The Writings of
R . B r i a n
C l a r d y
Conservative Politics and Common
Sense... Imagine the Possibilities!
Educating Special Education, Part TwoOne problem that all teachers have, from preschool to high school, is with students who adamantly refuse to adhere to the rules of the classroom. They stand up, they walk around, and in rare cases they even hit other students. In today’s litigious age, this is a dangerous situation for a teacher to be in. There is no telling what kind of weapons the students may have and there is no telling what danger the teacher may be in while attempting to intercede on the victim’s behalf.A BrianClardy.Com continuing series discussing the education of special needs children. In today’s political climate, it is unfortunate but true that special needs children are used as political pawns on both the right and the left to accomplish whatever budgetary needs they may have. What is necessary, but infrequently occurs, is common sense applied to this particular dilemma even while frequent studies are performed and innumerable millions of dollars wasted in pointless research that accomplishes little except to confirm the common sense methodology which should be used to confront and deal with these problems.
Into this fray steps the research of United Kingdom psychiatric intern D. Adams and his counterpart D. Allen of the Bro Morgannwg NHS Trust & Welsh Centre for Learning Disabilities. Together, they have taken a look at behavior modification strategies in the United Kingdom, especially with particularly challenging behavior. The biggest problem that they see with current behavior management systems is that even though the current training teachers and educators receive “can be beneficial, programmes designed for one group of service users are frequently extended to other user groups with little or no thought being given to important between-group variations in patterns of aggression. […] Hence, training devised originally for use in penal or forensic settings has also been delivered with only minor modifications to carers supporting people with ID and children. This ‘one size fits all’ approach raises a number of ethical and legal issues. Of greatest concern is whether the techniques taught under such circumstances can be considered to meet the legal requirement of minimum force. It may also be the case that training in inappropriate techniques increases the risk of carers engaging in abusive practices.” They make a valid and important point: using the same techniques and the same sorts of force with a twenty-two year old and an eleven year old are going to yield different results – results which may be more physically damaging to the youngster simply because they do not have the same sort of strength.
The study spends a lot of time offering statistics about the intellectually disabled children who are displaying aggressive tendencies and interviewing their various caseworkers to find out what the best course of action would be or would have been in innumerable cases. Perhaps the most interesting statistics offered by Adams and Allen is that “In 51% of children, the staff interviewed felt that the management of aggressive behaviours would have been improved by the introduction of more pro-active, preventative strategies (including general and specific skill-building strategies for the child). The anecdotal comments of respondents also pointed to the need to enhance overall levels of family support. Parental stress, marital discord, problems in balancing the needs of the child with ID with the needs of their siblings and the limited scope for implementing interventions within children’s domestic setting were all cited as factors which impacted either directly or indirectly on behaviour.” We’ll pause here for a moment to consider the common-sense implications of this statement. We already know that family is critically important to the development of a child. Adams and Allen again affirm the ideology that the family is important in the development of the special needs child. As I’ve said previously, a special needs child and a “normal” child are both in desperate need of a quality education and a strong support from their home environment. I have many “normal” students in my classroom, but without any sort of support from their parents at home, they do little of their homework, have little regard for the education they should be actively pursuing, and generally do not care. The fact that studies somehow show this is even more true for disabled students should not be surprising to anybody.
The other obvious observation that Adams and Allen affirm is that the educators are in need of better physical training to prevent the student from hurting other students, the teacher, or themselves. “In the remaining 49% of children, it was felt that appropriate training in physical interventions was required. In 17% of these cases, it was felt that such training needed to focus on the use of interpersonal space, and avoiding and blocking blows; in 50% of cases, it was assessed that carers required training in self-protective breakaway procedures, and in 25%, more restrictive procedures for safe removal and restraint were required.” This is one of those observations that are overlooked by too many in the real world. Teachers work with the youngest members of our active society, a society with criminals, murderers, thieves, and rapists. The expectation that children do not have their own similar problems is foolish, and a teacher should be prepared for the inevitable day when they will be called upon to break up a fight or to de-escalate a volatile situation. Police officers, soldiers, and diplomats receive training for these sorts of situations; teachers do not – which means that their improvised strategies made on the spur of the moment and under the intense pressures of increased adrenaline all the more dangerous for all involve.
Once again we find research supporting a common sense philosophy in education. Why it seems necessary to spend thousands of dollars on these sorts of logic-affirming solutions I will never know, but unfortunately there remains a political subsection that requires scientific studies to support their own common-sense assertions before they are willing and able to act.
This commentary discusses the article “Assessing the need for reactive behaviour management strategies in children with intellectual disability and severe challenging behaviour” by D. Adams and D. Allen. Originally published in the United Kingdom in the Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, Volume 45, Part 4, August 2001.
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