Shared learning: the developing practice of integration for children with severe learning difficulties

ABSTRACT

This paper traces the development of partial integration for children with severe learning difficulties as part of their development and preparation for societal integration. It considers the needs of all children for education for citizenship and, as such, the time needed for meaningful attitudinal development in mainstream pupils towards children with disabilities. This, it is suggested, is best achieved through carefully planned, positive shared learning experiences, designed to facilitate interaction and collaborative learning between children with SLD and their mainstream peers. The article considers how in the UK the National Curriculum can contribute to this process.     

Morphing images: a potential tool for teaching word recognition to children with severe learning difficulties

Children with severe learning difficulties who fail to begin word recognition can learn to recognise pictures and symbols relatively easily. However, finding an effective means of using pictures to teach word recognition has proved problematic. This research explores the use of morphing software to support the transition from picture to word recognition. Morphing software was used to teach word recognition to a group of eight children who were previously unable to recognise words. At the end of 16 teaching sessions, in a related design, the morphing technique was more effective than a word‐alone approach ( p < 0.05, one‐tailed). These results support the use of techniques such as symbol accentuation ( Miller & Miller, 1971 ) and challenge the concept that the use of pictorial information is inherently detrimental to learning in this context, in comparison to the repeated presentation of words alone. The recent advent of accessible morphing software removes previous barriers to this type of approach. The investigation highlights several useful avenues for future research, in particular, the use of mnemonic elements within morphing teaching methods.     

Conceptualisations of literacy and literacy practices for children with severe learning difficulties

Literacy is traditionally narrowly conceptualised as a set of skills related to accessing and generating written or printed text. For children designated as having severe learning difficulties (SLD), who are unlikely to develop these ‘conventional’ literacy skills, such a conception implies their semi‐literacy or nonliteracy. Although conceptions of multimodal literacy and multiliteracies have rarely been applied to this group, broader understandings of literacy that include a range of activities, modes and media provide greater opportunities for including these learners in literacy practices. Drawing upon our research with teachers of this group of children and young people, we illustrate these literacy practices. We note, however, that such practices are often haphazard, not coherently thought through, and that there is much confusion regarding any distinction between communication and literacy. We argue for literacy as a specific form of communication, but conclude that broader models of literacies should be utilised to guide and support practitioners in developing interactive practice and in making reasoned and principled approaches and decisions about literacy practices, routes and progression for children with SLD.     

Using contact with nature,creativity and rituals as a therapeutic medium with children with learning difficulties: a case study

In most cases therapy is addressed as an indoor verbal activity in which the relationship between therapist and client stands at its centre. This article proposes a different approach to therapy: conducting it creatively in nature, with the environment being used not only as a therapeutic setting but also as a medium and a partner in the process. The article is based on a case study carried out with a group of children with special needs within a school setting. It explores the therapeutic and educational impact that this approach had on the participants and on nature's role in it. The article also aims to initiate a dialogue around the option of working with this population in non‐verbal and experiential ways, illustrating the potential that the use of group work, creativity and contact with nature may offer.     

Contrasting computer input devices for teaching children with severe learning difficulties to read

Many teachers make the assumption that CAL systems which use a touch screen are more effective for children with severe learning difficulties than those which use a concept keyboard. These two experiments look at which is more effective in helping these children to maintain a previously acquired sight vocabulary, and to learn new sight words. It was predicted that the touch screen would prove more effective because it places fewer information processing demands on pupils. Surprisingly, no difference was found between the two systems.     

The curriculum for children with severe and profound learning difficulties at Stephen Hawking School

The increasing number of children with profound and multiple learning difficulties means that many schools for children with severe learning difficulties are having to review the curriculum that they offer. In addition, these schools are continuing to question whether a subject‐based approach, in line with the National Curriculum, is the most appropriate way of meeting the educational needs of children working at the earliest stages of development. The staff at Stephen Hawking School, in east London, have been reviewing their curriculum over the past two years to try and meet the needs of their changing population, the needs of the National Curriculum and the suggestions and proposals in both the Rose and Cambridge reviews.     

Citizenship education for pupils with learning difficulties: towards participation?

This article picks up on a sub‐theme, pupil participation, which has been running in this journal for some time now and looks set to continue for the foreseeable future. Here Hazel Lawson, taking her cue from Pavey's article in an earlier issue (Support for Learning, 2003, 18, 2, 58–65), explores the idea of education for citizenship in relation to pupils with learning difficulties.     

核心情绪：探究情绪与认知关系的新视角

核心情绪是把外部信息转化为内部表征的心理机制,由机体神经生理状态和躯体内脏状态组成的连续不断的心理流,以此为视角重新审视情绪与认知的关系。在论述核心情绪的渊源、概念及神经机制后,继续阐明核心情绪的认知功能,为探讨情绪与认知的关系奠定基础。最后得出,情绪和认知仅是大脑机制在功能上的心理表现差异,本质都是对外部信息在图式上进行加工,二者是一种动态交互作用,且情绪图式是对这种动态交互作用的最佳诠释。     

Meaning-led learning for pupils with severe and profound and multiple learning difficulties

This paper proposes that learning and teaching for pupils with severe and profound and multiple learning difficulties could be enhanced by a closer focus on emotional factors and on the careful identification of what is meaningful for them. Phil Goss, senior lecturer in counselling and psychotherapy at the University of Central Lancashire draws on understandings about emotional development gleaned from child psychiatry and psychotherapy to inform our awareness of the deep-seated factors that may influence the complex needs of these pupils. He describes a research study in which he analysed findings from interviews with parents and carers about their perceptions of what is meaningful for their children. These outcomes are elaborated using findings from a pilot study on one pupil in which perceptions about what is meaningful for him were used to inform the ongoing planning of his learning. Phil Goss then uses the implications of this study to argue for fuller and more systematic involvement by parents and carers in planning for pupils with severe, and profound and multiple learning difficulties. Finally he suggests ways in which access to learning could be rendered more fruitful by adopting a meaning-led approach.     

Teachers and students with severe learning difficulties working together to co‐construct personal narratives using Storysharing®: the teacher perspective

The telling of personal stories is a feature of everyday life. Young people with learning difficulties may find it difficult to report what has happened to them. A project was set up to investigate the impact of Storysharing® on the co‐construction of personal narratives by staff and students in a special school. The current study investigated the teacher's perspective. The sample was comprised of four special education teachers who had been involved in the implementation of Storysharing®. Semi‐structured interviews were carried out at the end of the intervention period. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. Three organising themes emerged from the data: ‘Enactment Process’; ‘Benefits to Child’; and ‘Curriculum.’ The Storysharing® intervention appeared to be positively associated with perceived changes to the educational practice of the teachers, revealing its potential for developing narrative in the classroom.     

Not fit for purpose: a call for separate and distinct pedagogies as part of a national framework for those with severe and profound learning difficulties

The introduction of the National Curriculum in 1988 caused much discussion (some of it angst‐ridden) among both academics and practitioners working with pupils with severe and profound learning difficulties, and much of the meat (and the angst) of these discussions is still going on today. We argue that 24 years is a long experiment; that despite the best intentions of many, the experiment has failed; it is therefore well past time for separate and distinct pedagogies to be formulated for both severe and profound learning difficulties. Such pedagogies can only exist as part of the current National Curriculum if they are recognised as distinct curriculum models for those with severe and profound learning difficulties.     

Computer science education as a cultural encounter: a socio-cultural framework for articulating teaching difficulties

This study demonstrates the power of the cultural encounter metaphor in explaining learning and teaching difficulties, using as an example computer science education (CSE). CSE is envisioned as an encounter between veterans of two computer-oriented cultures, that of the teachers and that of the students. Forty questionnaires administered to CS teachers, as well as in-depth interviews with four leading CS teachers, revealed those teachers perceived their students as having a different perspective on the domain, on what constitutes a beneficial approach to problem-solving and on the nature of satisfactory solutions. In fact, the teachers portrayed their teaching as a continual battle in which their success is limited. Yet, their instruction was characterized as a composite of enforcement and compromise, with few and isolated attempts at building on students’ cultural capital. The cultural encounter metaphor, while still viewing students as novices to the professional CS culture represented by their teachers, emphasizes that good teaching requires building upon students’ cultural capital to create zones of fertile cultural encounter.     

An assessment framework for inclusive education: integrating assessment approaches

Teachers committed to inclusive education have the potential to revolutionise pedagogical and assessment practices within regular classrooms simply because students with high needs challenge traditional assumptions about what it means ‘to learn’ and ‘to assess’. This creates opportunities for teachers to find creative ways to ascertain what and how a child learns, and how these assessment results can be communicated to the child, parents, the school and funding bodies to enable further learning. This paper explores diverse assessment practices including criterion-based, normative, ipsative and self-assessment, with both formative and summative functions, reported as being used by teachers in New Zealand who teach students with high needs. These multiple approaches can be integrated into learning stories to ‘narrate’ student learning. An assessment framework is introduced to support teachers to appreciate the functionality of an integrated assessment approach to document student learning and outcomes, arguably a framework applicable for all learners.     

The uncertainty and fragility of learning to teach: a Britzmanian lens on a student teacher story

This paper turns the kaleidoscopic lens of Professor Deborah Britzman’s writings on a student teacher story of learning to teach. It begins by briefly setting the context for the research. It then explains the study’s ontological and epistemological focus on experience and how student teacher and researchers create expressions of experience through an interpretative process. This leads to the design for interpretation in this study and to an explanation of why the work of Britzman became part of the interpretative layering for understanding student teacher Ciara’s texts. It continues by explicating Britzman’s concept of ‘struggle for voice’ as a metaphor for learning to teach and briefly makes comparison with the work of Bakhtin and his concept of the dialogical imagination. It then presents the layered interpretation in the form of indicative excerpts in a chronological story. Finally it focuses on the salient and pervading theme of affect and offers a brief commentary on its significance in initial teacher education and the need for developing an understanding for the feeling world of learning to teach.     

Teachers' knowing how to use technology: exploring a conceptual framework for purposeful learning activity

This article describes a project to apply and validate a conceptual framework of clusters of purposeful learning activity involving ICT tools. The framework, which is based in a socio-cultural perspective, is described as ‘DECK’, and comprises the following major categories of the use of digital technologies to support learning: distributed thinking and knowing; engagement; community and communication; and knowledge building. Small-scale research to test the framework was carried out with 12 teachers in English primary and secondary schools. The methods involved mind mapping, ‘think aloud’ procedures and interviews. The framework was modified in the light of teachers' responses and offers a way of describing and thinking about the diverse uses of digital technologies to support learning in various contexts.     

Developing professional learning for staff working with children with speech,language and communication needs combined with moderate‐to‐severe learning difficulties

This article presents research undertaken as part of a PhD by Carolyn Anderson who is a senior lecturer on the BSc (Hons) in Speech and Language Pathology at the University of Strathclyde. The study explores the professional learning experiences of 49 teachers working in eight schools and units for children with additional support needs in Scotland. In particular, she examines the professional learning experiences of teachers working with children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) combined with moderate‐to‐severe learning difficulties. While the teachers under study predominantly engaged with informal professional learning, she observes that they often expressed a lack of confidence in this form of professional development, tending to value formal learning regardless of impact. In response she raises a number of important questions about the role of Initial Teacher and Postgraduate Education and the ways in which schools understand reflective practice.