CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

Historically, early effort to educate persons with disabilities in developing countries in general was made by missionaries. Since then, the various governments have become more sensitive and committed. Special schools, classes, units and resource centers have been built. Teacher training facilities have been established locally in some cases, and more teachers have been trained locally and abroad.

All these efforts notwithstanding, most developing countries have been caught in the web of international controversy of acceptable approach to effective education of persons with disabilities, (Bame, N.A.2005).  Inclusive education emerged by insisting that all children with special needs be included in the traditional classroom. Before the emergence of the inclusive system, it was the concept of integration or mainstreaming, which was practiced (Bame, N.A.2005).

The concept of integration is based on integrating children with disabilities according to their needs and severity of their conditions. Some children with disabilities could benefit from total integration, while others benefit from units/special class or resource rooms (Graham, S., & Harris, K. R.  1988).

The education of children with disabilities in the pre-colonial and colonial period indicates a slow yet steady recognition of the plight encountered by persons with special needs. The British Baptist Missionary Society first introduced western education in Cameroon in 1842.

The number of schools remained with few Cameroonians gaining access to formal education. Catholic and Presbyterian missionary societies, like the Pallotine Fathers, the Mill Hill missionaries and the Basel Mission also made substantial contribution to formal education,(Yuh and Shey,2007). By the time German colonial rule was established after 1884, there were already a few Cameroonians who had been educated by the missionaries. With the introduction of Christian education by western missionaries, consideration was given to the well-being of persons with disabilities,(UNESCO, 2009).

After some time in 1998, Grace Fernald after seeing the importance of writing developed her own kinesthetic method of teaching spelling. She used her finger to trace in the air words that gave her students difficulty; thus incorporating visual aid into the learning process. She became famous for her teaching methods and students having difficulties were frequently referred to her by academic diagnosticians (Barchas, 1998).

Conceptually, the term Dysgraphia is not widely used in schools. One reason is that handwriting difficulties can be included under the label of learning disabilities. Another reason is that there is no consensus in the field on one definition or identification process for dysgraphia. Richards (1999) defines dysgraphia as a problem with expressing thoughts in a written form. Meese (2001) describes dysgraphia as handwriting problems, specifically, a partial inability to remember how to make certain alphabet or arithmetic symbols.

The treatment of dysgraphia can be elusive. Many instructional strategies have been proposed to help students with dysgraphia, but only some have empirical evidence to support them. Dysgraphia is the delayed development or acquired loss of the skills of writing, which may affect one child in twenty (Avramidis & norwish,2002). Dysgraphia Behaviour is a true disorder and may continue into adult life. It is column common to find evidence of dysgraphia in other members of the family. Particularly among males. Studies show that.

About one in five minutes struggle with writing some half dysgraphia. Which affect their spelling.(Virginia,2013).Dysgraphia is characterized as an LD in the category of writing expression. Which one’s writing skills are below those expected given a person’s age measure through intelligence and Age appropriate education.  Feifer (2001) believes that dysgraphia can be categorized into four subtypes.

The first subtype is phonological dysgraphia that is “writing and spelling disturbances in which the spelling of unfamiliar words, non-words, and phonetically irregular words are impaired” (p. 1). These students tend to have trouble spelling by sounds and rely on the visual aspect of letters; therefore, because spelling is an auditory task, they will have trouble with spelling tests. The second subtype is surface dysgraphia where students have trouble with orthographic representations of words, which makes the student rely too heavily on sound patterns; the opposite of phonological dysgraphia.

Mixed dysgraphia is the third subtype of dysgraphia. This type refers to students having trouble with mixing up letter formations and having trouble with spelling tasks, a combination of the first two types. Recalling letter formations is hard for these students to do because there are so many instructions or rules that they get confused and; therefore, have inconsistent spellings of words. Finally, semantic/syntactic dysgraphia is a grammatical problem in which students have difficulty with how words can be joined to make complete and comprehensive phrases.

In addition, children with dysgraphia usually have some type of problem with automaticity that interferes with the retrieval of letter formation (Richards, 1999). The concentration on how to form the letter overwhelms the child to a degree that the letter is written poorly. Incorrect letter or word formation can also lead to exceeding the margins or lines.  Letter formation is automatic for most students after initial skill attainment. When letter formation is automatic, students can concentrate on spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and other aspects of written language. However, for many students with dysgraphia, letter formation is a cognitive task which leaves little mental capacity to devote to these other aspects. Children with dysgraphia can become frustrated, leading to low motivation to use and practice written language.

Students concentrating too hard on letter formation may develop problems with gripping the pencil (Richards, 1999). A list of characteristics of a poor pencil grip can be seen in the box below. Gripping the pencil a “wrong” way can interfere with performance because the child focuses on holding the pencil instead of writing the letter. Richards (1998) suggested a proper pencil grip that included placing the fingers about one inch above the tip of the pencil, maintaining a 45 degree angle with the paper, and using moderate pressure. Teachers should be aware of a child holding the pencil in an improper way and aim to correct the grip.

The concept of inclusive assessment has existed for some time, defined as ‘the design and use of fair and effective assessment methods and practices that enable all students to demonstrate to their full potential what they know, understand and can do’ (Hockings 2010, 34). Several frameworks incorporate the term ‘Universal Design’ for application in higher education, which have been influenced by the ‘Principles for Universal Design’ developed in design and architectural practice (Burgstahler, 2015).

Universal Design seeks to design built environments to be as accessible as possible from the outset to as many people as possible (Hamraie,2013). While higher education inclusion frameworks ultimately advocate for proactive teaching strategies which ensure that education is accessible to diverse students, few principles relate to assessment specifically (Burgstahler, 2015).

Universal Design approaches take a cognitive and materialist approach to inclusion, which are likely to draw focus to making changes to the configuration rather than the substance of the assessment task. UDL principles are to provide multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression.

When applied to assessment, this means assessment tasks should be communicated through multiple media, and there should be options for students to demonstrate their capabilities (CAST 2018). Though this might particularly help students with learning or sensory disabilities, it is unlikely to fully account for broader student diversity, and continue to inadvertently disadvantage or exclude. McArthur (2016) interrogates this through her conceptualisation of assessment for social justice, where she suggests that a focus on the procedural justice within assessment has distracted from broader opportunities to achieve justice of outcomes in higher education, both for students and society.

Practical guidelines for the implementation of inclusive assessment exist within teaching and learning guidance/resources rather than as peer-reviewed publications, commonly at the university level. The value of this body of work has not yet been fully realised, since there is a relative dearth of studies on the design and implementation of inclusive assessment. A literature review of peer-reviewed empirical articles on Universal Design (Roberts, Satlykgylyjova, and Park 2015) encompassing 2000–2014 only identified one journal article which specifically focussed on assessment (Ragpot, 2011).

Accommodations or adjustments are another common approach to inclusion in assessment, tailored to individual students. Universities generally have processes where students need to declare a disability and submit medical reports on their condition to develop an individualised access plan and therefore accommodations for specific assessments. Common accommodations include the following: altering the setting, timing, scheduling, presentation or allowed responses (Lombardi, McGuire, and Tarconish 2018). Research examining accommodations shows mixed results, limited by a small number of studies and complexity that is difficult to reduce (Jain 2020).

An individual accommodation approach risks perpetuating a deficit discourse that focuses on the individual as the source of access concerns rather than the inaccessible system – and the burden of proof rests with the student (Gabel and Miskovic 2014). This results in a hidden population of students, who may not wish to disclose disability for risk of stigma, feeling different or perceptions of unfairness (Kendall 2016; Grimes et al. 2019a). Staff with a deficit view of disability may be reluctant to offer adjustments due to perceptions of unfairness or they do not know how (except for giving extra time on tests or providing a quieter location) (Becker and Palladino 2016) and where they do, this is often on the periphery.

Theoretically, Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory that emphasized that learning takes place at the zone of proximal development. Bandura’s theory of social learning is also very relevant in the study, where learners learn by observing models, imitation and through observation. It is based on the principle of attention, retention, motor reproduction and motivation. Another theory that will be use is the Theory of Social Inclusion/Exclusion by David Pocock (1957), Inclusive Education seems to possess points stronger than the education provided in Special Schools, since the first one, if well-performed, can eliminate social exclusion of the people with special educational needs (SEN).

This stems from the widely accepted notion that education is a miniature of the society within which it operates and, as such, inclusive education is the basis for the building of inclusive society, while an education that segregates students and places them in special schools separately from their peers leads to the marginalization of these people, their labeling as the ‘others’ and their subsequent exclusion from the civic society of the 21st century. Social inclusion is characterized by equality among the people and incorporation of their diverse elements by respecting their individual characteristics.

The last theory used in this study was the Ecological Systems Theory by Urie Bronfenbrenner (1979), As denoted by many scholars, the society encompasses several systems, which coexist, are in a constant interaction and, as a result, influence and are influenced by the surrounding systems. Psychologist Bronfenbrenner shaped all these attitudes and developed the Theory of Ecological Systems in 1979.

He argued that, since a child does not live isolated from the environment that surrounds it, elements of the environment serve as stimuli during kid’s development and socialization. Thus, he defined the child as a core circle (system), around which five levels of systems would exist that would be engaged in a continuous process of direct or indirect interaction with the core one (Härkönen, 2007).

Statement of the Problem 

Every child’s greatest desire is to learn how to read and write. A child will write well if he/she is given the right instructions, teaching methods, quality instructional materials, put in a conducive social learning classroom, and assistance from guidance as far as reading and writing is concern. This in a nutshell will ameliorate the academic performance of the pupils and the inclusive classroom practices on children with dysgraphia.

Despite the efforts made by the government of Cameroon, various non- governmental organizations (NGOs) and other stakeholders of education, to improve on the standard of education in Cameroon especially at the primary schools, pupils hand writing and writing skills have been a nightmare. In this effect the government has made education at this level to be free and have brought in some approaches such as competency based approach which is pupils-centered to improve academic performance of this pupils coupled with other measures like education for all strategic plan.

Teachers are therefore left at the mercy of the poor writing skills of these pupils which have been jeopardizing their effectiveness in one way or the other, therefore posing a big problem to these regular teachers in handling pupils with dysgraphia in the classroom as compared to other learning disabilities, thus necessitating this study which turn to out an analysis of inclusive assessment practices for pupils with dysgraphia in regular primary school in Buea.

Research Objectives 

General Research Objective 

The general research objective is: To ascertain the analyses of inclusive assessment practices for pupils with dysgraphia in regular primary schools in Buea municipality

Specific Research Objectives

1. To analyse how the time allocation is used in inclusive assessment practices for pupils with dysgraphia in regular primary schools in the Buea municipality.
2. To find how assistive technology is used in inclusive assessment practices for pupils with dysgraphia in regular primary schools in the Buea municipality.
3. To investigate how classroom position is used in inclusive assessment practices for pupils with dysgraphia in regular primary schools in the Buea municipality.

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