Specific Learning Disability of Joash
Brief Profile
Name of the Child: Joash,
Age: 15 years, (Male)
Present class: Attending a full-time center in Chennai- Secondary I
Sibling: Two younger sisters;
Parents:
Father: in Social Work: Research and Communication to enhance the least privileged people groups.
Mother: Home-maker
Recommendation: Intensive remediation
Joash needs a school that attends to Dyslexia
Recent Educational Assessments:
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Assessment 1
“Joash is a pleasant boy who despite the serious nature of his difficulties with spelling and reading was willing to attempt all tasks asked of him.He will, however, face increasing uncertainties as studies become more complex – that is as vocabulary becomes more subject specific and expansive….. …..”
“Joash urgently needs some formalized, structured, cumulative teaching to give him reasons why words are read and spelt as they are. This will take away the guess work tactics he now employs to attempt spellings and decoding words”. – an international teacher in India
Assessment 2:
The final Report
Here are a few important points from the three-page report from a professional center at Madras (Tested on March 3, 2006):
“All his developmental milestones were reported as normal. He is highly interested in playing with electronic equipment and understands their functions very well”.“Joash is a pleasant thirteen-year-old boy who had no inhibitions in expressing his ideas. He followed the instructions well.
During the test session, he rested his chin on the table and worked through. The posture often needed to be corrected to help him apply to the task.
A summary of the ratings
Cognitive Ability >>Standard score >>Age Equivalent
1. Memory for Sentences >>92 >> 9.6 years
2. Visual matching >>62 >>8.3 years
3. Analysis Synthesis >> 121 >> 31 years
...........
7. Concept Formation
Fluid Reasoning >> 101 >> 13.10 years
CONCLUSION:
The test profile shows, Joash's strength lies in fluid intelligence. He faces difficulty in the areas of reading, comprehension, writing and solving math problems. There is an overall discrepancy of three to six years, which makes it difficult for him to cope with his academic performance. He would need a full-time or intensive remedial help to enable him to take up his board exams in a few years' time. His potential as seen from the cognitive battery does show his ability to acquire and master any content material. However, if he is supported with intervention to improve his comprehension, and writing, he should be able to complete his higher education”.
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Parents' Update...
We shifted from Hyderabad to Chennai just to put Joash in a full-time remediation center. We withdrew him from the normal stream after trying out various additional help over the years. He goes to a full-time learning center for the past year and is now in the second year. But he has serious difficulty coping with the course material and he is given a few subjects with very basic material and exercises of the primary section. But as parents, we feel, he needs more challenges and new things to learn and develop his skill. He likes to spend more time doing other creative things, by avoiding the basic reading and maths exercises given. We are unsure of the kind of intervention which will attend to his basic problem of phonemes. He wants to learn a lot of things though not by reading and writing but by doing.
Our Challenge...
We are looking for a way forward that will motivate him, challenge him and develop him as a person, and acquire the skills he is longing for. Often we feel like dropping the present program he is attending and helping him with some personal skills. But we struggle to decide... academics or no academics?
He is now preparing for 10th through National Open Schooling.
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