Ece/221 The Exceptional Child

It is an important part of a practitioner’s job to observe and assess children in order to establish where a child is at with regards to their development, health and well being and if they require extra support. The factors that need to be taken into account when assessing development are:

Christina J. Groark, Stephanie K. McCarthy, Afton R. Kirk. (2014). Early Child Development: From Theory to Practice. Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

A child will be assessed by an educational psychologist if there are concerns about their intellectual, communication and behavioural development. Assessments can be arranged by the SENCO or independently. The aim of the assessments is to find out why the child is not progressing and what support is needed in order for them to progress. Specific learning difficulties are often identified in this way such as Dyslexia, AHAD, Dyspraxia. Support and targets for the child are then set to help them achieve. The outcome of the assessments may involve the child referred to other professionals e.g. occupational therapist, optometrist, speech and language therapist, psychiatrist. The psychologist will advise the school on how to promote development for example, keeping verbal instructions simple. Keep stories and group activities short to match attention span.

After reading chapters one and two of the book “Exceptional lives”, I could more easily understand special education. As a teacher, I will mostly likely have many students with disabilities in my class throughout my career. With

It is common place for a screening to take place prior to commencing the learning programme in order to identify whether learners may need additional support, as a result a diagnostic test will then identify specific areas of literacy, and numeracy learners may need to work on to achieve their main learning goals. Diagnostic testing helps to determine learning targets, and teaching/ learning strategies appropriate to ensure the learner achieves the learning outcomes.

A two year assessment is carried out between the ages of two and three. Parents/carers/guardians are provided with a short written summary of the child’s development in the prime areas. Within the progress

. Sometimes it can be useful for a second person to assess a child as observations can be very subjective. It is also useful to use a wide variety of methods of assessment. Things need to be recorded according to what is exactly happening and should not be interpreted according to the assessors point of view.

1.1. When assessing development some factors need to be taken into account one of these is confidentiality, this means that you will need permission from a child’s parents/carers before doing observations, also when information is wrote down about a child is important that it is kept in a safe place were only the relevant people can access it. Also making sure that information about a child is only shared with parents/carers or colleagues and professionals that have the right to know. Another factor to take into account is a child’s wishes and feelings, this means to take into account the child’s wishes when doing an observation or assessment. The child may not want to be assessed at

Mrs .Sikkema said she has foyr high achiever students and two students who are on behavioral plans (Sikkema,2015,personal communication). She also said it is important to document and observe the students so you can understand their needs. I like how Mrs. Sikkema meet the learning needs of all the children in her classroom. Mrs.Sikkema help me to do my lesson plan in a timely manner. When I observe the classroom I was shock that the students was well behaved and attentive to the students. I have a lot of expereiences implementing different leson plans which was time consumer but it help me to do be able to implemnent a lesson plan in the future. Differentiated Instruction for Exceptional Learners provides an introduction to children and youth with a wide range of exceptional educational needs. There are five learning style auditory, visual, tactile, kinesthetic, and tactile/ kinesthetic (Differeitate Instructional

I chose the CE240 unit 9 assignment as my artifact. This artifact was a brochure about Early Intervention and Early Detection. As an Early Childhood Educator I need to have the knowledge of resources that are available for children with special needs. This brochure explains the importance of early identification and early intervention to minimize any potentially developmental delay. As teachers it’s our responsibility to use our professional judgment when conducting or helping with the screening process. The goal for this assignment is to help the parents of children with special needs, to apply effective strategies, to improve their children’s development and learning. Also, this brochure explains the necessity of a child receiving early

carry out an initial assessment of children who are thought to be at risk to find out about: for example, the child’s needs, the ability of parents to meet the child’s needs, family and environmental factors

“For a true authentic look at each child, many pieces should be assembled, from formal assessment, informal observations, anecdotal notes, and portfolio samples” (Funk, 2008, p.1). I would start of discussing my proposal to using standardized screening assessments by stating the benefits of each screening and how it can help everyone to see and make sure that the child is reaching their developmental milestones

It demonstrations that I can interpret the data and validity of assessments results and communicate those results to partners and families in language they understand. Ages & Stages is a screen to determine if the child is has any delays in five developmental areas: communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving and personal-social and determine if future screening are recommended. The toddler was screen over a 2 day period with mother present the screening data suggested, giving his age should be referred to First Steps for further assessments in language, gross motor skills and cognitive

The teaching philosophy of exceptional children: My teaching career has been spent learning how to provide appropriate support, guidance, patience, & understanding, as well as to enhance academic growth & success, for all students. My purpose as a teacher is to enrich and inspire the lives of young students with moderate/intensive needs by providing access to information instead of functioning as the primary source of information for students to flourish. My teaching methods will be to create an environment ripe with opportunities for discovery and exploration which will allow the student to learn at his/her own pace, generate questions and construct knowledge, while providing hands-on practice of skills in authentic situations as well

In the early childhood field teachers do not use the traditional A to F grading system to provide a valid measure of where the students are at. When meeting with parent about the progress of their student educational progress, teachers provide work samples from a portfolio. Within the portfolio there are pictures of the student completing projects and participating in classroom activities, weekly writing samples, several self-portraits drawn throughout the year, formal assessments done on mathematical concepts and letter knowledge, dictated stories with drawings and cutting samples. Parents also have access to teacher observations. During the conference the teacher and parent discusses where the child is developmentally, emotionally, cognitively and physically in relation to their educational progress based upon the material in the portfolio and teacher observations.