Facilitating Learning for Students with Disabilities

CHILDREN’S EDUCATION AND CARE 202010
CHCEDS025 Facilitate learning for students with disabilities
Assessment 1 OFF JOB TEMPLATE
You are required to conduct research on a range of disabilities as classified in the Nationally Consistent Collection
of Data (NCCD). The classifications of disability under the NCCD are Physical, Cognitive, Sensory and
Social/Emotional.
For your written assessment you will provide an overview of each of the disabilities listed below. You will outline
how these conditions may affect learning and development and how the LSA can support the student with these
disabilities. You are also required to reference your research information. The template below is to be used for
your responses.
The four disabilities are:
 Visual Impairment (Sensory disability)
 Cerebral Palsy (Physical disability)
 Down Syndrome (Cognitive disability)
 Anxiety (Social/Emotional disability)
NOTE: Extent of disability refers to the variation that might be found within the disability such as those mildly
moderately or severely/permanently impacted by the disability. For example paraplegia and quadriplegia
explain the variation that may occur with injuries that restrict movement to the limbs. Some disabilities can
affect part of the body or the whole body.
Question 1 Disability 1: Sensory – Visual Impairment
a) Provide an overview of this condition,
how this condition is acquired and the
extent of disability that may be
experienced by the person (for example
mild, moderate or severe disability)
Minimum of 50 words
Visual impairment refers to a condition of low sightedness where
ability of a person to see far or near objects, is much less, which
may treat easily either by contact lenses or eyeglass. In early age of
childhood, the condition which causes the visual impairment is
Amblyopia which refers to a reduced vision in one eye due to its lack
of usage. Kids having visual impairment or congenital blindness are
usually visually impaired at their birth, which may be caused by
several reasons, such as by inheritance, infection which is
transmitted from mother to its foetus during pregnancy or some
injury for development of visual system. Extent of such disability
under child is significantly considered as so serious because due to
this capacity of perceiving information visually is much affected.
b) How could this disability affect a
student’s physical development,
language development and social
development?
Students having visual impairment suffers a lot with comprehensive
difficulties especially, when their disability is not corrected by using
lens or glasses. They often fail due to this issue to enhance
organisation skills, complete academic projects on time as well as
experience many difficulties to work in group-assignments.
Therefore, it will affect both on language and social development of
them, also physical development of child is also influenced because
under such condition, when they find themselves different or weak
from others, then it highly impact on their mind and aversely affect
their health.
c) How could this disability affect the
student’s ability to learn in the
classroom?
Cognitive or visual impairment ability especially at early age, affect
ability of students for conceptualising the environment due to
reduction of earning visual information. Severe or early impairments
affect learning ability of students because of limited accessibility of
such environment which is required to gain information in desired

CHILDREN’S EDUCATION AND CARE 202010
way. Poor sensory impairments also make it so difficult for students
to perform academic and functional tasks.
d) Provide three practical (3) support
strategies the LSA could use to assist a
student with a visual impairment in the
classroom.
To support students with visual impairment, LSA needs to provide
desired environment to them where they can interpret and organise
sensory information more better. Students who react more to
stimuli requires a calming environment, where those who react less
or too little, are needed an alerting program. For this purpose, three
main strategies for LSA are –
 Provide vestibular input to those visually impaired students
who cannot sit on chairs in classrooms and frequently use
to change their position.
 Auditory input which include activities like tapping a pencil,
humming of a humidifier etc. to calm behaviour of visually
disabled children and allow them to buffer the noise by
earning ear protectors.
 Eliminate or minimise the risk of glare from whiteboard
and desk as well as make correction in their seating
arrangement also assists student with visual impairment in
the class room.
e) List three (3) disability web links used in your research for the above responses
https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/visual-impairment.html
https://www.sess.ie/categories/sensory-impairments/visual-impairment
http://www.intellectualdisability.info/physical-health/articles/visual-impairment-its-effect-on-cognitive-development-
and-behaviour
Question 2 Disability 2: Physical – Cerebral Palsy
a) Provide an overview of this
condition, how this condition is
acquired and the extent of
disability that may be
experienced by the person (for
example mild, moderate or
severe disability)
Minimum of 50 words
Cerebral palsy refers to abnormal condition of a person due to
damaged brain which can happen before or during birth and can occur
within a month or during first year of a child also. In child, it may
cause to infection during pregnancy, jaundice and kernicterus, medical
condition of mothers like thyroid problem, seizures, intellectual
disability etc. Along with this, detachment of placenta, problem during
birth with umbilical cord that may disrupt supply of oxygen to kid that
result in congenital cerebral palsy. Another conditions which shows
that baby at early age is higher risk of such disability includes low
birthweight (less than 5 and ½ pounds or 2500 gm), premature birth
i.e. delivery of mother before 37th pregnancy week, multiple births
with more than twins etc. Extent of physical – cerebral palsy may vary
from mild to severe disability, which affect ability of person to control
and move muscles, balance, posture and coordination.
b) How could this disability affect a
student’s physical development,
language development and social
development?
A child having cerebral palsy may face a number of difficulties in
processing information from sensory organs, therefore, they might
found as a sensory processing disorders like hypersensitive and
hyposensitive. This will lead to affect lack of coordination in some
muscles like vocal cords; also difficult to understand and speak causes
intellectual and hearing disabilities also. All these factors affect their
social, physical and behavioural development, due to abnormality of
brain. One in every three children having cerebral palsy are unable to

CHILDREN’S EDUCATION AND CARE 202010
walk properly therefore, they are at greater risk of inability to sit,
epilepsy and other mobility issues, that highly affect their physical
development.
c) How could this disability affect
the student’s ability to learn in
the classroom?
Students with cerebral palsy may experience a number of learning
difficulties due to intellectual disability, which include a short or less
attention span, language difficulties due to hearing or speaking issues,
motor planning difficulties such as organisation and movement
sequencing, perceptual difficulties etc. These difficulties directly affect
learning abilities of students in terms of numeracy, literacy and other
academic skills. Along with this, communication disability fine and
gross motor coordination and so on, also causes learning or intellectual
disabilities among learners , where to grab into learning environment,
they put more effort for concentrating on lectures, sequence of actions
etc.
d) Provide three practical (3)
support strategies the LSA could
use to assist a student with CP in
the classroom.
Students with Cerebrum Palsy possess special needs to be assisted in
classroom therefore, before creating inclusive classroom for them,
authorities at schools are required to know about their condition.
Educators need to understand the extent at which students have such
diseases, because some disabled learners might have cognitive
disability or some possess an average above IQ. Therefore, to gain
their attention and include active participation of such learners,
teachers are required to –
 Call child during discussion, give them opportunity to hold
leadership position in group activities that encourage them to
be active learner in class.
 Classrooms must be designed uncluttered and remove
obstacles from learners with CP so that they can get enough
space to move.
 Bullying at class considers as one of the biggest problem that
face by learners with CP and arise feeling of being excluded
under them. Therefore, teachers need to give more attention
for prevention or intervention of same by enforcing some
rules to create inclusive classroom for such learners.
e) List three (3) disability web links used in your research for the above responses
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/cp/causes.html
https://cerebralpalsy.org.au/our-research/about-cerebral-palsy/what-is-cerebral-palsy/how-cerebral-palsy-affects-
people/
https://www.abclawcenters.com/frequently-asked-questions/cerebral-palsy-developmental-categories/
Question 3 Disability 3: Down Syndrome
a) Provide an overview of this
condition, how this condition is
acquired and the extent of disability
that may be experienced by the
person (for example mild, moderate
or severe disability)
Minimum of 50 words
Down syndrome refers to a genetic disorder disease which is caused
mainly when an abnormal cell division lead to a partial copy or an
extra full of chromosome 21. In this regard, the extra chromosomes or
genetic material results in development change of Down syndrome,
which varies among individuals at severe level. In children, it may
cause intellectual or learning disability till lifelong. Along with this, a
person having such disorder also faces a number of medical
abnormalities like gastrointestinal and heart issues. This disease may
cause by one the genetic variations from Trisomy 21, Mosaic Down
Syndrome and Translocation Down Syndrome, but anyone of these
variations causes by mistake within cell division at early development