A recepção da criança com deficiência intelectual ao texto literário na educação infantil

The focus of this thesis is children's reception to literary texts starting from literary livelihood in an inclusive literary context, looking for the possible evidences that are present in the construction as reader/hearing of literature. Based on a study case, we search the ways of participation of a child (girl) with intellectual deficiency in situations of offering and reception of literary texts, looking for the understanding and explication of some aspects of her processing and the building up of an initial reader. The data were taken starting from observations in moments of reading and story-telling in the period from November to December/2008 and May to June/2009 in a public school of children education, in Natal- Brazil, in which there was a registered student showing intellectual deficiency associated to Down syndrome. As research tools we used: field diary, interview scripts and video recordings. The analyses were based on research from Amarilha (2001, 2006a, 2006b), Bettelheim (2007), Coelho (2008), Iser (1996), Jauss (1979, 1994), Luria (1990a, 1990b), Vygotsky (1991, 1993), Wallon (2007, 2008) amongst others. The research showed that although expressing little verbalization and limited levels of attention, body attitudes, movements and talks of the child under investigation, denounced engagement and rendition to the sonority of the texts shared. These data gives us traces that, under a mediating action, the child with intellectual limitation can turn into a reader/hearing subject of literature, developing a sensitive and a selective attitude towards the literary text. Amongst other aspects, we identified that (1) a conception of deficiency present through the school that recognizes his/her potential of developing and learning (2) the situation of sharing, that favours a relation with the texts through the other, and (3) the relevance of orality providing the semantic paths that help the child in the building up of meaning, presenting themselves as fundamental to her/his viewing of the literary text, and, therefore, the formation of the reader. Thus, recognizing her/his capacity and possibilities, we think it is important to guarantee to the child with intellectual deficiency, a space towards interaction with the fictional text in which the child can learn and live its ludic and interactive character, to enjoy its hearing abilities, benefiting, then, from the aesthetic experience lived, mainly, in collective situations mediated through the more experient reader and shared with her/his different pairs. The research shows yet that, looking after conditions that guarantee a comfortable environment to the story hearings in the classrooms that focus on children education, being aware of a selection and the prosody of stories, the didactic contract, the attention to individual reactions, enlarge the possibility of any child deficient or not to enjoy her/himself as reader/ hearing subject of literature, engaged in its richness and magic

Field effectiveness of stimulus equivalence for teaching reading skills to children with autism

Stimulus equivalence involves teaching two conditional discriminations that share one stimulus in common and testing all possible conditional discriminations not taught (Saunders & Green, 1999). Despite considerable research in the laboratory, applied studies of stimulus equivalence have been limited (Vause, Martin, Marion, & Sakko, 2005). This study investigated the field-effectiveness of stimulus equivalence in teaching reading skills to children with Autism. Participants were four children with Autism receiving centre-based intensive behavioural intervention (lBI) treatment. Three of the participants, who already matched pictures to their dictated names, demonstrated six to eight more emergent performances after being taught only to match written words to the same names. One participant struggled with the demands of the study and his participation was discontinued. Results suggest that stimulus equivalence provided an effective and efficient teaching strategy for three of the four participants in this study.

Dyslexia - towards diagnosis : the implications of corical laterality for children's reading difficulties

Dyslexia as a concept is defined and reviewed in a context of psychological, neurological and educational processes. In the present investigation these processes are recognised but emphasis is placed on dyslexia as a phenomenon of a written language system. The type of script system involved in the phenomenon is that of an alphabetic code representing phonological elements of language In script form related to meaning. The nature of this system is viewed In the light of current linguistic and psycholinguistic studies. These studies based as they are on an analysis of underlying written language structures provide a framework for examining the arbitrary and rule-governed system which a young child is expected to acquire. There appear to be fundamental implications for reading, spelling and writing processes; for example an alphabetic system requires recognition of consistent script-phonetic relationships, 'mediated word identification' and in particular uni-directional sensory and motor modes of perceiving. These are critical maturational factors in the young learner. The skills needed by the child for decoding and encoding such a phonemic script are described in a psychological and neuropsychological framework. Evidence for individual differences in these skills is noted and the category of the dyslexic-type learner emerges. Incidence is related to the probabilities of individual differences in lateralisation of brain function not favouring the acquisition of our script system In some cases. Dyslexia is therefore regarded as a primary difficulty consequent upon the incompatibility between:the written language system itself and the intrinsic, developmental skills of an individual's perceptual/motor system. It is recognised that secondary stresses e.g. socio-cultural deprivation, low intellectual potential or emotional trauma can further inhibit the learning process. Symptomology of a dyslexic syndrome is described.. The symptomology is seen by the writer to constitute a clinical entity. a specific category of learning difficulty for which predictive and diagnostic procedure could be devised for classroom use. Consequently an index of relevant test items has been compiled, based upon key clinical experiences and theoretical writings. This instrument knovn as the Aston Index is presented and discussed. The early stages of validation are reported and the proposed longtitudinal studies are described. The aim is to give teachers in the classroom the power and understanding to plan more effectively the earliest stages of teaching and learning; in particular to provide the means of matching the nature of the skill to be acquired with the underlying developmental patterns of each individual learner.

Phonological sensitivity as a proximal contributor to phonological recoding skills in children's reading

Because it permits self-teaching, phonological recoding (the efficient translation of letters or letter groups into sound) is arguably the key skill acquired in learning to read an alphabetic writing system. Deficits in this skill are the most common source of children's reading difficulties. In addition, poor readers tend to perform at a lower level than good readers on a wide variety of phonological processing tasks. These findings have been widely interpreted as implying a latent phonological processing ability as a distal cause of variation in reading skill. Clearly, such an interpretation does not imply that all phonological processing skills contribute directly to the phonological recoding process. This paper outlines a series of studies conducted at the University of Queensland. This work consistently suggests that children's phonological sensitivity contributes more directly than other phonological processing abilities to the development of phonological recoding skills.

Beyond sex and cooking: Health education for individuals with intellectual disability

Issues of health education programming for people with intellectual disability are discussed. As environments in which such individuals live become more inclusive, and they are encouraged to make their own choices, the issue of whether current health education is sufficient to enable them to make healthy life choices is considered. More attention should be focused on programs in schools and the community to fulfill this need. Three aspects of health education programming are considered: physical activity, general health knowledge, and social supports for health. Continuity of information is viewed as important in policy development as well as in interprofessional coordination and cooperation to assure that these individuals are not further handicapped by poor health.

Exploratory study : exploring the effectiveness of a literacy-based intervention with children with language impairments

Research points clearly to the need for all concerned stakeholders to adopt a preventative approach while intervening with children who are at-risk for future reading disabilities. Research has indicated also that a particular sub-group of children at-risk for reading impairments include preschool children with language impairments (Catts, 1993). Preschool children with language impairments may have difficulties with emergent literacy skills - important prerequisite skills necessary for successful formal reading. Only in the past decade have researchers begun to study the effects of emergent literacy intervention on preschool children with language impairments. As such, the current study continues this investigation of how to effectively implement an emergent literacy therapy aimed at supporting preschool children with language impairments. In addition to this, the current study explores emergent literacy intervention within an applied clinical setting. The setting, presents a host of methodological and theoretical challenges - challenges that will advance the field of understanding children within naturalistic settings. This exploratory study included thirty-eight participants who were recruited from Speech Services Niagara, a local preschool speech and language program. Using a between-group pre- and posttest design, this study compared two intervention approaches - an experimental emergent literacy intervention and a traditional language intervention. The experimental intervention was adopted from Read It Again! (Justice, McGinty, Beckman, & Kilday, 2006) and the traditional language intervention was based on the traditional models of language therapy typically used in preschool speech and language models across Ontario. 5 Results indicated that the emergent literacy intervention was superior to the ,t..3>~, ~\., ;./h traditional language therapy in improving the children's alphabet knowledge, print and word awareness and phonological awareness. Moreover, results revealed that children with more severe language impairments require greater support and more explicit instruction than children with moderate language impairments. Another important finding indicated that the effects of the preschool emergent literacy intervention used in this study may not be sustainable as children enter grade one. The implications of this study point to the need to support preschool children with language impairments with intensive emergent literacy intervention that extends beyond preschool into formal educational settings.

What resources are available to assist parents of hearing-impaired children to increase their children's reading abilitites?

This paper discusses the importance of parental efforts in the reading achievement attained by their hearing impaired children and the need for those parents to have the appropriate tools and resources to effectively assist their children.

Typography for children with reading difficulties: preferences for type in reading books

For children with developmental dyslexia the already challenging task of learning to read is made harder by difficulties with phonological processing and perceptual distortions. As a result, these children may be less motivated to practise their literacy skills. This is problematic in that literacy can only be gained through constant and continued exposure to reading scenarios, and children who are unmotivated to practise are unlikely to develop into fluent readers. Children are active in choosing the books they read and it is therefore important to understand how the typography in those books influences their choice. Research with typically developing children has shown that they have clear opinions about the typography in their reading materials and that these opinions are likely to influence their motivation to read particular books. However, it cannot be assumed that children with reading difficulties read and respond to texts in the same way as children who do not struggle. Through case-studies of three children with reading difficulties, preferences for the typography in their reading books is examined. Looking at elements of typesetting such as spacing and size shows that this group of children is aware of differences in typography and that they have preferences for how their reading books are typeset. These children showed a preference for books that resembled those that their peers are reading rather than those that would, by typographic convention, be considered easier to read. This study is part of ongoing research into the development of alternative materials for teaching literacy skills to children with dyslexia.