Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress International Special Education Conference Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity? 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland

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Planning Special Education Actions When Teaching To
Read And To Write For Children With Genetic Syndrome:

The Logic-Dispositional Maps

Prof. A. Luigi Sangalli
Università di Verona, Italy
sangalli@anffas.tn.it

INTRODUCTION

Educational actions require the possibility of identifying a formal reference model. Such a model has taken form during the work of the “gruppo interdisciplinare di Trento”, an interdisciplinary group made up of teachers with humanistic background. In 1983 a symposium on the different pedagogical models was the first step to the book published in 1986 “Teoria e modello in pedagogia”, (Theory and model in pedagogy) Armando Editore, Roma. In that book a formal Progetto Pedagogico (Pedagogical Project , PP) was defined. It is basically detached from any human anthropology , although it requires the educator to individuate one as reference. A PP is the theoretical anticipation of the development and maturation of an ideal average subject, at a certain age.

In this model the pedagogical conditions, Cp, are considered as conditions related to the educational structure, to its mandate. The Ce are the exercise conditions that allow the special educator to plan the operative opportunities both of the environment and of the subject concerned.

The Cr are the relevant conditions, in consideration of the unexpected event. Pedagogical project, programming and educational action are the central part of special education too, but each one of these three elements is ruled by a different logic. The Ld indicates the dispositional logic. The term disposition indicates the potential capability, the skill, the talent, the ability (as for example being able to read, to write, to walk, to dance, to play the piano, to calculate, to classify, to put into series, etc.) typical of the human being.

Recognized a skill or disposition to be requires a synergy of functions, afferences and efferences, first on a subcortical level then on a cortical one. The dispositional logic tries to identify how the dispositions are interconnected, and by what connections (nexus), the under-dispositional implications are formed that create the Logical-dispositional Map (MLD). FIG. 1

The Logical-dispositional Map becomes a graphic representation of dispositions and under-dispositions connected with nexus of dispositional implications.

Each disposition requires the knowledge of the human-scientific and content-scientific part of the subject it refers to. If we are working on the dispositions of the skill of reading we must know the neuro-functional aspects of reading, the physiological ones, the cognitive and the didactic ones. Each map is read and applied operating from the bottom to the top, according to the psycho-genetic reading, that is according to the evolution of the person. This short summary refers back to the bibliography for deeper practical and theoretical information.

The MLD indicates the projection of the ideal development of a subject, at a certain age, and in the area of the person we have chosen to work on. The MLD in its formulation makes use of the different contribution that the neurological-sciences offer us, especially to understand the evolution of the competences according to the child’s neurological age.

A very deep knowledge of the semantic structure of each subject, in our case reading and writing, is required and the knowledge of the neurofunctional, evolutionary structures that allow this process in the human being.

These structures are evolutionary since they can re-organise themselves genetically being pre-defined in humans, but it is necessary that they be activated at the right moment by the educational environment. They are and remain an ideal projection, an hypothesis to be verified. Fig 2.

The aim of this work is to check whether the MLD can guide the special educator when evaluating, making a prognosis, planning and programming special education actions aimed at maturing the competencies required for learning to read and to write. The subjects of our research are children with Down, Williams, Cri-du-Chat and Angelman syndrome. We have chosen children suffering from genetic syndromes because changes in these cases are far more difficult to obtain, but easier to monitor; it often happens that it is impossible to distinguish if the changes in so called mentally retarded children are due to spontaneous intellectual improvements, typical of the growing child or to the special educator’s action.

THE CHILDREN OF OUR SAMPLE SURVEY

PRESENTATION OF THE TOOLS

See fig. 3, MLD of reading

The map described the sensory and cognitive aspects of reading.

See fig. 4, MLD of manual skills

In this map we have described the evolutionary stages which are fundamental in maturing the manual skills and the neurofunctional stages required to reach a proper grip of the graphic tool.

See fig. 5, MLD of writing

This map is described the motory, functional and cognitive aspects of handwriting.

See fig. 6, MLD of sight.

The map describes the functional aspects required for sight.

READING AND WRITING

Reading and writing are amongst the highest forms of human learning achievements.

By reading and writing we mean the capability of writing syllable after syllable under dictation, in a functional way. Many of the children in the list have already passed this stage and are now able to self-dictate some words.

Pupils with their deficit have cognitive, neurological, and sensory problems connected to the phenotype; these make the job of the special educator very difficult.

To integrate and to include children with different abilities in the Italian compulsory school system requires an individually defined program on learning to read and write that refers to the standard ability of normal children.

To be able to individually define the targets related to reading and writing, depends on the ability to identify a system for planning that enables the teacher to set learning paths that will help the child to reach the required competencies. Different methods already developed on this subject, although presenting very useful systems of actions, do not show the planning and therefore programming elements of the individually defined actions.

The Italian law requires that the teacher should elaborate a PEI (Educative Project, Individually defined for each pupil) that specifies the goals of the special education.

As often happens, the failure of the educational actions is never due to setting a wrong target, or not being able to identify the pre-requirements, but often derives from not having considered each ability/capability of the person as a synergy of functions, afferencies and efferencies. The ability to write is a product of our brain that requires normal sensory, motor, and cognitive functions. Can we transpose a hierarchic organisation of the functions and capability into an MLD? Can we identify in what way this competence evolves and matures, through which fundamental stages and with which interdependencies?

Is it possible to use a MLD for evaluating, making a prognosis and checking and monitoring the educational actions, whatever the genetic syndrome and deficitis?

THE SAMPLE SURVEY / THE RESEARCH

In the first stage the subjects were evaluated by means of four MLDs: sight, reading, manual skills, and writing. Each child was given a starting level, taking into account his major problems and the required special educational actions were identified.

MLD AND WILLIAMS SYNDROME

MLD of sight.

The four children with WS had problems with their eye motility and convergencedifficulties. Therefore the first special educational work was planned with the aim to improve the sight convergence and eye control. An improvement in converging the eyes made the children pay more attention to images, ability that is a pre-requirement in order to recognise the alphabet.

Another problem was their incapability to co-ordinate seeing and hearing, capability that is fundamental as the child must be able to look at an image and at the same time to listen to its name. Once they reached the capability to see and listen at the same time, the children learned the letters of the alphabet, started to recognise them, and to take them down as a dictation, as an anticipation of writing, although this function was not yet ready on a motory level.

MLD of manual skills

As far as writing was concerned we evaluated the manual skill in its evolutionary components, and we recorded problems of hypersensitive surface-touch and hyposensitive deep-touch in the hands. The grip of the graphic instrument was very poor from a functional point of view. The arms were not independent from the rest of the body (the children were not capable of running in a perfect crossed-scheme). The lacking convergence prevented the child from focusing his attention on the horizontal plane. The special education actions started from the improvement of the tattilities, while the eye-hand co-ordination increased with improved convergence. Both the independence of the arms and the actions on touch were favourable to specialisation of the fine manual motor ability.

Problems of attention have been highlighted when the children are hyperacusis, and even when they have hypersensitive sight, as this disturbed condition affects the ability to pay attention. All children with SW have a very sharp central vision, but at the same time they pay a lot of attention to details and can remember streets and faces very well, characteristics typical of hyper-sighted persons. The starting problems for the children WS showed a dominating disorganisation on a sub-cortical level of the eye motility, of the capability to explore, and of the fine eyes-hands coordination.

Our subsequent actions were oriented first to improving the control of the graphic sign when colouring and then to being able to orient the sign on squared surfaces.

MLD AND CRI-DU-CHAT SYNDROME

The evaluation of children with Cri du Chat Syndrome through the MLD show a common starting condition, that is connected to the syndrome phenotype.

MLD of sight

CdC syndrome children have hyper-sight and hypersensitivity to light, and lack convergence. Hyperacusis is adding difficulty to the sense faculty frame. The seeing attention is poor and undifferentiated. The eye motility is almost none. They can perceive colours but they are not named.

We proposed to work on the capability to focusing the eyes. Visual attention is the most complex task to reorganise on a sensory level and the most important, as it is the main entrance of the visual information of letters. The work starts when the child can identify the objects following the teacher’s verbal instructions of the educator. From the objects we pass to the images, by means of the coordination of sight and hearing. We set up the conditions to learn the letters of the alphabet, since working with the objects helps to choose the letters upon a verbal request.

MLD of manual skills

The children show a hypersensitive superficial touch, hyposensitive deep-touch. The hands are often punctured with wounds that the children cause themselves. They grasp with the palm of the hand. They do not recognise objects by touching them. The upper limbs do not movie independently from the rest of the body, and they do not show the cross-scheme even when walking (the children cannot cross-walk). The arms can move light but bulky objects. The opposition of the hands is absent . Graphic activities cannot be proposed. There is great difficulty in coordinating sight and hearing at the same time. Some self-inflicted wounding and stereotyped behaviour are obviously connected to the altered sense faculties. The hand frequently touches to the mouth.

We propose some hard work for re-balancing the hands , to reduce self-harming behaviour and improve the grip of objects. When the visual attention increases we notice improvements when using the hands and in the hand-eye co-ordination as well. The hands must first specialise in gripping the object, in order to be able then to indicate the images and in the end collect the letters to build up words under dictation.

MLD and ANGELMAN SYNDROME

Characteristic of AS is absence of speech.

MLD of sight

In children with AS the initial analysis shows that they have a hypersensitive sight. They have a central vision. The eye motility is very reduced, as well as the capability to explore the surroundings. Their eyes do not converge, they lack hands-eyes coordination. They lack the capability to sustain visual attention.

The education work starts by increasing the coordination of the eyes towards a target by and keeping the eyes fixed on it. Afterwards we must work on the hearing level in order to improve understanding of simple verbal commands.

When the children are able to recognise the objects at the teacher’s request , we start to work with images and afterwards with letters. Children with AS need to achieve a good level of listening and comprehension ; without such ability, the capability to pay attention to the requirements of the adult will be poor or nothing.

MLD of manual skills

The sense of touch of the AS children is altered so that it is hypersensitive on a superficial level, and hypo sensitive on a deep level.

The clinical characteristic of AS is movement disorder: the arms are little independent from the rest of the body; they grasp with palm of the hands. The objects are gripped by the hand but no functional use of them can be made. The serious verbal dysprax correlated with the syndrome does not allow good results from a graphic point of view. It is therefore necessary to work a lot on the functional use of the hand: taking objects, holding and positioning them. The basis of the work is first with a set of alphabet letters, then with a user friendly computer keyboard. When comparing AS with CdCS, we noticed that the work on AS children requires a greater emphasis on comprehension to get a reaction to the verbal request.

MLD and TRISOMIA 21 (DOWN SYNDROME)

In the trisomic child the starting picture is of poor manual skills, difficult eye motility, minor visual and listening attention. Often the grasp of a graphic tool is correct but he is incapable of tracing any lines other than scribble.

MLD of sight

The map evidences out for each person the real difficulty level or the good potential in relation to sight linked to reading ability. Usually, the functional level is very high, as it is related to the ability to recognise the letters. In order to achieve the ability to read it is necessary to organise the motory sectors and the language.

MLD manual skills

Hypotonia and looseness of ligaments, that are correlated to deep hypo sensitive touch, are constantly appearing characteristics, when evaluating manual skills in DS children.

The lack autonomy of movement in the upper limbs conditions the graphic-motory performances. Eye convergence and eyes-hands coordination are always very strictly correlated: whenever we succeed in developing the missing steps, we obtain as a result that all children with DS can learn to read and write without special difficulties. The evolution of motility in the fingers and the control of signs on squared paper, are the main pattern to work on an educational level, as they are the key to the motory requirements for writing.

RESULTS

Children with DS can read simple text, they can use cursive writing and can perform the four operations. Children with WS can use cursive writing, they read syllables, and can use addition and subtraction .

Children with CdCS can write down from dictation words on a easy to use keyboard. Two of them are already able to self dictate single words, other two can self-dictate single letters and are learning to self dictate syllables.

Amongst the children with AS two can write down simple letters under dictation.

To be able to use one instrument, although from such different starting levels, capable of providing an evolutionary picture, not dependend on the syndrome, but strictly connected to the standard neuro-functional evolution typical of each human being becomes a scientific challenge.

When we read the MLD, we notice no change when the syndrome varies as it provides the level already achieved, irrespective of the clinical picture.

By means of the MLD we can evaluate the starting position and understand upon which aspects we shall focus our actions of education. The subsequent evaluations will monitor whether changes have occurredor not.

The map is the hypothesis of how the CNS (central neurvous system) is capable of reorganising itself in order to allow an ability or skill to emerge.

A different chapter regards the work done for each skill, that is how to encourage the brain to modify itself in the process of learning through an action that is special education, but at the same time respective of the person’s specific evolution. We must not forget that each action we perform towards somebody else, must be submitted to a broader analysis, capable of respecting him as a human being.

The special education action finds its strength in the possibility of recognising very precisely the competences and the capability that the person must be helped to mature. In order to do so, it is necessary to consider the general frame and the neuro-functional architecture governing the learning ability. Therefore, we cannot consider solely the cortex as the seat of the cognitive aspects, but mainly the under cortical frame that controls the information input.

If we understand neuro-plasticity as the opportunity that the CNS has to re-organise itself, it becomes obviously the key for the proper timing of each special education action.

In our opinion it is time to define evolutionary tools, capable of highlighting the levels achieved, to locate capacities or functions that are not yet mature or not yet developed and to start special actions capable of compensating and recovering them, even if only partially.

REFERENCES

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