Strategy to ensure appropriate social skills for students with a disability in 2nd-grade self-contained classroom. (HLP 9
Introduction
According to Mansour and Wiener, 50% of students with disabilities suffer from behavioural difficulties and difficulties with social skills. Also, compared to the other students, students with disability are not accepted socially with their colleagues and do not quickly develop close relationships. To avoid excluding disable students, there is a need to teach students with disabilities social skills. Social skills refer to the ability of the students to establish and maintain practical interpersonal skills, be accepted by their peers, befriend other students, and eradicate negative relationships with other people ( Gresham et al., 2011). For a person to interact effectively with other people, there is a need to learn how to read their feelings as well as those of other people and express them positively.
Both classroom and physical activities help students to develop social skills. Development of social skills requires students to interact with peers and teachers. Grade two is an essential class because students learn off social conventions, that is how to interact with their peers in both formal and informal ways. Thus, the ideal environment for educating the students on social skills is in the second grade (Low et al., 2015). The fabrics of sound education designs and practice insist on collaboration and discussion. Students ought to have access to multiple opportunities that teach a variety of modalities, a sufficient understanding of social skills, and active participation for them to interact with other people effectively.
However, the role of educators in reaching out to all the students may be limited because students with disabilities spent most of their time in class. Lack of close interaction could make these students develop depression and anxiety. Therefore, they would be unable to interact effectively with their peers, and hence they tend to be socially excluded. In most schools, students with disabilities usually learn from a self-contained classroom. A self-contained classroom refers to a class with few students created to enhance and support the learning of students with disabilities. Thus, it is critical to analyze the strategies that could be used to ensure social skills for students with disabilities in 2nd-grade self-contained classroom.
The meaning of social skills
Social skills are the elements of a person’s behaviour that enable them to adapt to various environments. According to Jurevičien, Kaffemanienė, & Ruškus (2012), social skills is the pursuance of personal relationship, ability to interact with others and adapt to different environments, and the ability to understand each other and express themselves adequately. A person who is equipped with social skills can avoid conflicts, express excellent interpersonal and communications skills and respond effectively in case of social conflict. Furthermore, social skills dictate a person’s functionality and management of social disagreement in a social situation. The primary importance of social skills is that it leads to acceptance by social groups and allows people to cope effectively to the recent environment where the issue of social networking is considered essential for success. Furthermore, there are various classifications of social skills that educators can teach children.
First, teachers ought to teach the children the foundational skills. These are the skills for basic that is expressed in normal communication, such as abilities such as maintaining eye contact, personal contact, non-verbal communication, among others. Secondly, students should be equipped with skills for interaction. These skills include the skills for solving disagreements, patients in communication, interaction with elders and those in authorities and close communication. Thirdly, children should understand the emotional communication. Emotional communication is essential for ones of their own and other people’s reactions to different situations. It enables a person to sympathize and empathize with other people, mimic, gestures and also understand various body languages (Miers, Blöte & Westenberg, 2010). It is through emotional skills that one can discern whether a person can be trusted in a particular situation. Lastly, students need cognitive skills to handle very complicated situations. Cognitive skills include observations, formulation of perceptions, understanding different cultures and beliefs and choice of behaviour that people display.
Social skills in students with disabilities
Statistics reveal that 13% of the school-aged population in the United States is disabled students. For instance, in the year 2011 and the year 2012, 730, 558 children in preschool, grade one and grade two received early intervention. Furthermore, 6,737,757 students in the USA receive special education (U.S Department of Education, 2014). Consequently, research conducted by Mansour and Wiener revealed that 50% of the students with disabilities suffer from behavioural difficulties and difficulties with social skills. These characteristics are often portrayed by their inability to make friendship, poor interpersonal and communication skills, lack self-concept and lack of adjustment to different social situations.
The deficiency in social skills among students with special needs is usually the cause of failure in academic performance. Students become prone to feelings of low-self-esteem, discouraged, less resilient, are distracted by small issues, and do not put in extra efforts when they come across some academic challenges. Social marginalization leads to disinterest in academics. If the students are not exposed to social skills early enough, they become victims of social ostracism and also become academic failures.
Strategies for Teaching Students with disabilities social skills
The teaching strategy adopted mainly depends on the disorder that the student is suffering from. There are different needs that the child could be exposed to, such as speech, language and communication needs, and Autistic spectrum disorders, sensory or physical disorders, among others. The teacher should understand the different needs of the children and apply a teaching technique that would ensure that such children acquire social skills.
Cooperative learning
Cooperative learning is a way of dividing students into a small group in an academic set up that aims at improving learning and social skills acquisition. It promotes interaction between the students as they handle different tasks in groups. Students depend on each other to complete various tasks as they communicate with each other. Collaborative efforts give students an opportunity to work together with their peers in groups. The instructor provides the students tasks and expects them to complete it in groups. However, each individual is responsible for their own work. These enable students to learn from one another and also become competent in handling teamwork. An instructor can use a variety of ways in integrating cooperative learning such as a round table, round-robin, thinking pair share, time reviews, among others. David Johnson believed that five elements make collaborative learning an effective way of teaching students with disabilities social skills (Johnson & Johnson, 2011). The elements include direct interactions, interdependence among the people, personal accountability, oral skills and gestures and teamwork.
Think pair share
Think pair share is a method that allows students to have discussions before they tackle the actual group questions. In other words, think pair share is a technique that will enable students to listen to a question, think about it individually, discuss their thoughts with other students, and later share their thoughts with all the students in the classroom. Each student becomes engaged directly through listening and speaking. The steps involved in think share technique is first listening to the teacher. The second step involves the students thinking about and interpreting the question. The tutor then gives the students time to hold small group discussions. The last stage involves teachers calling groups to present their thinking in front of the whole classroom. It is the easiest way of collaborative learning that ensures that all students are involved. The main advantages of this technique are that it improves a student’s verbal and non-verbal skills as they discuss with other students. Also, it ensures that students gain self-esteem, increases students involvement and increases metacognitive awareness in the special needs students (Feldman, 2019).
Jigsaw technique
The jigsaw technique is a type of cooperative learning that ensures students are involved in teamwork. It also facilitates student’s interaction in peer to peer learning. The method involves assigning the students to various aspects of a similar issue. The teacher instructs the groups to investigate different elements of a project. For instance, each group might be required to read different articles that provide related data that make up a whole project. Once the team understand the various aspects of their subtopics, the tutor forms a new group. The new groups contain at least one representative from different old groups. Each member is required to explain the findings of the former group to the new group that they joined. The new group combines its information to evaluate the whole project (Karacop & Diken, 2017).
Round Robins
A round-robin is a form of a discussion group where students are assigned to different table discussion groups. The tutor gives the students a specific topic and allows them to brainstorm questions and ideas about the topic. The technique takes places in steps which include teacher coming up with a topic. The students are then required to formulate a certain number of questions or idea concerning the selected topic and also decide the number of groups that need to be formed. The third step is to arrange the desks or tables so that the students can easily communicate with each other in a group ( Alraya, 2018). The teacher then assigns one person as the leader and another person to record the answers. After the group has discussed the idea or the question, the group leader presents the idea. Round Robin technique is effective since each student has an opportunity to give their idea. This method ensures students acquire oral communication skills, listening skills and can interact with the other students effectively.
Small group’s collaborations
Small group collaborations involve dividing students into small groups of approximately three to five members. Each group is assigned a subtopic to discuss. Each student is given time to provide specific information that makes up the collective information of the subtopic. For instance, grade two students can be assigned a particular group of items such as utensils to draw and colour. Each student will be required to come up with their unique utensil and draw and colour it. The group then combines the various items that they have drawn and present it to the tutor or the class. This technique can be applied to different types of studies. Small group discussion ensures that students acquire skills such as maintaining eye contact, gestures, observation and understanding the behaviour of people and their reactions.
Role-play
Roleplay is used to teach social, emotional skills in grade two students. Emotional skills that can be taught using this method are emotional management, recognizing individual emotions and those of other people and listening techniques. Role-played is a strategy that can be incorporated into the normal learning of the students. It requires students to be deeply involved than normal listening lessons. Students assume the character of someone or an object. The tutor gives the students specific instructions on how to act and what to say ( Altun, 2015). The students will then act on the different roles and later discuss the various actions and their importance. The use of role played introduces the students to multiple vocabularies, gain social skills such as confidence, sympathy, empath and critical thinking. These social indicators ensure that students develop meaningful communications with their peers.
Also, the role played has proven to be an effective technique that enables students to come with the process of solving problems. Instead of letting students face real-life problems in a social set up, they can handle different problems in an interactive environment in a classroom. It prepares them to face real-life problems when dealing with other people. It is a learner-centred approach that ensures that students with special needs are actively involved in every step. According to Kaovere and Mbaukua (2018), the role played is an essential strategy that is useful in developing the student’s vocabulary, interactive sessions, problem-solving skills and general social skills.
Group oral presentation
Group oral presentation is a strategy that involves students speaking in front of the class in a group. Each student is given specific objectives that they are supposed to discuss. It is the best way of making students interact with each other. For grade two students, for instance, they can be given certain words to pronounce loudly in front of the other students in the class. The teacher can first begin with a large number of students then reduce the group number with time while the amount of information that they are supposed to discuss. Finally, the students will have to present the data individually.
However, for those students who will be very uncomfortable to present the information to the inclusive calls, they can be made to give the information to the teacher. With time these students will transition and present the information before a small group of students. Also, the teacher can tape-record the information presented by the uncomfortable students. This might help them build their confidence. The other way to ensure all the students make presentations is to prepare students make their presentations while seated at their desks while the teacher stands in front of the classroom. Presentations support social skills development to the students with disabilities.
Telling stories
In the older days teachers used to tell their students social stories that could help students with disabilities learn how to interact with other people. This technique has been proven to be effective in ensuring special need children to acquire social skills. The method is popular in preschools and elementary schools. Stories address specific social skills; for instance, how to greet peers or how to greet the elderly. First, the teacher identifies a targeted skill that needs to be addressed. Then both the teacher and the students create a story that illustrates how the identified skill is used. During the socialization period in class, the teacher reads the story and also comes up with a practical time when the students can demonstrate the skill. The students practice the skill until they become familiar with it and can use it regularly (Lynch & Simpson, 2010). Storytelling technique teaches children who lack role models at home the basic skills.
Children tend to use their new skills in various environments and social interaction set up. This technique is effective for developing children. According to Gray, story development needs to follow some sentence format that includes, describing the targeted behaviour in a social environment, help the students to identify the importance of the skill, let the children present their opinions and remind the children to use the skill in a social situation. For children with autism disorder, the teacher should explain the viewpoint in details because they may not be able to the feelings of other students or the tutor in a given situation.
Explore the literature materials
Storybooks can be used to promote children’s social skills development. Teachers should choose a story that presents a situation that most students in grade two are likely to experience. Many children in grade two are likely to experience feelings of anger, teasing, or bullying as they interact with the other students. The teacher should choose a story that addresses a particular situation that is commonly observed in the classroom. For instance, if the children get angry, the teacher could choose a story such as “When Sophie Gets Angry” by Molly Bang. After reading the story to the class, the teacher and the students can discuss the various aspects such as the things that make people angry and how to handle such situations.
The use of literature material in teaching social skills allows the students to change their thinking, feelings and characters. The children learn various insights and also learn new techniques on how to react to a particular situation as they interact with the other students. Furthermore, young children in grade two could be attracted by pictures rather than worlds. When choosing images from literature materials, the tutor should select images that are illustrative, appealing and relevant to the content that is being described in the story. Consequently, young children prefer stories that use animals as their characters. However, they may lack a clear understanding about which animal displays which particular behaviour and therefore tutors ought to explain the role played by different characters in details. Since elementary school utilize reading in their regular classrooms, then literature stories are the most appropriate way to help children with special needs develop social skills (Lynch & Simpson, 2010). The literature selected should provide suitable role models that will validate children’s feelings, build their language and improve their self-esteem.
Video modelling
Video modelling is a teaching technique where students learn behaviour through observing. The students learn skills by observing the characters that are displayed by other people and the consequences of their actions. Two important processes involved in video modelling are modelling and imitation. The children watch a video and take as a model a particular targeted behaviour that a character in the videotape exhibit. This method can be performed through modelling with the video where an individual watches all the sub-steps that are displayed by the character or themselves and repeats all the steps ( Gul & Vurun, 2010). It can also be performed in feedback where the children watch their behaviour in a non-edited video and are expected to provide feedback on the appropriateness or inappropriateness of their behaviour.
The teacher then guides the students to carry out the sub-steps of a social skill immediately and also expects them to repeat the behaviour regularly. However, before watching the video, the teacher should clarify to the students the targeted behaviour and its importance. The selected film to be watched should display the appropriate targeted behaviour and should be simple to understand since the children involved are grade two students.
Conclusion
Social skills refer to the ability of a person to befriend their peers, be accepted by others and adapt to different environments. However, 50% of students with disabilities suffer from behavioural difficulties. The deficiency in social skills among students with special needs causes failure in academic performance as well as in their ability to adapt in the community. These students become prone to feelings of low self-esteem and also become discouraged. Strategies for teaching students with low self-esteem include cooperative learning, role play, group oral presentation, telling stories and exploration of literature materials.
References
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