needs in regular classes for all. It provides a provision to include disabled children along with normal children in a regular classroom environment.

Key Points

• The primary objective of inclusive education is to educate disabled students in the regular classroom and still meet their individual needs. 
• Inclusive education allows children with special needs to receive a free and appropriate education along with non-disabled students in the regular classroom.
• Students with specific learning difficulties may require resource support for meeting their individual needs.
• This support can be provided in the form of developing specific learning objectives based on an analysis of each student's learning strengths and weaknesses during their class or after school hours or if possible, in another small room during school hours.
• The support can be provided on a one-to-one basis or in a small group.

Therefore, a teacher can address the needs of specially-abled learners in an inclusive classroom by developing specific learning objectives based on an analysis of each student's learning strengths and weaknesses.

Special schools are schools that cater to children with special needs. Students with special needs can be classified into five categories-

• Physical impairment
• Visual impairment
• Hearing and speech impairment
• Low mental ability
• Learning disability 

Key Points

The backward child is also called a slow learner. The child is unable to cope with routine work normally expected of his/her age group. The rate of learning is the basis for identifying slow learners. Special schools are required for backward children when Backwardness is due to any serious physical handicap. He finds it difficult to keep pace with the normal child in his school work. The characteristics of backward learners are as given below: 

1. They have limited cognitive capacity.
2. For them rational thinking is impossible.
3. They have the capacity for rote learning and can retain memory whatever is learned only with a lot of practice and revision in comparison with the normal child.
4. They have poor memory.
5. They are distractive and lack concentration in the classroom.
6. They have an Inability to express through language. The slow learner has cognitive problems, language-related problems, auditory perceptual problems, visual-motor problems, and social-emotional problems.

Note:  Lower achievers don't come under students with special needs.

From the above, we can say that special schools are required for backward children when backwardness is due to any serious physical handicap as special schools are for students with special needs.