Basic principles in education of students with multiple disabilities

1. Basic principles in education of students with multiple disabilities Dr Mira Tzvetkova-Arsova Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridsky” Department of Special Education miratz@abv.bg

2. The educational process of each category students with disabilities is based on specific principles. Such principles are important and should be well known by all persons involved in the education – teachers, all staff members, and parents.

3. In 1969 Allen developed 3 main principles applicable to all students with disabilities: 1. Principle of normalization. 2. Principle of honesty. 3. Principle of respect.

4. 1. Principle of normalization • This principle evolved in the first decades of the ХХ century in Norway and was at the beginning oriented towards student with mental retardation. • The principle requires equal attitude towards all people in society and for mentally retarded individuals it means basically right for education, right for access to public places, right for work, right for living at home with family and not necessarily in big isolated institutions. • Soon the principle was applied to other groups with disabilities: blind, deaf, later to multiply disabled.

5. 2. Principle of honesty • This principle includes some legal meaning and content. It requires when taking important decisions about the life, future and interests of an individual with disabilities, the desires and opinions of both professionals and parents/family or even the individual himself/herself to be taken into account. • The principle requires in addition counseling, tolerance and honest attitude. • Basically the principle may be interpreted in such a way: Are the intervention or education planned for the individual with disability honest and to best of his/her interest and are they treating him/her as a person with dignity?

6. 3. Principle of respect • This principle requires treating every person as a human being and not as a statistical unit or as an inferior person. • Every person deserves respect and equal treatment and attitude.

7. In addition to these 3 basic principles, in 1992 Maj developed few specific principles applicable especially to individuals with multiple disabilities:

8. Principle of a maximum accurate diagnosis. • Principle of modeling the environment. • Principle of flexibility. • Principle of individual approach. • Principle of fixation. • Principle of attractiveness.

9. Principle of choice-making. • Principle of perspective. • Principle of prevention. • Principle of safety in tasks, activities and the whole process of education. • Principle of integration into society.

10. 1. Principle of a maximum accurate diagnosis • Diagnosing the multiply impaired student is extremely difficult. Moreover, the accuracy of diagnosis is often controversial. This is especially true for students with profound intellectual impairment, with severe physical disabilities and deafblind. For these students it is difficult or impossible to establish a verbal or nonverbal contact and the use of standard evaluation and assessment procedures is problematic. For example, the standard procedure for measuring the visual acuity include reading letters or digits of a board from a distance. If the child does not know or doe not recognize letters or numbers, he/he could not name them. Of course there are solution – to use alternative procedures such as the Lea symbols. Similarly, when assessing the intelligence level, most of the standardized intelligence tests can not be sufficiently reliable in determining the IQ and often its exact determination is impossible. Therefore, this principle implies "putting an accurate diagnosis”, but not necessarily very accurate and precise.

11. Lea symbols

12. 2. Principle of modeling the environment • When talking about modeling the environment we clearly mean the environment that is important and meaningful for the student. This can be the learning environment – the classroom, the school and dormitory area, or the school ground, and the home environment - home and its layout. Of course, modeling the house should not be such as to turn it into an artificial environment, inconvenient and unpleasant for other family members. Modeling mainly involves providing home safety and special design of the student's room. Environment for each category of children with disabilities should be special in order to meet the specific needs of these children. For example, in the environment for visually impaired shall be provided with bright, contrasting colors, placement of visual and tactile cues, etc. Environment for children with physical disorders should be consistent with their transport options. It is appropriate to avoid stairs and thresholds and it is necessary to provide ramps and lifts for wheelchair access, etc. In general, the environment for student with multiple impairments must be stimulating and should help them use better their visual, auditory or tactile skills. At the same time it must be safe and not least to be as close as possible to the normal home environment (on campus) or the ordinary classroom.

13. Leading lines for students with visual problems – Mali dom - Zagreb

14. Handrails – Novi sad

15. 3. Principle of flexibility • This principle primarily affects the planning of individual education plans and programs for the students. They must be such as to allow variation in the different activities and to provide for the formation of a variety of skills and habits in a different way. Flexibility is also working in a wide variety or range of activities. This is because the development of each child, including the multiply impaired one, follows a spiral line - with periods of progress and prosperity and periods of stagnation or retrogression. The flexibility of the teacher consists in the fact that he/he, knowing these periods of progress and stagnation in student may change the dynamic activities and work on those skills that are appropriate and relevant at a particular time or period. Furthermore, the principle of flexibility allows the teacher to change activities, see if they are uninteresting or if the student does not show any real progress. For example, in the individual education plan of the student activities are set in acquiring skills to fasten and unfasten buttons. The student however demonstrates a lack of interest in this activity or even show signs of aggression when required to do it. It is appropriate in such a case the teacher to be flexible and to postpone this activity for another time when the student is more motivated, and to replace it with another in that hour. The same applies if a student exhibits constant "intolerance" to an activity and refused to perform it for a few hours or for weeks. Again the teacher should be flexible and to replace this activity with another one in which the student may progress and will master. The postponed activity shall be introduced to the student again after some time, in a week, month or more.

16. 4. Principle of individual approach • The principle of individual approach is essential for the multiply impaired student. It is a guiding principle in developing individual education plan (IEP) for each student. It is dictated by the fact that the multiply impaired students are a highly heterogeneous group with different combinations of disorders, with different levels of their manifestation. It is therefore impossible to implement standard training programs, as they would be very appropriate and useful for one student, while absolutely unacceptable to another student. For example, an individual education plan for visually impaired student with CP will differ significantly from that of a blind student with mild intellectual impairment or that of a deafblind student.

17. Individual Education Plan (IEP)for the school year ……/…… I. Identification and main data of the student • Name of the student ……………………………………………………………………………………… • Date and place of birth …………………………………Age…………………………. • Individual identification No ………………………….. Class ………………………… • Medical documents and diagnosis ……………………………………………………………………………………… • Parents’ data: • Mother ……………………………………………………………………………………… • Working place, address, phone No ………………………………………………………… • Father ……………………………………………………………………………………… • Working place, address, phone No ………………………………………………………… • Starting date: ……………………………………… • End date: ………………………………………….

18. 5. Principle of fixation • Fixation means putting the focus on certain skills and habits that are valuable, important and necessary for the immediate or for the future life of each student. Typically, programs for multiply impaired student are functional, with an emphasis on building self-help skills or prevocational skills. The implementation of the principle of fixation must comply with a number of factors such as: • parents’ wishes and desires; • future prospects of the student – for instance if will he/he will return to live with his/her parents after graduating from school, the acquisition of appropriate self-help kills will allow him/her to be independent and not a burden to others. If the student is expected to live in protected home for people with disabilities, the focus again will be on self-help and on social skills and behaviors. • taking into account regional peculiarities of the region from which student comes. If it is a farming area and the prospect is of him/her returning there, prevocational and vocational training may provide control of some typical agricultural activities. If the student comes from a bigger city and I expected to live in a city, his/her training could focus on skills for orientation and mobility in a busy location, shopping skills and use of public resources – bank, library, post office, museum, restaurant, etc.; • taking into account ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds of the student and his/her family.

19. 6. Principle of attractiveness • Often multiply impaired students are with unstable and changing attention and behavior. It is therefore important tasks they are supposed to perform, to be pleasant, interesting and attractive. However, this does not mean that education should become a spectacle or circus. On the contrary. The teacher, together with the team of specialists and mainly together with the psychologist may consider other actions or objects whose presence in the learning process could facilitate and accelerate mastery of a skill. This principle implies giving of rewards or praise for a job that is well done. For example, if we work on building skills in orientation and mobility, routes may plan arrival to a location that the student likes to visit - the school cafeteria, a room of a friend etc. Or if we are working on acquisition of math skills – counting up to five, it will be much more attractive for the student to count candies, crackers, biscuits rather than his own fingers. A good idea may also be to structure the school day in a manner which provides a more attractive activity that come straight after not so interesting and desired activity. Thus, completion of the first activity will motivate the student and he/she will be more stimulated to complete the first task and to move to the second.

20. 7. Principle of choice-making • This principle is extremely important. It is widely used in all western countries with strong traditions in education of multiply impaired students. Choice-making is a basic human right and applies to many situations – every day we select among different opportunities – activities, food, clothing, entertainment, friends etc. The right of choice shall apply for the multiply disabled as well. Of course, in most cases it could not be done in the same manner and at the same way, but should be an integral part of the education and training of this category of children. Often the choice-making is very simple and basic – for example, a choice between two types of food, between two different garments, between two activities during breaks. The use of this principle may be often tricky – for instance, we shall help the student understand that not always we can tolerate and accept his/her choice. If the student wants to sleep during the classes or to eat between the usual meals, such a choice is unacceptable.

21. 8. Principle of perspective • All activities and skills involved in the education process of students with multiple disabilities should be important, relevant and perspective or to have concrete practical relevance for the future. This principle is necessitated by the fact that in most cases the potential of students with multiple disabilities is very limited. Therefore, spending a lot of time and efforts for acquisition of skills that have no real practical benefits for the students in the near or distant future, is a serious waste and will lead to lack of ability to acquire really needed and useful skills. For example, mastery of lots of facts and names in geography or history in students with severe intellectual disability has no real practical implementation and prospect for the future. • This principle corresponds closely to the principle of fixation, especially in the parts that characterize the future prospects of the exercises and taking into account the regional peculiarities of the region.

22. 9. Principle of prevention • Each skill or activity set in the individual education plan (IEP) of the multiply impaired student must correspond with his/her calendar and intellectual age. If a skill is not acquired in the right time, this can lead to various negative side effects – mannerisms, behavior problems etc. The so-called "sensitive periods" (periods that are especially suitable for the acquisition of certain skills) are valid for students with multiple disabilities. This way we can prevent the development of unacceptable habits and behaviors. • Major role in the implementation of this principle has the psychologist.

23. 10. Principle of safety in tasks, activities and whole process of education • This principle implies the removal of architectural barriers and providing an environment that is appropriate and at the same time safe for the students. This principle corresponds closely to the principle of modeling the environment, but while modeling focuses on transforming the environment in motivating and stimulating, here the focus is on its safety. Safe environment is the one, where risks for hurts, wounds or emotional discomfort are minimized. To make the environment safe, we should think about many things: i.g. how the student moves – if he/she is in a wheelchair sloped curbs should be provided in the school as well as ramps at the entrances, elevators complying with wheelchair access, toilets accessible to wheelchairs etc.

24. 11. Principle of integration into society • The final goal of each education is the realization, acceptance and life in the society. Of course, for the multiply impaired this process is long and complicated and involves a considerable extent of appropriate societal attitude. This principle can be achieved only through good society opinions, acceptance, tolerance and positive attitude towards persons with disabilities in general and towards multiply impaired individuals in particular. Therefore, the manifestation of the principle of integration in society has two main dimensions: • Training of the multiply impaired people in such skills, activities and behaviors that are acceptable to society; • Work to increase knowledge and positive attitude of society and better understanding of the needs and abilities, of the strengths and weaknesses of people with multiple disabilities.

25. In addition to all these principles in the education of students with multiple disabilities, discussed above, let us point out some specific principles that are especially important when working with deafblind students. • These principles are defined by Gleason (2000):

26. Gleason (2000): • Establishing relationships of trust and understanding between the student and the teacher. • Development of a daily routine with a smooth and clear transition from one activity to another and with absence of elements of surprise and change. • Systematic study and good understanding of the learning style of the student. • Patience. • Avoidance of frequent directing and guiding of the hands of the student in various activities and when signing. • Development of a permanent and unchanging environment. • Use of stimulating items and objects.

27. In conclusion: The work with multiply impaired students requires patience, tolerance, love, enthusiasmandrealistic expectations! The work with them should be creative, team-based, dynamic and based on individualizedapproach!

28. Thank you for your attention!