Learning Difficulty: Identification and Intervention - BED 601 Report

This report presents a case study of a 7-year-old boy, Aaron, diagnosed with moderate ADHD and exhibiting learning difficulties in literacy and numeracy. The paper explores Aaron's challenges, including difficulties with attention, completing tasks, and performing mathematical calculations. It exa...Read More

Running head: LEARNING DIFFICULTY: IDENTIFICATION AND INTERVENTION
Learning Difficulty: Identification and Intervention
Student’s name
University
Author’s note

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LEARNING DIFFICULTY: IDENTIFICATION AND INTERVENTION
Introduction
Literacy is a socially invented skill that is imparted to children through their immediate
intimate groups and both formal and informal modes of education. It is a process through which
society prepares a child to meet the cultural demands, to which end it is essential to have a set of
culturally institutionalized signs and symbols to support the process of reading, writing and
making meaning. In general, literacy is defined as the ability to speak, read, write and listen,
enabling an individual to comprehend and communicate with people around (Roser & Ortiz-
Ospina, 2016).
Literacy is deemed as primarily important for every human being, as it is regarded as the
cornerstone of development. In the light of the importance of literacy, it has been recognized as a
fundamental right to every human being. The United Nations has adopted literacy as an integral
part of their sustainable development goal 4, declaring completion of primary and secondary for
every children as a necessity, ensuring equal access to economic and educational opportunities.
Without literacy, a child cannot move further in the higher educational levels (Nazar et al, 2016).
Learning Difficulty
Despite the emphasis on literacy and numeracy skills, not every child can achieve
adequate level of literacy and numeracy during their early developmental phase. There are
several obstacles that restrict the children from mastering communication and numerical ability.
Learning disabilities, as these obstacles are commonly known, are defined as reduced ability to
learn necessary life skills such as reading, writing, processing new information and make
meaning, counting or performing simple calculations. Some people face these difficulties due to
serious physical disabilities or illness, whereas some experience them as the result of lack of

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LEARNING DIFFICULTY: IDENTIFICATION AND INTERVENTION
appropriate cognitive development. The most common forms of learning disabilities include
dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia. Also, attention deficit disorders, including both ADD and
ADHD are both serious issues that may cause learning disabilities. However, these difficulties
could be addressed and mitigated by timely identification and intervention (Ware, 2018).
Student Profile
In this regard, the present paper attempts to present a case study of a child with moderate
ADHD, and was failing to acquire literacy and numeracy skills appropriate of his age as
compared to his peers. Aaron, a 7 year old boy going in grade 2, was having a hard time to keep
with his class. His parents were both working, leaving them little time to spend with their kid.
Aaron used to spend the day at a local day care after school, to be picked by his mother in the
afternoon. As a 7 year-old child, Aaron was apparently an agile, active child, taking part in every
group activities and class works. He also had his own group of friends, with whom he played
during the recess hours and play time. Although he participated proactively in all of the class
activities and assignments, he never completed his homework. He also had difficulties in
finishing class works, especially mathematics. Despite my repeated attempts to teach him count,
identify bigger or smaller numbers or perform simple calculations, he never succeeded. For a
while, I could not grasp whether he understood what I taught him. When reported to his parents,
they opined Aaron may not be trying enough, and should be given a tutor, to which I resisted and
offered a psychological screening. Once tested, the counsellor suggested that Aaron had
inattentive type ADHD, due to which his limitation span did not allow him to pursue a task for
long. He lacked focus to fully comprehend instructions. Also, for his mathematics tasks, he kept
repeating same mistakes due to lack of planning and execution. After a while, noticing his

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LEARNING DIFFICULTY: IDENTIFICATION AND INTERVENTION
behaviour patterns it was observed that he avoided tasks that require rapt attention and additional
mental effort.
Learning Outcome Framework
To design a strategy for intervening in Aaron’s case, the learning strategy must align with
the specified learning outcome prescribed for the Maltese literacy and numeracy module. The
learning outcomes requires a child to achieve the subject aspects of functioning grammar and
literature, including communicate in everyday life, speak a general range of appropriate
vocabulary, answer questions to display adequate comprehension skill, show proper
understanding of instructions received from both fattwalii texts as well as literacy materials, and
speaking of oneself and his/her family and environment. Besides, the learning outcomes expect
the children to show adequate numeracy skills such as to read, write and put numbers in order;
understand the whole value up to 10000; identify symbols; count ordinal numbers up to one
hundred, identify odd and even numbers; spot mixed numbers; identify and use simple
equivalent factions; ability to perform calculations such as simple addition, subtractions,
divisions and multiplications; identify shapes, sizes, length, volume mass, capacity etc. as well as
tell the time and perform simple consumer math or money management.
(Schoolslearningoutcomes.edu)
For Aaron, his literacy skills were more or less adequate in terms of using vocabulary,
describing himself, his family members, home or environment. He also showed proper use of
language according to his environment. He also understood and executed some of the teachers’
instructions, if it did not involve complex steps or require extended time period to execute.
However, his major issues involved difficulty with his numeracy skill. He could never finish
counting up to 100. Neither did he could identify numbers as per their order. Most importantly,

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LEARNING DIFFICULTY: IDENTIFICATION AND INTERVENTION
he lacked competency to relate numeric units, such as identifying 1.5 as ½, or 1 euro is equal to
100 cents. He repeatedly failed to perform money management, tell time and identify shapes and
arrange them as per instruction.
Theoretical Framework
The analysis of Aaron’s behaviour and performance indicate that she struggles with
focusing and maintaining his attention span as a result of his moderate ADHD. Besides, he also
shows sign of dyscalculia, a form of learning difficulty that hampers the ability of mathematical
computation and application, abstract thinking, as well as challenges pertaining to understanding
spatial and temporal relations. Researchers have shown that there are two possible causes of
dyscalculia—it can be hereditary or due to inadequate cognitive development (Kucian & von
Aster, 2015).
According to educational psychologist Jean Piaget’s cognitive development theory, the
numeracy and literacy skills in children start to develop during the preoperational stage, i.e. 2 to
7 years of age. Although the foundations of language learning are laid during the sensorimotor
stage, children start thinking symbolically and learn to use appropriate vocabulary and signs to
represent objects in the preoperational stage. Further, in the concrete operational stage during 7
to 11 years, children start to show abilities of thinking logically and become aware of their
environment. Also, children can conserve abstract ideas of number, mass and weight (Blake,
2015).
Contrary to Piaget’s theory, Lev Vygotsky’s social cognitive development theory
suggests that cognitive development does not necessarily precede learning. Rather, learning is a
culturally organized psychological function. To elucidate, Vygotsky maintains that social

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LEARNING DIFFICULTY: IDENTIFICATION AND INTERVENTION
learning precedes cognitive development. In this regard, he advocates the notion of scaffolding,
which maintains that the more knowledgeable individuals surrounding a child provides
opportunities for higher level of learning. According to Vygotsky’s social learning theory, one-
on-one interaction with the child help develop his language skill (Engeström, 2018). Also, this
could help a child effectively to develop listening skill, resulting in better comprehension. The
factor of aural attention, developed by improved listening skill can help children with short
attention span focus and follow instruction as well (Fuermaier, et al,2018).
Intervention Strategy
As a 7 years old, Aaron ideally should have achieved basic numeracy and literacy skill as
per Piaget’s cognitive development theory. However, Piaget also suggest that the range, or age-
group is not definite, and each child can manifest development of cognitive abilities at different
pace (Blake, 2015). Hence, normally the situation would not have been alarming. However, the
detection of ADHD is what concerned me more as a teacher. It is evident that Aaron lacked
quality time with his parents due to their busy schedule. Hence, his access to social learning is
limited to his school and day care. And clearly, the day care facility cannot provide adequate
one-on-one support to him as required for his condition.
To this end, an effective learning intervention has to be designed for Aaron,
accommodating both the challenges of ADHD and dyscalculia. The rationale underlying the
design is the response-to-intervention model (RTI), through which Aaron’s dyscalculia can be
properly identified and addressed. And it presupposes an urgency to support the child at risk at
the earliest possibility. According to Pesova, Sivevska & Runceva (2014), the intervention model
for a child with moderate ADHD and dyscalculia should include the following strategies:

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LEARNING DIFFICULTY: IDENTIFICATION AND INTERVENTION
 Teaching in small groups: the proportion of teacher-student is an instrumental factor for
early intervention. A small group size allows more effective interaction with the children,
addressing his difficulties and needs with more attention. The educator can help him
work with interesting and novel learning resources such as color coded blocks and
instructional cue cards, as well as novel group projects to improve his attention span.
 Individual Instruction: Due to his limited attention span, Aaron struggles to follow
general instructions. If he is attended individually with short, simple instructions
designed as per his abilities, he may be able to show more interest in lessons. Also, the
lesson period would be shorter than usual allowing him to keep up with the educator. As
Aaron struggles with auditory cues, print resources with graphics and illustrations can
help him improve his ability to follow instructions.
 Resources designed as per student’s capabilities: To help Aaron understand the
numeric elements, learning resources using illustrations, diagrams, interactive
models and visual organizers could be developed to grab his attention. For example,
simple color coded models for time-telling, identifying shapes or performing
monitory computation can be developed. Mnemonics can also be another useful to help
him remember elements.
Conclusion
Learning difficulty, even learning disability is common, and nothing to be worried of.
The child may manifest his abilities later than his peers, or show les competency than his age.
However, it is nothing to be ‘cured’. All that is needed to help the child overcome his difficulties
includes early identification, care, special attention and specialized intervention.

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LEARNING DIFFICULTY: IDENTIFICATION AND INTERVENTION
References
Blake, B. (2015). Developmental psychology: Incorporating Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories in
classrooms.
Engeström, Y. (2018). Expansive learning: Towards an activity-theoretical reconceptualization.
In Contemporary theories of learning (pp. 46-65). Routledge.
Fuermaier, A. B., Hüpen, P., De Vries, S. M., Müller, M., Kok, F. M., Koerts, J., ... & Tucha, O.
(2018). Perception in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. ADHD Attention Deficit
and Hyperactivity Disorders, 10(1), 21-47.
Kucian, K., & von Aster, M. (2015). Developmental dyscalculia. European journal of pediatrics,
174(1), 1-13.
Nazar, R., Chaudhry, I. S., Ali, S., & Faheem, M. (2018). Role Of Quality Education For
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS). PEOPLE: International Journal of Social
Sciences, 4(2).

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LEARNING DIFFICULTY: IDENTIFICATION AND INTERVENTION
Pesova, B., Sivevska, D., & Runceva, J. (2014). Early intervention and prevention of students
with Specific Learning Disabilities. Procedia-Social and behavioral sciences, 149, 701-
708.
Roser, M., & Ortiz-Ospina, E. (2016). Literacy. Our World in Data.
Schoolslearningoutcomes.edu.mt. (n.d.). Learning Outcomes Framework. [online] Available at:
http://www.schoolslearningoutcomes.edu.mt/mt/subjects/mathematics [Accessed 4 Mar.
2020].
Ware, J. (2018). Educating children with profound and multiple learning difficulties. Routledge.