ESSAY 3.

Essay 3.

Essay 3

Introduction

Playing is integral to children's enjoyment of their lives, their health and their development. Children and young people - disabled and non-disabled - whatever their age, culture, ethnicity or social and economic background, need and want to play, indoors and out, in whatever way they can. Through playing, children are creating their own culture, developing their abilities, exploring their creativity and learning about themselves, other people and the world around them.

Children need and want to stretch and challenge themselves when they play. Play provision and play space that is stimulating and exciting allows children to encounter and learn about risk. This helps them to build confidence, learn skills and develop resilience at their own pace. It also helps equip them to manage risk safely in their lives.

Children at this early developmental level, learn first and foremost through interaction with those around them. Parents are skilled at supporting their young infant's efforts to make contact with the world. They will pick up on what the child is doing and adapt their own behaviour to that of the child. When speaking to a young infant, the parent's movements naturally become slower than usual; gestures are emphasised and facial expressions more exaggerated. Speech includes well-timed pauses and is simpler in structure with lots of repetition. The parent does not directly teach their young child. Rather he/she spends time encouraging the infant's own activities by suggesting, participating, supplying materials the child might need, following and admiring. (Vygotsky, 2008)

In working with young people we need to recognise that although chronologically they may be older, their style of learning is as described above and is essentially different to many others of their own age. An alternative curricular approach is therefore required if we are to successfully meet their needs. We need to start with the child; that is we need to identify their developmental stage, what they can do independently or what they are close to achieving. We need to be aware of the child's visual impairment and which senses the child prefers to use and can gain information from. Having gathered this information, we then need to create a physical and social environment that supports and encourages each young person's learning.

Setting the physical environment

Positioning

The way the physical environment is set up will determine how young people with MDVI explore and interact with it. When setting up the play environment we need to be aware of the importance of positioning in supporting their access to play, particularly for those young people with physical disabilities, so that we maximise their opportunities to interact both with objects and with their peers, as independently as possible. We work closely with physiotherapists to identify good positioning for each young person particularly thinking about their degree of mobility and functional vision. Some children are happy lying freely on a resonance board while others require a prone-lyer in a more supported position; alternatively a wedge or side-lyer may be the chosen position (Atherton, 2005) ...