VISION: definition, prevalence, categories

 SENSORY IMPAIRMENTS

Sensory impairments consist of hearing and visual impairments

Visual Impairment 

Mild visual impairments with low vision, includes totally blind

Prevalence:

-in children, blindness is the least prevalent of all disabilities

-about 1/1000 children under 18 yrs. of age have severe vision impairment

-vision loss is primarily an adult disability

-only 10-15% of total population are totally blind 

  

Etiology

Category	Example	Manifestation	Etiology
Refractive Errors	Myopia Hyperopia Astigmatism Cataracts	Nearsightedness Farsightedness Distorted or blurred vision Growth over lens	Aging, heredity, disease, and infection
Eye pathologies	Glaucoma Retinopathy of prematurity Retinoblastoma Albinism Optic nerve atrophy Retinitis pigmentosa	Impaired outflow of vitreous fluid causes pressure on eyeball Fibrous mass that destroys the retina Malignant tumour on the retina Lack of skin pigmentation Nerve degeneration Narrowing of field	Congenital, hereditary Prematurity; oxygen in incubator Genetic Genetic, error of metabolism Damage to the optic nerve Hereditary of vision
Oculomotor problems	Strabismus Nystagmus Amblyopia	Seeing double Rapidly moving eyeballs Lazy-eye blindness; lack of depth perception	Arises from strabismus
Other problems	Colour blindness Photophobia	Deficient in colour vision Sensitivity to light	Genetic
Syndromes	Usher’s syndrome Joubert syndrome	Retinitis pigmentosa and progressive hearing loss Ataxia, slow motor activity, nystagmus	Genetic Neurological disorder

HEARING: definition, prevalence and etiology

SENSORY IMPAIRMENTS

Sensory impairments consist of hearing and visual impairments

Hearing Impairment: hearing disability that includes the deaf and hard of hearing

 

Impairments

Outer Ear Middle Ear Inner Ear External otitis (swimmer’s ear) Otitis media-mucosal lining of middle ear becomes inflamed and the cavity fills with fluid (most common ear infection in children) Presbycusis- deafness of age is the most common cause of auditory defect Auditory atresia (missing or undeveloped auditory canals) Otosclerosis- hereditary condition, destruction of the capsular bone in middle ear and the growth of a web-like bone that attaches to and restricts the stapes Microtia (mis-shapen or extremely small pinna)

 

Prevalence of Hearing Impairments

·      Inconsistent translations

·      Confusion regarding identification and reporting

·      Methodological problems in surveys and shortage of research in areas

·      Difficulties in accurate early identification of hearing loss

·      Increased of hearing impairment with age

·      Difficulties in estimating hearing impairments among individuals with multiple disabilities, who are often reported according to their primary disability

Etiology

Audiologists are involved in assessments for hearing, recommendations, and fittings.

Otolaryngologists are medical personnel who deal with the ear, nose, and throat that affect hearing and speech.

Intellectual Disability: developmental issues

  Developmental Issues of Intellectual Disability

Potential is not always reached. Negative experiences can influence how people perceive themselves and their ability to reach goals.

Learned Helplessness: Negative experiences can influence how people perceive themselves, their self-esteem and their ability to reach goals- “If at first you don’t succeed, quit!” syndrome

Momentum: The importance of establishing within the student a sense of commitment to take responsibility for their learning; avoid learned helplessness (Bennett, p. 162)

Motivation: directs behaviour toward a goal

Did you know?

An intellectual disability not only affects the child but the whole family too – stress, worry and depression. 7 – 18% of people with intellectual disability have AD/HD 14 – 16% have mental illnesses, e.g. schizophrenia 10% suffer from depression Assessment Rating scales, achievement inventories, personal checklists, and individual administered tests of intelligence can all be used to determine a child’s intellectual and developmental functioning. Medical information relevant to the student’s situation ideally should also be available. It is also most important to include reports by parents, teachers and EAs who know the children and their abilities best. Teachers in the classroom should not wait for the results of formal assessment, but start trying different strategies, based on their own informal assessment of the child’s strengths and needs, to help the child during the assessment waiting period. Privacy regulations must be followed, and student confidentiality maintained at all times. One important factor to consider regarding the assessment of a student: Are the tests results used reliable and valid? Many tests used in Canada may bias against children from lower socio-economic or different cultural groups. This may be one of the reasons there seem to be more children than expected from these groups with ID. www.sujeet.com – “Oh! I forgot to mention that I was born with Down syndrome!”    Inclusion… or not – see previous blogs  Important Considerations ·      Positive attitude: Teachers need to approach students with recognition and acceptance. Students with ID have likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, like all children. Use evaluative and positive feedback. ·      Collaborative approach: It is crucial that both teachers and assistants provide an atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding. ·      Instructional scaffolding: to continually encourage remembering. Students will excel with repetition. It is important to offer ‘drill’ and ‘repetition’ of new material in a fun and motivating way (games, puzzles, fun activities). Information, once stored in their long term memory, can be accessed as effectively as any other child can. ·      Use of reciprocal teaching: written material and dialogue involving both teacher and student, will help to discover the meaning of a written passage. Ability to assess low reading levels and accommodate projects with appropriate reading supplies and projects for this ability. ·      Use of technology and a variety of software can be very useful to children with ID. ·      Each program will need to be individualized to each students needs and unique strengths Normalization: People with ID should be seen for their similarities with their peers, not for their differences. They should be allowed to thrive in the larger society, consistent with their age and adaptive ability, as much as possible. Inclusion: Design for Learning/Education for All (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2005) supports the principle of inclusion, i.e. keeping all students in the regular classroom as much as possible. It is not possible to lump all special students into one learning environment classification. For some students, a modified school environment may produce better results. Students should be considered on an individual basis, if not, the consequences can be potential disastrous one way or the other. There is no cap on learning! LITERALLY! It just takes longer.

Intellectual Disability: LEVELS related to cognitive development

  Developmental Issues of Intellectual Disability

Cognitive Development (CD) Learning and Memory

Understanding a concept and then applying  the understanding in new circumstances

Individuals with I.D. have a slowed or impaired development – but it follows the same path, just not as fast or as high!

Remember Piaget?

4 stages of cognitive development

-  Sensorimotor

- Pre-operational

- Concrete operational

- Formal operational

Short-term memory decreases as the level of disability increases.  However, once something has been learned, long-term memory will be typical. 

Level of Intellectual Disability

Mild CD reaches the concrete operational stage (typically developed by 11 years of age) Potential – understanding of and application of logic to operations Strategies to help learning can promote short term memory

Moderate CD reaches pre-operational stage (typically reached by age 6) Potential – uses symbols to represent the world, e.g. numbers and words; potential for some reading and writing Strategies such as classical and operational conditioning can teach adaptive skills to a functional level. Severe CD is at sensorimotor stage(typically reached by age 2) Potential-knowledge is based on senses and motor skills Strategies: classical and operational conditioning.

 

Communication Development Slower language development Attain levels that are lower than their mental age peers Expressive and receptive language skills are lower 55% of persons affected with ID are also affected by speech disorders, e.g. tongue defects in children with Down’s Syndrome causes speech impediments. These problems are mostly related to severity of the disability, not the cause of the disability	Level of intellectual development
	Mild May show delay in when they start talking as a baby / toddler Mutism is rare
	Moderate Use of stereotypical language with mistakes
	Severe Limited speech and language Mutism is common

Intellectual Disability: no limit to potential

Developmental Issues of Intellectual Disability  There is no limit to learning potential! The classic drills and repetition in teaching, and the gift of time, are tools that are vital to   the success of inclusion Let’s see the similarities, not the differences!  from ‘Flowers for Algernon’ by Daniel Keyes ‘…and carved above the cathedral of my childhood: He’s like all the other children. He’s a good boy’.