Social Inclusion –check list to Assess the social skills of deafblind/ msi children

1. Social Inclusion –check list to Assess the social skills of deafblind/msi children Presenter : LEELA AGNES Co presenter : Prof. Dr. Thiruvalluvar : Prof .Dr. PrabakarImmanual

2. Deafblindness/msi Deafblindness • Deafblindness is a unique disability • The term deafblindness means a person who cannot see and cannot hear • Is a combination of both vision and hearing loss Multi Sensory Impairment • When children have severe developmental problems in addition to their deadblindness they are known to have multi-sensory impairment. Many of these children will also have a wide range of other disabilities/Challenges – such as learning difficulties, epilepsy, feeding problems and severe disabilities.

3. Effects of Deafblindness • Difficulties in finding out information • Difficulties in communicating • Difficulties in moving around

4. deafblindness • Heterogeneous condition • No two deafblind children are identical • Each child needs individual based assessment and remedial plan

5. Kanmani - Profound Deafblind

6. Sathiya- Deafblindness, balance problem

7. Vinoth - Functionally Deafblind

8. Impact of deafblindness/msi on social development • Children learn their social skills mainly through vision and hearing • Human beings enjoy being part of social world • Children understand social world around them and decide the quality and content of social life • Emotional behaviour and personality traits are mostly molded by the experiences gained by the child

9. Social cognition • Children learn, think about and interpret experience. This is based on self, family and surroundings • This process of learning leads to cognitive functioning and is called social cognition

10. Social cognitive development: • Proceeds from concrete to abstract • Grows and gets organized with age • Learned by children when they associate their behavior to the behavior of significantothers • Learned by children as they gain skills to communicate and develop interacting relationships

11. Accessing Social skills of deafblind/msi children: • Presently not much is done to assess the social skills and social cognition of deafblind/MSI children • Hence we have taken a research study to assess the social skills of deafblind/MSI children

12. Understanding of social factors: • Self esteem • Achievement motivation • Feeling of helplessness • Attribution retraining • Self definition based on self-image

13. Understanding social situation • Social problem solving • Social behaviour • Pro social responses These are big challenges to deafblind/MSI children

14. Tool for assessing social skills: • Tool is developed using literature survey • Using existing tools for non-disabled • Listing the factors indicating social skills functioning • Interrelating challenges faced by deafblind/MSI children in gaining social skills

15. Factors indicating social skills include • Peer relationships • Self management • Compliance skills • Communication and language skills • Academic related skills

16. Check List • Functions as if no one is around • Functions as if she is in his own world • Do only things that pleases herself • Do activities that result make her meet her own needs • Fails to follow social procedures while other in the same age follow the same • May behave as if unaware that care giver is in the same room or place

17. Become quite, withdrawn or reserved if some one else get sad ,upset or cries • Offers comfort to others when they appear sad or upset or crying • Smiles and looks pleased to verbal praise or praise • When praised, can do an activity • When reprimanded shows interest to repeat an activity.

18. Uninterested in trying to do new things just to earn approval of others • Does not copy actions or attitude of others • Does not readily learn by being shown by others • Low level of interest in peers • Do not show interest to participate in group games • Doesn’t show interest to learn somethings from surroundings/ peers

19. Stops an action when you shake the head no (or )tell no (or )tactually indicate no • Stops an action, seeing others or listening to others or getting an indication • Stops action when a serious no is said or stern look is given or strongly communicated through tactual action • Knows a head nod of yes is an indication of acceptance

20. Uses fingers/ hands to indicate or point what he wants • Knows to use smile to indicate happiness, joy and acceptance • Can use spoken language for social needs • Can use sign language for social needs • Can use tactual communication for social needs

21. Understand nouns (names) than Verbs (actions) • Has difficulty to comprehend in context of social situations • Can figure out social situation and express appropriately • Use words to meet his immediate needs • Doesn’t use words to comment on interesting things or social events.

22. Can use words-but do not converse as part of social functioning • Can look at while communicating • Reciprocate to some of the words-to indicate clarity of understanding of conversation • Use unrelated words while communicating

23. Very Positive response to touch and movement • Do not show interest in tactile communication • Likes to touch every things before knowing what it is • Shows fear of something-having impact on social needs

24. Show interest to play with others • Looks for opportunities to play • Likes to play with toys ,materials suitable to his age • Willing to share toys or go to peers for play

25. Outcome: • This check list is now went through the process of pilot study • The check list will now assist the researcher to measure the social skills of at least 30 deafblind/MSI children • The researcher will also assess the language/speech/communication levels of these children

26. Outcome: • Correlation between scores of social skills and language/speech/communication will guide us to measure the impact of language/speech/communication skills on social functioning • Such a correlation will guide teachers, parents and service deliverers to know the needs of deafblind/MSI children and then plan appropriate individual based services to deafblind/MSI children to gain social skills and live a successful social life

27. Finally: • Social skill assessment is a continuation of the total assessment • It only help parents/teachers to focus on the social skills as part of academic and individual based intervention • Hence the researcher hopes special educators, SSA educators,programme planners, therapists and parents can gain valuable information of the social skills needs of deafblind/MSI children

28. THANK YOU