Short and Long Term Goals for a Child with Learning Difficulties

This report focuses on the case study of a child, Tom, who has some general learning difficulties. The report aims to set out a number of short- and long-term goals for the progress of Tom so that he can fully participate in society and get access towards his fundamental right to education. The report highlights some of the short term and long term goals for Tom which will be beneficial for him for the development of his motor development, emotional control skills, social attachment, vocabulary, and logic.

Running head: ENGLISH
English
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ENGLISH
Introduction
This report will focus on the case study of a child, Tom who have some of the general
learning difficulties. According to the case study of the inclusive curriculum, the social
development of the 9-year-old child is very poor as compared to his peers. Apart from his
basic learning difficulties, Tom furthermore does poorly towards his tests of listening
comprehensions and tends to have a considerable amount of spelling difficulties throughout
and is a visual learner. The report aims to set out a number of short- and long-term goals for
the progress of Tom so that he can fully participate in society and get access towards his
fundamental right to education.
Discussion
The goal
The goal of the report is to plan out short term and long-term target for Tom so that he
can progress towards his development. These short terms and the long-term goals aim for the
academic, social and the development of the literacy of Tom so that he gets his basic right as
the essential means for social integration and self-actualization.
The rationale
On the basis of observing Tom, the rationale of the targets or the goals is the total
inclusion of this 9-year-old child with special needs in the mainstream educational institute.
Targets for the progress of the child
All children require encouragements, love, support. In the case of the children with
learning disabilities, these positive reinforcements help to ensure that they develop a strong
sense of confidence, self-worth and the determination to face the challenges.

2ENGLISH
In the above study of Tom, who has learning and understanding, listening and spelling
difficulties need some long- and short-term targets or goals for his academic, social and
literacy development. These goals will help Tom to cope up with his peer in the class.
Short Term Goals
 Practicing the English alphabets and the numbers
 Improve Tom’s writing skills and increase in vocabulary
 Making Tom memorize easy words and letters
 Constant practice of speaking words and appropriate way to use them
 To initiate communication with other peers to develop social skills
 Use of listening aids for supporting Tom’s poor listening skills
 Use of rhymes and music for helping Tom to remember math concepts
 To follow direct instructions
 To break the learning process in small steps for addressing the issue of Tom’s
understanding difficulty
Long Term Goals
 Increase his ability for focusing on one task at a time.
 Use of stimulant medicine or drug therapy for controlling impulsivity of Tom
 Regular writing down of the issues Tom has been facing by him.
 Participate in teamwork for a project in the class with the peers
 To keep things in perspective
 To become the own expert
 Keeping up with the focus
 Staying collected, calm and positive in nature
 Initiate communication and friendship with classmates

3ENGLISH
 Not to give up on the challenges of learning difficulties easily
Strategies, adaptation, and resources for enabling the child to meet the targets
Each and every child irrespective of the category of the difficulties they are facing has
their own unique style of learning.
 Since Tom is a visual learner, he will learn the best by seeing or reading. The short
term and the long term goals that have been planned for him will be easy to achieve
for him if the material is presented and tested visually from him and not verbally.
Furthermore, in respect to the long term goal of Tom that states him to keep track of the
issues he has been facing for the recognition of the letters in English, the numbers of the
math, he will be benefited from the following.
 Rather than telling speaking out and reading out notes in the class, Tom will be
beneficial if he is given written notes to follow, directions and diagrams in math and
science lessons, charts, maps and pictures in case of the other lessons so that he can
understand by his visual ability of learning and reminding letters and numbers.
To achieve his long-term goal of being more expressive in nature, it will be helpful for
Tom if he gets the opportunity to draw and write rather than listening or telling about his
issues and challenges he is facing while achieving the target.
Some of the tips that are useful for Tom for copying up with the short term and the long
term targets that have been set for him for his development in both developmental and
cognitive skills are as follows.
There should be frequent use of the videos, books, computers, LED screens, visual aids,
and flashcards for in case of the academics for Tom. This is because. Since Tom is a visual

4ENGLISH
learner, learning with the help of the devices that are visually enhancing and attractive in
nature will help him to cope up easily and in understanding the lessons of maths, English, and
science. This will help Tom to deal with his learning difficulties in understanding the lessons.
Furthermore, visual aids of the letters and numbers will help Tom to memorize the letters and
help him to improve his spelling difficulties.
Besides these detailed, color-coded and highlighted notes with the help of the highlighter,
the color block pencils will help Tom to identify the characters and the recognition of the
letters in the classroom and help in the process of his understanding and learning with the
other peers of his class. Due to his poor attention spells and his inability to follow up the
lessons in the class, taking up detailed notes in the class and providing him will be helpful.
Besides this making diagrams, colorful lines, listing up the things that need to be done are
some of the things that will help Tom with his poor attention skills. This will furthermore
help him to do his homework properly.
Some of the strategies that can be summarized for helping Tom to achieve his goals are as
follows.
 To promote self-awareness and self-confidence among Tom by talking about his
strengths and weakness.
 By talking to Tom regarding how he should approach the problems in a proactive way
 Igniting the spirit of perseverance among Tom so that he keeps going despite the
failures and the challenges.
 Helping Tom to recognize his goals that are realistic and attainable so that he can
cope up with his peers
 Celebrating with Tom when he achieves a goal
 Being the good and the supportive friend to Tom whom he can rely on

5ENGLISH
 To help and encourage Tom so that he can learn to handle his stress
 Using words and effective communication techniques for the identification of the
feelings that would help Tom to recognize specific feelings.
Challenges in the process of meeting the target
Some of the probable challenges that are expected to be there while meeting the needs
of Tom can be varied in types. Since Tom is a visual learner, he would require repeated class
attention and lectures which is one of the major challenges in the classroom with many
students. Furthermore, Tom would require repeated directions and guidance for completing
his class work and home works which can be another challenge among multiple duties of an
educator. Due to the lack of the social development skills, Tom is introvert in nature, this is a
challenge since he is less expressive and knowing and initiating communication with him for
understanding his exact issues for understanding will be a challenge. Due to his learning
disability, Tom would be requiring much of appreciation and thus praising him over each of
his achieved goals and tracking them throughout can be challenging in nature. It is
furthermore a big challenge to keep Tom motivated and focused since he has attention issues.
Since he is a visual learner, all the lessons need to be given to him via visual aid and colorful
smart boards which can be quite challenging.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that children with any sort of disability should be
encouraged and included in an inclusive curriculum for ensuring both quality and equity. It is
important to improve the effectiveness and the quality of the society by the competency-
based approach for inclusive of all the students irrespective of the nature of difficulties they
are facing. The report illustrates the case of the 9-year-old kid, Tom and his difficulties
towards understanding, spelling, learning and other social development. The report

6ENGLISH
highlighted some of the short term and long term goals for Tom which will be beneficial for
him for the development of his motor development, emotional control skills, social
attachment, vocabulary, and logic.

7ENGLISH
References and Bibliography
Ding, Y., Liu, R. D., McBride, C., & Zhang, D. (2015). Pinyin invented spelling in Mandarin
Chinese-speaking children with and without reading difficulties. Journal of learning
disabilities, 48(6), 635-645.
Koć-Januchta, M., Höffler, T., Thoma, G. B., Prechtl, H., & Leutner, D. (2017). Visualizers
versus verbalizers: Effects of cognitive style on learning with texts and pictures–An
eye-tracking study. Computers in Human Behavior, 68, 170-179.
Peng, P., & Fuchs, D. (2016). A meta-analysis of working memory deficits in children with
learning difficulties: Is there a difference between verbal domain and numerical
domain?. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 49(1), 3-20.
Rogowsky, B. A., Calhoun, B. M., & Tallal, P. (2015). Matching learning style to
instructional method: Effects on comprehension. Journal of educational
psychology, 107(1), 64.
Schwab, S., Gebhardt, M., Krammer, M., & Gasteiger-Klicpera, B. (2015). Linking self-rated
social inclusion to social behaviour. An empirical study of students with and without
special education needs in secondary schools. European Journal of Special Needs
Education, 30(1), 1-14.
Seligman, M., & Darling, R. B. (2017). Ordinary families, special children: A systems
approach to childhood disability. Guilford Publications.
Ware, J. (2018). Educating children with profound and multiple learning difficulties.
Routledge.
Wood, S., & Shears, B. (2018). Teaching children with severe learning difficulties: A radical
reappraisal. Routledge.

8ENGLISH