EDC2400 Educating learners with special needs across contexts

Assignment 3

Case study 1: Liam

Liam was born with William’s syndrome and has been diagnosed with a moderate level of intellectual disability. Liam’s parents are strong advocates for inclusive education and are keen for Liam to complete his schooling at his local school with his siblings; his brother Lucas, and sister Layla. As a family they are very involved in a number of community organisations and activities, including the school. Both parents are involved with the school’s P & C and Lucas’s mother has always worked as a volunteer with the tuckshop, classroom support and various fundraising activities.

Liam has a significant language delay, and his language can be difficult to understand. He typically communicates his needs through simple sentences, one or two word utterances, gestures and a visual-pictorial communication system. Despite his verbal language difficulties, Liam loves book and spends as much time as he can pretending to ‘read’ books about his area of interest – trucks (especially Mack trucks). He is working well below grade level in all academic areas, although he is developing an increasing vocabulary related to his area of interest and he will very happily tell anyone about his favourite trucks. He has even started to show some recognition of words related to this area such as truck, drive, and wheel.

Liam is typically a very friendly young man and is very keen to spend time with his peers at school. He does, however, have delays with many adaptive functioning skills, particularly in the areas of social development and safety. This has caused some difficulties for Liam and his family as he has limited awareness of the danger of certain situations and will do anything to keep his peers happy and make them laugh. Liam has been coerced by his peers to engage in inappropriate and sometimes dangerous behaviour such as swearing, starting fights, and leaving the school grounds.

You will be Liam’s teacher for the new school year. As Liam’s new teacher, outline the strategies that you would employ to support his continuing education using the report structure recommended in the Assignment 3 Task Sheet.