Children with Developmental Challenges

Children With Developmental Challenges 3(2+1)

Lesson 4 & 5 : Intervention Efforts for Children With Developmental Challenges

Itinerant / School Based Tutors

This service differs in degree only from the special consultant plan just discussed. Pupils with special needs remain in general education, is retained by the regular classroom teacher. However, here the specialist spends most of their time providing direct services to exceptional children. Under this scheme, the itinerant or school based tutor spends 50% or more of their time in direct services to children. The remaining portion of their time is devoted to consultative services. Since they spend the major portion of their time tutoring pupils individually or in small groups. They may need a small tutoring room.

However more and more such teachers do their specialized tutoring and small group instruction in the regular classroom in a team- teaching situation. In this way the regular teacher can observe what the specialist is doing and vice versa. Thus the two programs can be integrated and coordinated. Thus he/she is helper, teacher, in addition, these specialists observe, diagnose, prescribe, evaluate and prepare and/ or provide specialized instructional materials and equipments.

Usually itinerant teacher plans in the area of visual and auditory disabilities teachers have operated in a similar fashion. These specialists may serve one or many schools depending on how many pupils need extra help. Example: Each large school might have its own special tutor in specific learning disabilities. In such cases the difference between a remedial teacher and a special education resource teacher might be insignificant. This type of service too, is likely to grow substantially as more and more handicapped pupils are kept in general education.

Furthermore, lack of close supervision makes selection and training particularly important. Four problems are

1. To keep the tutors load within the limits which permit her to do a good professional job.
2. To avoid the assignment of pupils to the service who are in needs of more help than it can provide.
3. To avoid accepting pupils who could be handled adequately by general educators with greater effort on their part.
4. To avoid schedules which place on excessive demand on travel time- a major fault of an itinerant program.