Literacy development in children with cerebral palsy

This thesis concerns the literacy difficulties of fifteen children with cerebral palsy (CP). The children were an opportunistic sample from two schools, and were initially selected on the basis that they had typical abilities in other school subjects. A review of the literature pertaining to the development of literacy and related aspects of cognitive development in typically-developing children and children with CP informed the development of the research strategy. The children's literacy, their general non-verbal and communication abilities, as well as a set of cognitive abilities that could be related to literacy impairments, were assessed. The findings revealed that most, but not all, of the children with CP had literacy difficulties with low scores in reading and spelling, and all the children had problems with handwriting. Standardised assessments showed that while the children had good verbal abilities, they had very low scores on a non-verbal test. The children with the most severe literacy difficulties also had the most problems with phonological processing. Almost all of the children had difficulties with visual and spatial perception; however the better readers had typical results in an assessment of visual sequential memory. Tests of working memory (WM) revealed a clear division between typical levels of performance on verbal recall measures, and very poor performance on the visual components of working memory tests. There were mixed results for the assessment of the central executive, but generally those children who were the more able in literacy had higher scores. Correlations suggested that visual sequential memory; phonological segmentation; verbal recall; and aspects of the central executive of working memory were most closely associated with the children's literacy abilities. Thus, the findings indicate that children with CP ha,ve specific cognitive impairments, including a new suggestion that poor visual sequential memory abilities could delay the development of reading and spelling skills

Art box deliveries: The experiences of people with dementia and their carers during the Covid 19 lockdown

Art workshops have been looked at before in terms of impact for people with dementia but never those conducted remotely during a pandemic lockdown. Two artists, working with local museums, provided Art workshops for people with dementia and their caregivers. Due to the first Covid 19 lockdown in the UK, the artists set up a weekly delivery service of Home Art Boxes to thirty-three people with dementia and their caregivers over a period spanning 11 months. The artists received funding from local organisations and the Community Lottery Fund. Thematic analysis of the feedback from the participants regarding the project and the artists themselves provided the data for this evaluation of the project. Seven main themes were identified: organisation of the project; community and connections; supporting the caregivers; enjoyment and enrichment; well-being and cognitive benefits of the projects; equipment and instructions; and drawbacks within the project. The participants’ feedback enabled the artists to improve the contents and instructions given each week so that they were able to adjust the activities for those people with dementia whose condition was declining. Implications are that remote Art workshops are possible during lockdown restrictions, but that personal communication is equally important

Can Pre-school Children Learn Programming and Coding Through Guided Play Activities? A Case Study in Computational Thinking

Guided play activities were developed so that coding clubs could promote computational thinking skills in preschool children. The clubs involved fifteen children aged between 2 and 4 years, including a group of children with communication difficulties. The children took part in an action-research scoping study over three coding clubs involving six 45–60-min sessions. The activities were developed to teach computational skills and, ultimately, concepts of programming and coding. The findings suggested that the children began to develop many of the skills necessary for programming and coding as well as computational thinking skills such as collaboration, logical thinking and debugging algorithms. However, they found programming specific algorithms into Bee-Bots complicated and they needed support from adults to direct the robots along routes on simple maps. Overall, the guided play activities could be used in nurseries and preschool establishments to teach early computational thinking skills

Spatial Cognition in Children With Physical Disability; What Is the Impact of Restricted Independent Exploration?

Given the developmental inter-relationship between motor ability and spatial skills, we investigated the impact of physical disability (PD) on spatial cognition. Fifty-three children with special educational needs including PD were divided into those who were wheelchair users (n = 34) and those with independent locomotion ability (n = 19). This division additionally enabled us to determine the impact of limited independent physical exploration (i.e., required wheelchair use) on spatial competence. We compared the spatial performance of children in these two PD groups to that of typically developing (TD) children who spanned the range of non-verbal ability of the PD groups. Participants completed three spatial tasks; a mental rotation task, a spatial programming task and a desktop virtual reality (VR) navigation task. Levels of impairment of the PD groups were broadly commensurate with their overall level of non-verbal ability. The exception to this was the performance of the PD wheelchair group on the mental rotation task, which was below that expected for their level of non-verbal ability. Group differences in approach to the spatial programming task were evident in that both PD groups showed a different error pattern from the TD group. These findings suggested that for children with both learning difficulties and PD, the unique developmental impact on spatial ability of having physical disabilities, over and above the impact of any learning difficulties, is minimal

‘It Brings it all Back, all those Good Times; it Makes Me Go Close to Tears’. Creating Digital Personalised Stories with People who have Dementia

The purpose of these three case studies was to analyse and theoretically explain the contribution of digital multimedia personalisation to stimulate and share long-term memories of people who live with mild to moderate dementia. We investigated how the use of a freely available iPad app can, in a supporting context, facilitate the creation of personalised multimedia stories, including the participants’ audio recordings, texts and photos of items, places or people important to them. Three people who were recruited from a club for people living with dementia created personalised multimedia stories using their own photographs and/or pictures downloaded from the internet, with written captions and audio-recorded voiceovers. Our analysis focuses on the themes and symbols across the three final stories of the participants and the process of creating stories with the Our Story iPad app. The discussion concerns the theoretical value of multimedia and the practical value of story-making apps for people with dementia. We conclude that the multimedia features available with the Our Story app offer a unique opportunity for people living with dementia to store, access and generate memories, capture them in writing and audio; and the ability to continue adding to the original stories

Assessing progress in children with severe/profound intellectual disabilities: what are the issues?

Capturing and recording progress made in schools by children with severe/profound intellectual disabilities has always been problematic as assessments based on academic subjects are not always achievable or appropriate. To ensure equality with mainstream children, performance (P) levels were introduced by the government to assess children with intellectual disabilities and were utilised on a national level. However, they have recently been criticised by the Rochford Review, and the government has asked special schools to provide their own assessments. This means that, unlike mainstream education, each school have to create their own assessments and possibly a reorganisation of their curriculum. Children in special schools are thus being treated differently to those in typical schools as there are currently no national progress levels for children with severe or profound intellectual disabilities and special schools are unable to ensure that their data is both valid and robust

Delays in the reading and spelling of children with cerebral palsy: Associations with phonological and visual processes

Background: This investigation addresses the question of whether there exists a significant discrepancy in the cognitive abilities of children with cerebral palsy (CP) who, despite the presence of age appropriate communication and language, have reading and spelling delays. Aims: We wanted to discover whether there was a relationship between the phonological and visual perceptual abilities of children with CP and their progress in reading and spelling. Methods and procedures: Fifteen children with CP (aged between 6:9 years and 11:6 years) were assessed on reading and spelling; communication and language; non-verbal reasoning; phonological processing; and visual perception. Outcomes and results: Ten of the children had very weak reading and spelling skills. Five children had (mostly) age appropriate scores of reading and spelling. No differences were found between these two groups in non-verbal reasoning or communication and language. However, phonological abilities, visual sequential memory and perception of visuospatial relationships were found to be related to reading and spelling. Conclusions and implications: The findings suggest that children with CP are at risk for reading and spelling delays when they have poor phonological processing, visual sequential memory and perception of visuospatial relationships. The implications of the findings for classroom practice are discussed

Creative Use of Digital Storytelling

Story telling has probably existed in some form since we started as humans to use language. In contrast, digital storytelling has only been possible in the last decade, a very recent innovation in human history even when compared to writing and print. Even so it is clear that digital technology can be harnessed to open up different forms and contents when storytelling (Kucirkova, Messer, Critten & Harwood, 2014). By describing the Our Story app, which we have been involved in developing and using in schools, we can outline and what we mean by creative digital story telling, and its possibilities. This free app for smartphones, tablets and iPads (to download search for Our Story 2 in App Store or Google Play) can be used with many different formats of digital storytelling (Kucirkova et al., 2014). In this way, the app does not narrow the choices made by anybody using the app. What they choose to do can be their own ideas and a means of self-expression, especially important for people with communication difficulties. Because of this approach we are less concerned with focusing on a particular type of story (fictional, traditional, descriptive, etc.); instead, we emphasise the flexibility in what is told and how it is told. The aim is for children and adults to express their own voice in a story format that has a ‘professional’ look

Reading disabilities in Children with Cerebral Palsy: associations with Working Memory

Background: Little is known about the relationship between working memory (WM) abilities and reading in children with cerebral palsy (CP) who have age-appropriate communication and language. Aims: To analyse the WM abilities and their relationship to reading in children with CP and age-appropriate communication and language. Methods and procedures: Fifteen children with CP (6:9 to 11:6 years) and age-appropriate communication and language were identified. They were given tests of communication and language, WM, and reading. The children were divided into two groups; five who had age-appropriate reading (Readers), and ten with very low reading abilities (NonReaders). Outcomes and results: Phonological short-term memory was mostly age appropriate in both reading groups and their scores mostly correlated with their reading abilities. Visuospatial short term memory scores were very poor in both groups and not related to reading group membership or reading. Executive working memory abilities were mostly age appropriate for the Readers, but low for the Non-Readers, and EWM was correlated with reading. Conclusions and implications: The findings suggest that there are variations in the working memory abilities in this group of children and that EWM may be an important contributor to their reading developmen

Spatial cognition in children with physical disability; what is the impact of restrictedindependent exploration?

Given the developmental inter-relationship between motor ability and spatial skills, we investigated the impact of physical disability (PD) on spatial cognition. Fifty-three children with special educational needs including PD were divided into those who were wheelchair users (n=34) and those with independent locomotion ability (n=19). This division additionally enabled us to determine the impact of limited independent physical exploration (i.e., required wheelchair use) on spatial competence. We compared the spatial performance of children in these two PD groups to that of typically developing (TD) children who spanned the range of non-verbal ability of the PD groups. Participants completed three spatial tasks; a mental rotation task, a Bee-bot route task and a desktop virtual reality (VR) navigation task. Levels of impairment of the PD groups were broadly commensurate with their overall level of non-verbal ability. The exception to this was the performance of the PD wheelchair group on the mental rotation task, which was below that expected for their level of non-verbal ability. Group differences in approach to the Bee-Bot task were evident in that both PD groups showed a different error pattern from the TD group. These findings suggested that for children with both learning difficulties and PD, the unique developmental impact on spatial ability of having physical disabilities, over and above the impact of any learning difficulties, is minimal