Functional academics
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R epublic of the Philippines Department of Education DepEd Complex, Meralco Avenue Pasig City Functional Academics for Learners with Special Educational Needs June 2017 FUNCTIONAL ACADEMICS Description When making instructional decisions involving students and adults with disabilities, the initial question that needs to be addressed is “what to teach?”, although specific curriculum content decisions must be based on standards and benchmarks as well as more individualized preferences and interests. The general goal of all instruction must be to enhance a person’s capacity to function successfully in the community. To that end, the curriculum should consist of skills that enable a learner with special educational needs (LSENs) to function in employment, residential community, living and recreational/leisure domains. Thus, any skill taught needs to be referenced to one of these domains and meet the test of being personally meaningful and valuable to specific individuals. When skills are selected in this manner, their functionality or practical utility is fundamentally assured. Functional teaching activities are instructional programs that involve skills of immediate usefulness to individuals and employ teaching materials that are real rather than simulated. In other words, the skills must be immediately useful and helpful in the future. A skill is functional if it is necessary to function effectively in community settings. Another way to analyze functionality is if the person can perform the skill independently. Lewis (1997) emphasizes teaching students with functional skills and age-appropriate skills. The learner’s learning activity is structured around daily life activities that are age-appropriate and that prepare students for productive adult lives, blending traditional academic skills with real life tasks. Identified LSENs should be provided with functional skills instructions within the educational environment with the premise of teaching skills necessary for successful living until adulthood. According to Emily C. Bouch and Sara M. Flanagan, authors of Functional Curriculum and professors from Purdue University, the curriculum focuses upon independent living skills and vocational skills emphasizing communication and social skills. On the other hand, the SPASTICS Society of Tamilnadu (SPASTN) states that Functional Academics is merely academics made functional and designed to teach skills which allow each student to succeed in real-life situations at home, school, work and in the community. The functional academics include a range of areas namely: Math, activities of daily living, Reading, Writing, Communication, Social and Emotional Skills, Community Orientation, Skill Oriented Activities, Art and Craft, etc. Given these areas, the teacher tailors the academic programs to the age, gender, needs, and function of the LSENs. Each of the subcomponent is divided into skill level and task analyzed to sequential steps. Such functional skills are taught as part of multi-sensorial approach in which the key-outcome of these functional skills is for the LSENs to exercise maximum sense of control, engage in self-directed behavior and independence over his/her environment. Functional Skills, according to Cronnin (1996), are the tasks that help individuals become successful and independent adults. Vanderccok (1991) stated that “a true functional skill is one that is initiated, used and maintained under typical circumstances”. For their part, Bouck and Joshi (2012) defined Functional Academics as an approach to teach the students the skills to help them be productive members of society and support post school outcomes. Functional Academics may include core subject content, vocational education, community access, daily living, personal finance, independent living, transportation, social skills, relationships and self-determination. Functional academics are important for children with disabilities, who may not be able to learn age and grade appropriate academics. It will be used by the LSENs for the rest of their lives. For example: Reading (read signs; stop, go, men, women, read a recipe). Math (money, grocery shopping, making change, budget). Health (grooming, oral hygiene, plan healthy meals). One of the most important reasons for teaching functional skills to students and adults with disabilities is to increase their integration with peers without disabilities in school and community settings. Mank and Buckley (1989) described integration as “in its simplest and most elegant form as a degree of community presence and participation for persons with disabilities that is no different from that enjoyed by persons without a disability label”. Functional academics skills are anchored on the following theories and guiding principles: Constructivism as a theory suggests that learning is an active, constructive process. The learner is an information constructor. Children actively construct or create their own subjective representations of objective reality. Jean Piaget’s theory focused on how humans make meaning in relation to the interaction between their experiences and their ideas and to what is occurring with an individual as opposed to development that is influenced by other humans. Lev Vygotsky and his social theories of learning found that a child often successfully accomplished new tasks while working in collaboration with an adult instead of his own. This does not mean that the adult is teaching the child to solve problems, but in the act of the adult engaging with the child, the learning experiences improve and offer the child the ability to refine thinking and perform effectively. It is the idea of ‘can do’ versus ‘cannot do’ and offering the child opportunities to change to the ‘can do’ attitude with support of individual adult input. By combining the idea of social and cognitive constructivism, the child is able to develop in positive ways. Social constructivism emphasizes the learning a child accomplishes through interaction with others and outside experiences. Cognitive constructivism is based on a child’s developmental stage and individual learning style. As stated before, each child is different and when his specific learning style is determined, his ability to learn is enhanced, especially when adults are able to fine-tune teaching to fit his specific learning. Through constructivism, the main way of learning is through the senses, causing the brain to build a full understanding of the surrounding world. This leads us back to the understanding that each child is an individual creating unique responses and experiences. With testing being the popular way to determine a child’s knowledge base, constructivism encourages the concept of experiences and interaction. The process of learning through doing and engaging is the goal. Also, understanding each individual child’s prior knowledge is key, used to build and grow adult interactions and teachings. This encourages greater bonds between adult and child, and deeper educational experiences resulting in higher knowledge and self-esteem. Jerome Bruner’s discovery learning is an inquiry-based instruction that believes that it is best for learners to discover facts and relationships for themselves. Students interact with the world by exploring and manipulating objects, wrestling with questions and controversies or performing experiments. As a result, students may be more likely to remember concepts and knowledge discovered on their own. Models that are based on discovery learning include guided discovery, problem-based learning, case-based learning and incidental learning. Scope The Functional Academics Skills is designed for teachers and instructors who work with LSENs, for whom the developmental or academic approach may not be effective. It is for LSENs with moderate, severe or profound level of exceptionality. Learners who are assessed to have severe to profound exceptionality are likely to be severely impaired in their functioning in respect of basic awareness and understanding of themselves, of the people around them and the world they live in. Many of these learners may have other disabilities such as autism spectrum disorders, challenging and/or self-injurious behavior, emotional disturbance, epilepsy, hearing impairment, physical impairment, severe impairment in communication skills and visual impairment. Insofar as having an IQ in the range of 25 to 35 on standardized IQ tests, and a student with a profound general learning disability is described as having an IQ under 20. Learners with severe to profound general learning disability exhibit a wide range and diverse range of characteristics, including a dependence on others to satisfy basic needs, difficulty in mobility, problems with generalizing skills from one situation to another, significant delays in reaching developmental milestones and significant speech and/or communication difficulties. Others may have associated behavioral problems. Learners may have limited communication skills and will therefore not have control of the multiple means by which other learners communicates such as speech, body language, facial expressions and print, but it should be remembered that the learners’ difficulties in expressing themselves does not diminish their communicative intent. Opportunities to enable the student to communicate should underpin learning and teaching. Adhering to the Salamanca Statement that “every child has a fundamental right to education, and must be given the opportunity to achieve and maintain an acceptable level of learning,” the competencies are within the level of the learners, and are doable and achievable. The curriculum seeks to develop the LSENs’ socio-emotional skill, values fine and gross motor skills, aesthetic sense and creative expression. It also equips them with the basic skill and knowledge in Mathematics, Language and Science. As the curriculum is learner-centered and life-centered functional education, it is also aligned to the K-12 Curriculum of the Department of Education. It is hoped that the LSENs would be geared toward success. This guide addresses the major components of instruction. It addresses what to teach by describing curriculum content and assess, as well as how to teach by discussing strategies, adaptations and procedures for planning, teaching and documenting progress. The domains addressed include: Socio-emotional Development Values Education Physical Health and Motor Development Aesthetic/Creative Development Mathematics Understanding of the Physical and Natural Environment Language, Literacy and Communication Download 159.7 Kb. Share with your friends:
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