Glbahar Demirda

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Assignment 4
In this assignment, I am going to find an article which is about children with special
needs. Then I will write a short report.
My article is The Effect of Teacher Style on Interactive Engagement of Preschool-
Aged Children with Special Learning Needs which is published 2006 in Early Childhood
Research Quarterly and writers are Gerald Mahoney and C. Abigail Wheeden.
It is claimed that many of the instructional practices use directions for children with
special needs in preschoolers because they believe that children with special needs need adult
direction to participate and to have meaningful learning activities. Therefore, This study
examined the effects of directivity and other elements of teacher style on the participation of
children with disabilities. According to the study in the article, the results are showed that
teachers interactive style represents a significant proportion of the variability in children's
engagement. Also, Teacher directivity negatively connected with children's initiations during
teacher affective involvement was positively correlated with both the children's attention
and initiations. However, it is believed that when these children are let to choose whether and
/ or how to participate in activities. Therefore, they may fail to promote their development
and socio-emotional well-being. As a result, because this concerns, teachers and therapists
prefer to work children with special needs through by highly directive without supportive
of activities.
According to my observation in training, to meaningful and permanent learning,
children must be active and investigator so teachers must be a facilitator. Therefore, I am
agree with the authors opinion. Also, this articles topic is very interesting and helpful for
my job. Therefore, I selected and shared this article.
Glbahar Demirda
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Also, according to the article, there is limited information on the effects of
nondirective method and development of children with disabilities on the learning. Therefore,
it can be understand that professionals focused almost exclusively on direct instruction and
have given little attention to alternative methods. But, there are about three studies which
research that childrens performance and development can be more when it is provided with
nondirective or child-centered experiences.
In this research, it is used 49 teacher- child doubles. Teachers are volunteer and they
select one child with special needs such as Down syndrome, Spina bifida, and Cerebral Palsy.
There are 36 boys and 13 girls in children. Children are observed to collect data in alone
time, free play time and instruction time. It used Teacher Behavior Rating Scale and
Child Behavior Rating Scale
Results show that the teacher interactive style provide significant both the quality and
frequency of involvement for children. Also, directivity is encouraged that children
are involved in an interaction with the teacher, but responsiveness promoted children to
initiate social and nonsocial behaviors. Moreover, it is said that children with special needs
require adult direction because children with disability do not spontaneously in
developmentally important behaviors. however, results of this article show that children with
disabilities involved in both the developmental game activities, manage and also
development critical behaviors when they interact with supportive adults who are not
nondirective. as a result of children Involvement in routine activities, they can develop
learning. Furthermore, according to results this study, it is found that it is increased
directivity teachers which, can stop them prevent children in vulnerable development
behavior. As a result, children with special needs must benefits from less directive of
teaching practices as they need support and promote by exploration, persistence, practice.