INTRODUCTION
This article is a research based work on how to solve speech impairment in basic school children. This is the chapter one of the entire research work. Continue reading.
Over the years, educationist has embarked on ways and means of uplifting the image of education in the country and researchers are also putting up investigational strategies to improve the educational system.
Nowadays, emphasis is on teachers to address the attention of pupils during their instructional periods which are the most effective ways of learning.
In its narrow sense, education is the formal process by which the society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills, customs and values from one generation to another.
It is based on this premise that instructions in schools are generally called education. In these sense, parents are also urged to help to improve the performance of their wards in the educational system whether special needs, speech impaired or normal children.
Speech impairment affects a person’s ability to form the sounds that allow them to communicate with other people.
Macmillan English Dictionary (2009) explains speech impairment as a difficulty in speaking caused by nervousness or by a physical problem. So in looking at this impairment, it can limit learner’s academic performance in education.
Basically, Children with severe development speech delays are likely to be integrated into mainstream classrooms along with children with minor speech delays, but they might not be receiving the necessary support that they need. This can also lower their self-esteem, which concerns me.
It is very challenging for teachers to be able to give support to these children while at the same time teaching the rest of the class, so I want to find out what teachers do in order to accommodate these children and how they think their accommodations benefit these students.
As well, throughout my teaching practicum experiences, I have seen some children with speech impairments who have not received the necessary support that they need. I have seen cases where teachers did not address their students’ problems because they did not have the time or training to address their specific issues.
This is very unfortunate and I want to see if there are ways in which this can be changed. This issue of speech impairment is identified at Tumu Egala Basic School during the teaching practice.
This Primary school is located at Tumu in the Sissala East Municipal. The people of Tumu are dominantly Sissalas and a few tribal groups including Dagaabas, Frafras and Kasenas.
The main occupation of the people of Tumu is predominantly farming. The type of crops they grow include maize, groundnuts and others. The main language of the people of Tumu is Sissali.
Since formal education is one of their priorities, majority can speak the simple English and other languages. The main religion of the people of Tumu is Islam. They also engage in various economic activities including animal rearing.
The education for children in Ghana of school going age has been accepted by both literate and illiterate parents of children.
Therefore, it is not amazing that, enrolment figures have increased almost in all government schools for which Tumu Egala Basic School is not an exception. Tumu Egala Basic School has about seventeen (17) trained teachers.
The researcher encountered the problem when she asked basic one pupils oral questions, there, the pupils had a problem with the articulation of their responses.
Also, the researcher observed an abnormal timing of pupils speech whenever they wanted to lay complains.
Moreover, at the playground, the researcher again observed that, pupils speak in pitch voices with some stuttering. This affected their interaction.
In view of this, the researcher has decided to put in certain intervention strategies in her own little ways to assist pupils in such situations to learn better and improve upon their learning and academic performance.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Speech-impaired students in Ghana make a group of special needs students who have been overlooked in special needs education.
The study of students’ speech impairment has been an interesting area of investigation. Several studies have been conducted in different areas of speech impairment. Mustapha (2010) studied language aphasia in Malaysia.
His study reveals that there is a big relationship between aphasia and human behaviors. Aphasics who were studied were found to have behavioral disorders including impulsiveness and emotional.
Marcon et al., (2007) studied the classroom situation where she discovered that other students often stigmatize behavioral disorder students because these behavioral disorder students are easily tempered, which is a stigmatizing factor in front of non-speech-impaired students.
Persistence of stigmatization among students makes these speech-impaired students feel shy to interact with their fellow students in matters relating to academics hence leading to poor performance in their examination(s).
Speech impaired students despite that they face difficulties in self-expression; they are not taken as a special case to be considered in the curriculum in that they are regarded as normal students in the classroom instruction in Ghana.
They are subjected to equal and the same handling in the academic arena; the situation which may unnecessarily be a challenge to their interaction in academic activities.
It is the interaction of speech-impaired students with the non-speech impaired students in the classroom lesson and during the students’ group discussions in schools that influenced the researcher to conduct this study in order to determine the challenges these speech-impaired students face during classroom interaction.
During the researcher’s interaction with pupils at Tumu Egala Basic School, she found out that, the problem of speech impairment is high in the school.
This is probably due to imitation, genetic inheritance, inability to speak the English language cause their murmuring and stuttering and among others.
Therefore, in Tumu Egala Basic One B, the researcher realised that, speech impairment has serious effects on the pupils regarding teaching and learning and their social interaction.
Pupils who have very good academic performance turn to perform low. On this note, the researcher has taken it upon herself to investigate into the appropriate teaching methods to assist pupils with speech impairment to improve upon their academic performance and social interaction.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study was to assist basic one pupils with speech impairment to improve their academic performance and social interaction at Tumu Egala Basic School. Specifically, the research intends;
1) To find out the causes of speech impairment.
2) To find out the effects of speech impairment on the academic performance of pupils.
3) To find out the strategies that can be used to assist pupils with speech impairment in the classroom.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The following research questions were formulated to guide the study.
1. What are the causes of speech impairment?
2. What are the effects of speech impairment on the academic performance of pupils at Tumu Egala Basic School?
3. What strategies can be used to assist ten pupils with speech impairment in the classroom at Tumu Egala Basic School?
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Below are some of the significance of the study;
The study will help teachers and head teachers to adopt appropriate methods in helping pupils with speech impairment to enable them pronounce words correctly without omissions, distortions or substitution of sounds.
This study will help pupils with speech impairment to improve upon their social interactions with colleagues especially during conversations.
The study will help to arouse the interest of pupils with speech impairment to participate actively in class and boost their self confidence in the classroom.
Not only that, it will help Non-Governmental Organisations, stakeholders and policy makers in the educational set-up as to what they will provide to aid teaching and learning in schools.
This research work will serve as a reference material to other students who may want to undertake a study on this same or similar problem.
DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The study was to investigate into the appropriate methods of teaching for pupils with speech impairment of basic one B pupils in Tumu Egala Basic School since time and other curriculum activities will not allow the researcher to extent it to other classes and schools.
LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The major drawbacks associated with the researcher’s study are; the findings of the study cannot be generalized since the design is focused to solve only a classroom problem within where the researcher was confined.
Again, the respondents (the teachers, learners and parents) of the study have more control over the content of the data collected; therefore the findings and results will be affected if the respondent’s responses are vague.
ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY
The study is organised under the following chapters: Chapter one gives an in-depth introduction to the study.
The introduction encompasses; the background of the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the study, research questions, significance of the study, delimitation of the study, limitation of the study and finally, organisation of the study.
Chapter two; reviews related literature. The review of literature is to dig into literature and find out what has been written about speech impairment and the methods of teaching that are appropriate for learners with speech disabilities.
The opinions of experts as well as other research studies which are related to the problem shall be reviewed.
The review of literature is therefore the systematic identification, location, and analysis of documents containing information related to the research problem.
Chapter three outlines the methodology of the study this is subdivided into research design, population sampling and the instrument used in data collection.
Chapter four captures the analysis of data, findings and discussions and finally chapter five gives a summary, conclusion and recommendations relevant to the problem investigated.
SOURCE: bbcpulse.com