Background
Teacher is one who teaches, especially as a profession. (Websters New world Dictionary) Teachers are of utmost importance in the social context as the educators and groomers of the future generation of adults in a country. They have the responsibility of providing quality education in alliance with schools and other various institutions as well as other skilled personnel and authorities, to develop the foundation of a person’s basic personal and social well-being. Proper education is especially important for development and improvement of skills and knowledge in an individual, for personal growth, future economic stability of the person and the socioeconomic progress of a country. Teachers lay the basis for the creation of a well-mannered, socially recognized, independent individual. Teachers can be of various types including: pre-school teachers, primary and secondary school teachers, university lecturers and professors and teachers in various private institutions, non-profit organizations and volunteer groups.
School teachers are those who teach primary and secondary school children. In further clarification, they teach children in grades 1 to 13 within the Sri Lankan government education system with an age range of 6 to 19 years that may be slightly variable. School teachers are especial as a subgroup of teachers because the school is the primary focus in the sculpting of a well-educated individual, where initial behavioral and educational interventions are most easy to establish. Also the school is the best venue for preparing a child for the harsh, challenging environment of the society at large. In this process, school teachers perform a commendable task as role models and father figures away from home.
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Primary school teachers are considered as personnel who teach children in grades 1 through 5 with ages ranging from 5 to 10 years. Due to the high neuroplasticity of children’s brains, the initial years of a child’s life is the easiest in which to manipulate and to shape the individual that the child grows up to be. It is also the age in which negative environments can affect them the most. In this regard, primary school teachers are the main influencers of the educational and behavioral development of children. Primary school teachers play a special role in providing guidance to expand on the basic abilities of reading, writing and speech on which all other knowledge and skills are obtained.
Children vary by age, gender and many other genetic, biochemical and physiological factors. This includes the rate of learning and grasping new concepts as well as the depth of understanding. Yet there are several established milestones with respect to the specific skills obtained at various age ranges, which must be achieved to consider the child as a normally developing individual. In the current schooling system, the method of learning most efficacious in the majority of children, is used. But the same technique of learning may not be appropriate for all children and this may manifest as a learning disability if special concern is not paid.
Special needs children are children with restriction in the capacity to participate in and benefit from education on account of an enduring physical, sensory, mental health or learning disability, or any other condition which results in a person learning differently from a person without that condition, as defined in the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs (ESPEN) act passed into law in July 2004 in Ireland. The deficiency of proper definitions or laws in the Sri Lankan legislative system for individuals with special needs, highlights the lack of awareness in the community about such matters.
Mental health is defined as a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community. (World Health Organization, 2016) Mental health is characterized by reasonable independence, self-direction, ability to find recreation, satisfaction with sexual identity, collaboration, compromise etc. (Bhatia, 2011) It is essential for proper growth of an individual as well as the community as a whole. It is common knowledge that mental illness can manifest as physical ailment, therefore mental health is key in all aspects of living.
Children having mental health problems suffer from an array of mental illnesses; some which cannot be typically categorized as illnesses and are more appropriately termed disorders. Two mental disorders that have recently caught the public eye are Dyslexia and Autism.
Autism is considered as a pervasive development disorder defined by the presence of abnormal or impaired development that manifests before the age of 3 years and by the characteristic triad of abnormal functioning in social interaction, abnormal communication and restrictive, stereotyped, repetitive behavior. (World Health Organization Publications, 1994) It is a form of childhood psychoses (Ingram et. al., 1981), characterized by a detachment from reality and excessive indulgence in fantasy thinking. Bleuler suggested that in autistic individuals fantasy thinking is permitted to go on, unimpeded by rational thoughts due to the failure of logical thinking. (Fish, 1964) Though initially known as ‘infantile autism’, the term has now been replaced due to its paradoxical nature, by the more appropriate ‘autism’ because autistic infants grow up to be autistic adults.
Dyslexia is defined as a specific and significant impairment in the development of reading skills that is not solely accounted for by mental age, visual acuity problems or inadequate schooling. (World Health Organization Publications, 1994) It is one of the most common disorders among children but awareness is minimal among the public.
Global Situation
The lack of global awareness on Autism in the past decades has now been replaced by increasing curiosity and interest from the public, especially on two fronts: the claims that infant vaccination programs have associations with autism and the apparent escalation in prevalence of the condition. Despite the absence of reliable evidence, allegations of increased risk of autism linked to the MMR vaccine has been a static conviction in the community, probably because of the belief that, since it is an external effector it can supposedly be prevented. The increasing prevalence of autism can be principally due to increased interest of the public and re-definition of many individuals whose problems were not understood or simply not recognized. (Muir, 2004) Either way, updated evidence on autism has indicated a constant annual increase in the incidence of the condition among preschoolers as well as a rise in age-banded prevalence. The aberrant behavior associated with autism as well as its association with learning difficulties have caused many social problems for the individual as well as his/her family. Before the age of 4, these deviant mannerisms often go undetected by family members except the highly observant, due to the fact that they are most prominent when attempting complex tasks which are required when the child is approaching school age. Many parents disregard the mild antisocial behavior seen in infancy where the child fails to smile or protests to cuddling. In children whose speech may never develop, the condition is detected earlier and have far more severe consequences, especially if the child is in the extreme minority with a high IQ.
Dyslexia, which is also known as specific reading difficulties is the most common form of learning disability with an estimated prevalence of 10% in any given population, which may vary slightly according to other extraneous variables. With the world population being seven billion and also constantly growing, this accounts for a huge number of affected individuals with far reaching and life-long consequences that impacts the person, society and economy at large. But with prompt interventions by teachers trained in learning disabilities in children, depression and self-resentment in dyslexic students can be evaded. Researches done using functional MRI imaging have established that the brains of dyslexics develop and operate in a deviant manner, compared to that of normal people. They have apparent capacities for intuitive and imaginative thinking processes which lead to creativity and inventiveness. Some people diagnosed with dyslexia given appropriate remedy, opportunity and support to manage their dyslexia and triumph over it, have become celebrities, with innumerable achievements in their respective fields. Some popular examples are, John Chambers; CEO of Cisco Systems Inc, (Dyslexia International Organization), the world renowned film director Steven Spielberg, investor Charles Schwab, actress Whoopi Goldberg, quarterback Tim Tebow, comic author Dav Pilkey as well as Tom Cruise, Robin Williams, Picasso (Ability Sri Lanka Organization) and Albert Einstein (Sunday Times) who challenge our comprehension of the disabled. But the unfortunate reality of dyslexic students is that they remain undiagnosed throughout their school careers and face the melancholy of failure in spite of effort, and soon lose motivation to learn. The situation is made worse by ignorant teachers who label these children as lazy or disruptive, further crushing their self-confidence, rather than adapt their teaching to meet the learners’ needs. Large classes also operate against individual comprehension when any preliminary problems have already appeared. (Batchelor, 1969) This emphasizes the global liability of undiagnosed dyslexia and its consequences. Dyslexia has been familiar in western countries for a prolonged time, and gained parliamentary recognition as a registered disability in their governments. Since then attention has been given to helping dyslexics in all aspects as evident from the importance given to it, in education and disability discrimination acts in these countries. According to these legislations, all teachers are required to be able to respond to the needs of children with difficulties in learning. To achieve this, help is provided to teachers in developing techniques to deliver quality education for those who have special needs, by means of training, giving knowledge and support schemes. The provision of additional time and authorization to use personal computers enable a just background for dyslexics at examinations. (Sunday Times)
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