Children with Communication Disabilities Profit from Inclusion into Regular Classes

 Children with Communication Disabilities Profit from Inclusion into Regular Classes

A Petr is 10 years old. He was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at the age of 3. Till that time, he did not speak at all. And any time feeling uncomfortable, he often threw fits of tantrum. Péťa started attending a free-time centre in Třebíč at the age of four instead of preschool, as none of the preschool teachers wanted to accept him to their class. And his school attendance had to be postponed twice, so he started school attendance at the age of 8. Pedagogy-psychological specialists agreed with his mother to apply for a pedagogy assistant with the recommendation to place Petr into a regular school.

B The secret of enhancing language skills of preschoolers with disabilities may be to place them into classrooms with typically developing peers. Children with disabilities significantly develop their language skills over the course of a year, in case they can interact with other children who have good language knowledge. In fact, children with disabilities have language skills comparable to children without disabilities after one year of preschool. They benefit from being surrounded by highly skilled classmates. Children with disabilities have limited opportunity to improve their use of language if they are not surrounded by highly skilled peers them.

C Petr’s mother decided not to send her son to a special preschool. She rather quitted her job and spent the whole day with her son, and they attended a free-time centre together, so that little Péťa could stay in contact with other children on a regular basis. They were involved in many art, therapeutic and speech activities. Petr’s communication skills developed slowly, and when starting school attendance, he spoke fluently. But he still had a lot of difficulties with social interaction.

D Children with disabilities who are included to regular classes with more skilled peers are affected by the skill levels of their classmates. For those children with disabilities who are in classrooms with the highly skilled peers, language scores at the and of the school year are much better than those of children with disabilities who were placed to special schools. Other benefits of school inclusion are development of a positive understanding of themselves, development of friendships, enhancing empathy, and sharing knowledge and information.

E Nowadays, Péťa is attending the third class. He does not need an assistant anymore. He has the best school results of all children in the classroom. Moreover, his dream is to become a university professor. And on top of that, he has superior knowledge of maths, loves reading encyclopaedia, and learning English.

Adjusted to (1)

 

1) Read the article and match each of the headings to a paragraph.

1 Benefits of preschool education

2 Petr’s preschool education

3 Petr today

4 Pre-schoolers with disabilities should attend normal preschools

5 Petr’s case

 

2) Read the article and answer the questions.

1 What does the article refer to?

2 Who is Petr?

3 What is written about Petr’s preschool education?

4 What are the benefits of inclusion?

5 What is written about Péťa’s life today?

 

3) Explain the following words and phrases.

1 Asperger’s Syndrome

2 typically developing peers

3 limited opportunity to improve their use of language

4 art, therapeutic and speech activities

5 development of a positive understanding of themselves

 

Source:

(1)

FRAŇKOVÁ, Ruth. Future of almost 500 children unclear after charity crisis. Český rozhlas [online]. 2015 [cit. 2019-04-14]. Available at: http://radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/future-of-almost-500-children-unclear-after-charity-crisis