SCHOOL COUNSELLING FOR LD,SLOW LEARNERS, SOCIALLY DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN & PROBLEM CHILDREN

SCHOOL COUNSELLING FOR LD,SLOW LEARNERS, SOCIALLY DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN & PROBLEM CHILDREN

Counselling

•      Counselling is a scientific process of assistance

•      It involves relationship between two persons in which one of them(counsellor) attempts to assist the other(counselee or client).

•      Rogers: Counselling is a series of direct contacts with the individual which aim to offer him assistance in changing the attitudes and behaviour

School Counselling

•      School counselling deeply rooted deeply with the problems and conditions of school and going students.

•      School counselling takes place in public and private school settings in grades K-12. Counselling is designed to facilitate student achievement, improve student behaviour and attendance, and help students develop socially. 

 school counsellor

•      A school counsellor works in primary (elementary and middle) schools and/or secondary schools to provide academic, career,college access/affordability/admission, and social-emotional competencies to all students through a school counselling program.

•      The major concern of school counselling service is to help the pupil to achieve self-direction, self-knowledge and self-realization.

What Do School Counsellors Do?

School counsellors, also known as guidance counsellors, were first primarily responsible for facilitating career development. Today, the role of the school l is multifaceted and may vary greatly, depending on the requirements of both the state and each individual school. 

The duties of school counsellors may include: 

·         Providing instruction on psychological and social issues. 

·          Vocational guidance.

·         Counselling.

·         Early intervention

·         Special needs services

·         Further, counsellors often help students:

·         Maintain academic standards and set goals for academic success.

·         Develop skills to improve organization, study habits, and time management.

·         Work through personal problems that may affect academics or relationships.

·         Improve social skills.

·         Cope with school or community-related violence, accidents, and trauma.

·         Identify interests, strengths, and aptitudes through assessment.

School counselors offer individual counseling to help students resolve personal or interpersonal problems

1. School counselling for Slow Learners

Slow Learner

•      Burt: “ A slow learner is a child who is unable to cope with the work normally expected of his age group.”

•      IQ of slow learners usually ranges from 70-90

•      These children are unable to deal successfully with abstract materials

•      Their span of attention is relatively shorter

•      Their reasoning ability is inferior to that of normal children

Features

·        He is a slow learner and feels difficulty in keeping pace with the normal school work.

·        His educational attainment falls below his natural abilities

·        He falls far behind other children of his age in natural abilities.

·        He is necessarily a failure in the academic field and shows educational.

·        His ability to evaluate materials for relevancy is limited and has got limited power of self direction

Causes of slow learning

•      Physical and physiological factors : Born with poor health, Lack of vitality and deformity, Chronic diseases and bodily defects. Defective vision, faulty hearing, speech defects, left handness

•      Intellectual factors : born with intellectual subnormality ,lack of grasping meaning and remembering. Suffer also from emotional imbalance and social maladjustment .

a)Family factors :

•      Unhygienic conditions and malnutrition the  health of these poor children his adversely affected . It reduces their learning capacity and thus makes them backward .

•      Illiteracy

•      poverty

•      intellectual inferiority .

b)School Factors:

•      Ineffective teaching

•      Lack of infrastructure facilities

•      Defective curriculum and Examinations

•      Uninteresting

•      Lack of equipment's, facilities and provision for revision of  teachers

c)Social Factors:

•      Peer pressure

•      Bad companies

  School Counselling  programmes for Slow Learners:

1.     Remedial Instruction

2.     Healthy Environment

3.     Periodical Medical Check-up

4.     Non-Promotion

5.     Motivation

6.     Individual Attention

7.     Special Methods of teaching

8.     Home Visits by the teachers

9.     Maintenance of Progress Record

Solutions to reduce  Slow Learning

A. Compensatory Teaching

Compensatory teaching is an instructional approach that alters the presentation of content tocircumvent a student’s fundamental weakness or deficiency. Compensatory teachingrecognizes content, transmits through alternate modalities (pictures versus words) andsupplements it with additional learning resources and activities (learning centresand simulations, group discussions and co-operative learning).

B. Remedial Teaching

This is an alternate approach for the regular classroom teacher in instructing the slow learner.Remedial teaching is the use of activities, techniques and practices to eliminate weaknesses ordeficiencies that the slow learner is known to have.

2. School Counselling for Learning Disabilities

Learning disabilities are neurologically-based processing problems. These processing problems can interfere with learning basic skills such as reading, writing and/or math.  They can also interfere with higher level skills such as organization, time planning, abstract reasoning, long or short term memory and attention.  It is important to realize that learning disabilities can affect an individual’s life beyond academics and can impact relationships with family, friends and in the workplace.

Specific Learning Disabilities

•      Auditory Processing Disorder (APD)

•      Dyscalculia.

•      Dysgraphia.

•      Dyslexia.

•      Language Processing Disorder.

•      Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities.

•      Visual Perceptual/Visual Motor Deficit.

•      ADHD.

Features

•      They essentially suffer from serious learning difficulties which is visible in the acquisition and use of language

•      They show lack of motivation, inattention, inadequate ability in solving problems and information processing.

•      They exhibits learning handicaps and show observable deficiency

•      They may exhibit symptoms of hyperactivity

Counselling for learning disabled children means that is concerned with the success of special needs students. The essential purpose of special education counselling is to ensure that special needs students and their families have access to the appropriate supports and interventions in order to facilitate improved achievement in a school environment.

In addition to facilitating academic and intellectual growth, these type of school  counselling is concerned with improving a student’s ability to function in social, emotional, and behavioural capacities. Special education counselling is a multi-modal discipline in that special education counsellors must be well versed in counselling theories and techniques, as well as educational theory, educational law, and special education regulations.

What is the Role of a School Counsellor in LD?

The role of a school counsellor is to help all students, including those with special needs, to achieve their full potential. Introducing an appropriate individualized education program (IEP) at an early age can make all the difference, not only in these children’s academic learning, but in their emotional health and social adjustment and ultimately in their ability to become productive, contributing members of society.

The school counsellor is one person who can help by actively advocating for these children. The following are some of the other important services that school counsellors provide.

·         Counselling sessions with special education students.

·         Encouraging family involvement in the IEP. It helps immensely if the parents or other responsible adults understand and are on board with the services that have been recommended, including possible referrals to outside organizations. The special education counselor can also address specific questions or concerns and inform parents and guardians of their rights.

·         Consulting with and working with other school staff to better understand the child’s special needs and what support systems, adaptations and modifications may be necessary.

·         Collaborating with other school and community professionals, including but not limited to teachers, school psychologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech and language pathologists, in the delivery of services.

·         Identifying other students who should be assessed to determine eligibility for special education.

What are the Education Requirements to Become a Special Education Counsellor?

·         The educational requirements for special education counsellors are quite different from those for counsellors that work outside the school system. It is highly recommended that students begin their studies not in counselling, but instead with a bachelor’s degree in special education and gain experience as a special education teacher. To achieve this goal, students must complete a four-year special education program, including a student teaching placement in a special education setting. Upon graduation, students will need to pass a written examination and fulfil the requirements of obtaining teaching licensure in the state in which they live.

Approaches used by a school counsellor towards learning disability

•      Behavioural Approach

•      Psycho analytic Approach

•      Individual instructional Approach

•      Self instructional Approach

•      Multi sensory approach

•      Technological Approach

3. School Counselling for Socially Disadvantaged Children

Education being the most powerful instrument for empowering the Socially Disadvantaged Groups, the Ninth Plan committed to achieve the same through universalization of primary education by 2005 with a special focus on low-literacy pockets and on the educationally backward communities like SCs, OBCs and Minorities.

Features

(1)Poor Academic performance

(2) Cognitive deficiencies

(3) Apathetic, unresponsive and lack initiative

(4) Lower achievement

(5) Basic Intelligence

(6) Socially Disadvantaged, and

Identification of Socially Disadvantaged Children:

The term ‘disadvantaged’ is used to indicate the following observable behaviour:

1. Progressive decline in intellectual functioning in school.

2. Cumulative academic achievement deficits.

3. Premature school termination and high dropout rate.

4. Reading and learning disabilities.

5. Poor language learning.

6. In adequate social learning and observing in the absence of model.

7. Low attention span and distraction in learning.

8. Lack of proficiency in higher form of cognitive learning and transfer.

9. Lack of abstract and state sequence of events in a learning situation.

10. Inability to classify and form logical concepts, incapacity to verbalise events and solutions.

11. Lack of analytic ability which is essential for learning.

12. They show belief in external factors, i.e., luck chance, late etc. rather than their own self and activity.

13. They cannot delay gratification immediate tangible and non-contingent rewards are their need.

14. They have a high sense of avoidance for failure than striving success.

15. They have poor self-concept, low achievement aspiration and low need achievement including lack of desire for self-actualisation.

16. Their general behaviour lacks intrinsic motivation. Insecurity and anxiety are very obvious.

Educational Guidance and Counselling for SD Children:

·        Education aims at bringing change which will affect the lives of students is & relevant concern for all educators. In the case of disadvantaged children the challenge is even greater. The likelihood that these children will overcome the handicaps of poverty in rural and as well as it slum areas seems to be related as to how effectively the school personnel assist them. In fact, individuality can be fostered and realized through effective guidance service and the establishment and development of these services can be enhanced by an appreciation of the ecology other the individual and ecology of the school.

·        Considering from all points of view, guidance activities for the disadvantaged may be organized in small groups of eight to twelve.

·        The information giving, task orientation and counseling type of activities will be more effective in small groups for the disadvantaged, because they will not be inhibited before an adult authority as is true of an individual counseling situation.

·        Role playing as a technique is most suitable for guiding the activities of the disadvantaged.

·        Further for helping the rural disadvantaged, guidance service, programme needs be extended through parental counselling, community resources clubs and referral to psychologist who should be available at least in each school complex. Guidance must form a part of the entire educational programme which students should perceive as personally relevant for them.

·        Social disadvantage is a socio-cultural-economic deprivation combined with deficit in cognitive stimulation at home which in then carried away to school.

·        In school, social disadvantage is characterized in terms of achievement deficits, drop out and deficit language and competence. Discrimination and isolation accelerate the deficit process.

·        Remedial education strategies, guidance, suggested teacher behaviour would eventually contribute to reducing disparities, difference and deficits whenever they arise.

·        Our schools and educational system must develop a better understanding of the implications of the social and psychological dynamics of deprivation and translate this understanding into educational programmes, into the training of teachers and administrators and into planning of curriculum and instruction.

·        No single device will suffice to counteract or to remedy the complex factors; those are associated with the education of the underprivileged.

·        To unlock the hidden potential among these children, a radical change in curriculum and teaching is required.

·        At least the new curriculums which has been introduced is constructed in such a way that it is related to the psychological realities of the psychological realities of the child, is tuned to our social and community life is geared towards achieving needs and aspirations of our people and the educational climate that is promulgated in the frame-work is more motivating in terms of teaching techniques for which orientation of teachers are conducted in a massive way by NCERT, SCERT and State Development of Education.

·        It is true that it is not the educators function only to reverse the negative impact of educational deprivation, social and effective insulation, caste discrimination and economic deprivation.

·        It involves all aspect of the community. The task surely calls for creative innovation all along the line. The crucial pedagogical problem involved is that of understanding the mechanism of learning facility and learning dysfunction and applying this knowledge to optimum development of a heterogeneous population characterized by differential backgrounds, opportunities and patterns of social and intellectual function.

4. School counselling for Problem Children

Most children who are treated for disruptive behavior problems are school-age: They’ve been acting out in class, ignoring or defying teachers’ direction, or being too aggressive with other children. But in many cases these children have been exhibiting problematic behavior for years before they start school.

Individual counseling: Students can seek one-on-one help from their school counselor to discuss personal issues, such as bullying, or seek crisis counselling

Problems

·         bullying. ·         learning difficulties. ·         behavioural problems. ·	·         Depression and anxiety. ·         bereavement/loss. ·         attachment disorder. ·         separation anxiety

Features

•      Maybe they’ve been having more—and more serious—tantrums than typical kids their age

•      Maybe they’re extremely hard for exhausted and frustrated parents to manage

•      Maybe they’ve been kicked out of preschool or excluded from play dates

•      Their behavior may be disrupting family life and and putting serious strain on other family members

•      Conflict over behavior may be creating negative relationships with parents

•      Parents might be concerned that they might hurt younger siblings

School Counselling techniques for problem children

•      Practice tough  love

•      Encourage the active participation in group work

•      Motivation

•      Develop positive attitude among children

Advantages of School Counseling

•      Reduces and removes barriers to learning

•      Enables children to achieve their full potential – builds social competence and academic achievement

•      Improves a child’s attitude to learning and ability to enjoy learning

•      A targeted early intervention prevents more costly interventions being needed later

•      Improves connection and level of engagement between school and family – strengthening of family unit

•      Having a counsellor available on the school grounds benefits children and their families, teachers and the school community

•      Ease of access, timeliness, availability of a professional opinion, a credible service delivered in a place that works for kids are all opinions that have been expressed by school staff

Disadvantages of School Counseling

·        Time consuming

Reference

http://www.aipc.net

http://www.psychologydiscussion.net/essays/socially-disadvantaged-children/essay-on-socially-disadvantaged-children-psychology/13491

https://www.google.co.in

https://www.psychologytoday.com