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CHILDREN with disabilities in Malaysia can explore and exercise their creativity through the nationwide “Colours of My World” art contest organised by Kakiseni Kakikreatif, Pos Malaysia and Unicef.

Children between the ages of 13 and 17 who have been diagnosed with a physical, sensory or developmental disability are invited to submit their original artwork to illustrate their life, dreams and hopes for themselves and for Malaysia.

“This art contest is an eye-opening way of seeing the world through the perspectives of children with disabilities,” said Unicef representative to Malaysia Wivina Belmonte.

“Given the chance, children with disabilities can be agents of change, like all children. And like all other children, they have a right to be heard. It is empowering for them and revealing for us.”

Read more @ http://thestar.com.my/education/story.asp?file=/2013/5/12/education/13085917&sec=education

GEORGE TOWN: — Teaching special needs children is a much more challenging task compared to normal children and therefore teachers in such schools should work as a team in order to motivate themselves, veteran teacher A. Valliammal said today.

“It’s important to work as a team and help each other with ideas to maintain our enthusiasm,” she told Bernama during the Penang Spastic School’s 46th Sports Day here today.

Valliammal, 65, who has been with the school since 1975, said teachers needed to be creative in exploring new techniques relevant to the fast-paced development in technology and communication.

Teachers should also be sincere and genuine when imparting knowledge to such children so that learning could be effective and useful, she added.

Meanwhile, the Spastic Children’s Association of Penang president Ng Fook On said that the school had 152 children ranging from as young as four months old to 18 years cared for by 70 teachers and volunteers.

He said the sports day was aimed at instilling an active lifestyle and promoting the spirit of friendship among its staff.

“We can promote a friendly and united atmosphere through sports. It’s important for parents and teachers to encourage their children with such healthy activities,” he said.

BERNAMA.

Read more @ http://education.bernama.com/index.php?sid=news_content&id=950194

AMONG the disabled community, people with learning disabilities remain a forgotten lot in society. Just ask anyone who has worked with them or for their cause.

Learning difficulties affect not just children, but adults as well. People with autism and Down syndrome are also learning disabled.

One of the least understood are persons with dyslexia. It has been estimated that there are as many as 400,000 children with dyslexia in Malaysia.

One of the biggest issues that children and young persons with dyslexia face is unfair labelling of their condition.

“They are seen as stupid and lazy in our society,” laments Sariah Amirin, president of the Dyslexia Association of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur.

“This is a terrible misnomer of who they actually are and what people like them suffer from,” adds Sariah.

“Although people with dyslexia can’t read or write and frequently fail in school because of the lack of proper support, they are an intelligent lot.”

Sariah goes on to explain that students with a mild form of dyslexia may be able to cope if they have a good class teacher.

“These are often caring and understanding teachers who go the extra mile to help a dyslexic child get through his exam despite his spelling disability. Such teachers should be lauded for their exemplary attitude in looking after the interest of every child.”

Students with moderate to profound dyslexia, according to Sariah, will need to undergo remedial programmes such as special reading classes to help them cope with learning. These are currently not available in special education classes in government schools.

However, dyslexia reading classes are available at Dyslexia Association of Malaysia’s nine centres throughout the country. But, getting special children to attend such classes is not easy. Some headmasters stop their students from attending the three-month class as they think it will disrupt the school’s own programme.

“It’s the dyslexic child who loses out. They end up not learning anything as they are not equipped with skills to help them read and learn effectively.

The special reading classes have proven to be effective with dyslexic students. One graduate is now training to become a pilot in Australia. He is scheduled to give a talk to parents of dyslexic children here this week.

by Anthony Thanasayan.

Read more @ http://thestar.com.my/columnists/story.asp?col=wheelpower&file=/2013/1/17/columnists/wheelpower/12579906&sec=Wheel%20Power

KUCHING: Many children with dyslexia in the state go unnoticed because there are not enough trained teachers to detect them.

State Welfare, Women and Family Development Minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah said dyslexic children often ended up being misunderstood and treated unfairly by the people around them.

“The failure to detect these children not only hampers them academically, but also stifles their emotional and mental growth.

“This is unfair to them and so, measures must be taken to ensure that such things do no happen.”

Fatimah said this after closing a rope skipping competition for dyslexic children at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Science of Universiti Malaya Sarawak, here, on Saturday.

To address the situation, Fatimah said a specialised course in early detection of mental disorders among children should be included in the compulsory module for teachers in training.

Currently, the task of detecting children with disabilities rests on the shoulders of special education class teachers.

These teachers are low in number and therefore, not able to deal with the issue on the level that is required.

“Each type of mental disorder requires a different treatment and type of intervention.

“It is important that the afflicted child be given the right kind of intervention and treatment suitable to the child’s unique needs.”

Symptoms of dyslexia vary with the child’s age.

The authorities should be serious if they want to move towards advocating inclusive education especially for children with learning disabilities.

MANY children with special learning needs require speech and language therapy from an early age. They generally receive this service from speech-language pathologists, either in hospitals or in private practices.

Although the provision of speech-language services in schools is common in most developed countries, this service, unfortunately, has yet to be made available in Malaysian schools.

Therefore, this area of remediation, though crucial, remains inaccessible to many children in need of it.

Developmental and learning disabilities in children are common. Evidence from worldwide reports show that about 16% to 33% of children have at least one form of special learning needs.

McLeod and McKinnon from Charles Sturt University in Australia compared the prevalence of communication disorders with other learning needs in 14,500 primary and secondary school students.

They found that the majority of students with special learning needs are struggling in the area of speech, language and communication.

Their statistics show that 19% of the students have dyslexia, 12% have communication impairment and 6% have difficulties learning English or other languages as their second language.

Altogether, these figures yield an alarming 37% of students with speech, language and communication difficulties.

This figure is compelling, as compared to the other forms of special learning requirements: behavioural/emotional difficulty (6%), early achiever/advanced achiever (6%), physical/medical disability (1%), intellectual disability (1%), hearing impairment (1%) and visual impairment (0.5%).

Besides that, the prevalence of developmental and learning disabilities has been reported as “increasing” over the years. According to an American national report released in a prominent scientific journal, Pediatrics (2011), the prevalence of development disabilities has increased from 12.84% to 15.04% over the past 12 years.

In the past 10 years, Malaysia has also experienced a notable shift in the prevalence for students with special educational needs.

The Special Education Department in the Education Ministry reported that in 1999, there were 6,433 students who received special education services in primary schools and 2,627 students in secondary schools.

by Dr. Low Hui Min.

Read more @ http://thestar.com.my/education/story.asp?file=/2012/12/16/education/12259166&sec=education

The majority of children with learning disabilities will be able to make progress if they are given more support in mainstream schools.

THERE are many children who are born with some form of learning disability but not all of them need to be sent to special education schools.

Datuk Dr Amar Singh, president of the National Early Childhood Intervention Council is of the view that children have varying degrees of disability, however, that doesn’t mean that they all have to be placed in “special’ schools as many of them can cope quite well in regular or mainstream schools, if extra support is provided for them.

He added that there are three groups of children who enter the Malaysian school system. The first group that makes up more than 70% of the school-going population does not have any barriers to learning, while the second group which constitutes only a small percentage has severe learning disabilities. Children from this group need to be sent to special schools.

The third group makes up about 20% of school-going children. They usually have mild learning disabilities but are often enrolled in special schools.

“These children (with mild learning disabilities) are high-functioning enough to be placed in regular or mainstream schools, but because they can’t fit into the normal education system, they are placed in such (special education) schools,” added Dr Amar Singh.

“Being placed in such schools only frustrates them for they are obviously much ahead in all areas compared to their more challenged peers,” he shared.

On the other hand, there are children with learning disabilities who have not been diagnosed and they end up in the bottom or end classes at mainstream schools and are labelled as “stupid”, when in actual fact, they may have high IQs.

by Jeannette Goon.

Read more @ http://thestar.com.my/education/story.asp?file=/2012/12/16/education/12242478&sec=education

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have identified a rare, hereditary form of autism that may be treatable with nutritional supplements, a new study reports.

The scientists sequenced the genomes of six children with both autism and epilepsy from three Middle Eastern families — in each case, the children’s parents were first cousins — and found that they had mutations in a gene that normally prevents the breakdown of certain amino acids. The end result is that children had low levels of these proteins — known as branched chain amino acids — which the body doesn’t make on its own and must be gotten through food.

Further, the researchers found, mice with the same gene mutation also showed low levels of branched chain amino acids and developed neurological problems, including tremors and epileptic seizures, related to autism. But when the mice were treated with protein supplements that restored depleted levels of the amino acids, their symptoms disappeared within a week.

(MORE: Older Fathers Linked to Children’s Autism and Schizophrenia Risk)

“This might represent the first treatable form of autism,” Joseph Gleeson, lead author and a child neurologist at UCSD, told Nature News. “That is both heartening to families with autism, and also I think revealing of the underlying mechanisms of autism.”

The authors caution, however, that the rare mutation may contribute to only a small number of autism cases. The researchers selected the children in their study to best identify the recessive mutations involved, since there’s an increased likelihood that children from related parents will receive two copies of the mutation.

How that genetic mutation contributes to autism is unclear, but the researchers have a theory. The mutation inactivates a protein called BCKD-kinase, which prevents the breakdown of branched chain amino acids. Normally, these amino acids are ferried across the blood-brain barrier by special transporters. But when their levels drop, the transporters end up carting more of other large amino acids into the brain. These other amino acids serve as precursors for neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin, which play a role in mood and pleasure-seeking, and whose activities in the brain may be associated with autism.

When the research team profiled the brains of mice lacking the BCKD-kinase gene, they found very low levels of branched-chain amino acids and very high levels of these other amino acids.

(MORE: Autism: Why Some Children ‘Bloom’ and Overcome Their Disabilities)

“At this point, we do not know if it is the low levels of branched chain amino acids or the high levels of these other neurotransmitter precursors that lead to the autism and epilepsy features.

by Alexandra Sifferlin.

Read more @ http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/07/a-rare-but-potentially-treatable-form-of-autism/

EVERY child has the potential to succeed despite the learning impairment and physical disability that they may suffer from, said Education Ministry Special Education Division director Bong Muk Shin.

“The society needs to shift its perception to look beyond the condition of children with special needs and learning difficulties.

“Rather, we should be focusing on helping them to achieve their potential,” said Bong.

Every year, the Ministry carries out various outreach programmes to raise awareness on the learning disorders in children such as dyslexia and autism.

“Overall, the general awareness on learning disorders is still relatively low.

“The Education Ministry is working closely with the Social Welfare Department and the Health Ministry to highlight these conditions and provide help to those who are affected,” said Bong.

The programme focuses on remote areas where amenities such as transportation, medical and communications might be limited.

Out of the 2,903 students visited by the outreach team recently, 744 students are identified as having learning difficulties.

Bong also reveals that the number of students enrolled in special education classes has doubled to 54,000 over the past few years, not including students with physical disabilities.

Currently, there are 1,945 regular schools in the country which are running integrated programmes for students with learning difficulties.

Under the LINUS programme, Year One pupils who are identified with learning difficulties are referred for medical assessment after screening.

They are later enrolled in the remedial programme or sent to special education classes for students with special needs based on the outcome of their medical assessment. The teacher factor

Dyslexia Association of Malaysia president Sariah Amirin agrees that the LINUS programme is timely to address the problem of a significant number of children in schools who failed to master basic literacy and numeracy skills.

She believes that the remedial teachers play the most important role in ensuring that the programme achieves its objectives.

“Teachers need to bear in mind that each child is unique so there is no one fits all method to teach the child.

Read more @ http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/9/5/nation/11945194&sec=nation

KUALA LUMPUR:  A NEW special education centre, based in Malaysia, will offer training and support to educators from the Asean region   working with students with disabilities.

Education Ministry secretary-general Datuk Dr Rosli Mohamed said the Seameo Regional Centre for Special Education (Seameo Sen) would provide teachers and support personnel with the resources needed to boost the special education field.

The centre, he said, was part of Malaysia’s agreement with the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (Seameo) Council to look into the region’s needs for specialisation and improving education access.
“Seameo Sen will focus on three areas,   namely  training, research and support, to strengthen education for students with special needs, including those with learning disabilities.”

Rosli said this after signing the memorandum of agreement with Seameo secretariat director Dr Witaya Jeradechakul yesterday.

The   ceremony was witnessed by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Seameo Council president and Brunei Education Minister Pehin Abu Bakar Apong.

Under the agreement, Seameo Sen will aim to improve special education practices and research by establishing a regional resource network for teachers, specialists, educational institutes and non-governmental organi-sations. Rosli said the centre would be based at the  Education Ministry’s complex in Bandar Enstek, Nilai.

It would draw its professional staff from experts and other  qualified candidates from the Asean region.

First proposed in 2010, it is now temporarily located at the Malay Women’s Teacher Training Institute campus in Malacca.

by Rozanna Latiff.

Read more @ http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/asean-centre-in-nilai-to-train-teachers-of-disabled-1.95937

“I don’t really have any diversity issues in my class because all of my students are white.”

“I have a lot of content to cover, so there’s really no time to address multiculturalism.”

Diversity, once largely centered on race and ethnicity, has evolved over the years to include a broad range of personal attributes, experiences, and backgrounds, each interlocking to create one’s social identity.

For example, Texas A&M University defines diversity as “The inclusion, welcome, and support of individuals from all groups, encompassing the various characteristics of persons in our community. The characteristics can include, but are not limited to: age, background, citizenship, disability, education, ethnicity, family status, gender, gender identity/expression, geographical location, language, military experience, political views, race, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and work experience.”

When viewed through this lens, it becomes easier to see the importance of teaching inclusively, regardless of discipline or ethnic makeup of your course. But what exactly makes a course multicultural?

In the recent online seminar, Four Strategies to Engage the Multicultural Classroom, Texas A&M’s Vice President and Associate Provost for Diversity, Dr. Christine A. Stanley, and Dr. Matthew L. Ouellett, Associate Director of the Center for Teaching & Faculty Development at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, outlined a framework for multicultural course design. As outlined below, the four conceptual areas — instructors, students, teaching methods and content — are all inextricably linked, while integrating into the larger campus climate and culture.

1. Who are you? Spend some time examining your own experiences, values, assumptions and stereotypes. How have you come to understand your complex social identities? Which aspects are most salient for you in the classroom?
2. Who are your students? Get to know your students, and just as important, give them opportunities to get to know each other. The more students have invested in helping to create a positive classroom environment, the more likely they are to take risks, share their viewpoints, and hear each other out even if they may disagree, Ouellett said.
3. What are your pedagogical choices? Create a more student-centered teaching model that engages students. “What we need to do is shift the dynamics so we’re less about demonstrating our expertise and more about getting students to build their own ability to construct knowledge,” Ouellett said.
4. What are your content choices? Understand that the principles of an inclusive course apply across all disciplines. Model inclusive behavior by ensuring diverse perspectives, and use examples and illustrations that reflect the diversity that may be in your classroom, Stanley said.

Managing Difficult Conversations
One of the biggest challenges to embracing a multicultural course design is being able to effectively manage potentially polarizing topics where emotions can run high and old stereotypes are exposed.

by Mary Bart.

Read more @ http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/strategies-for-creating-a-more-inclusive-classroom/